Evening star., 1897-02-27


senator or British ambassador gets in his
order to have the chimneys of his mansion
swept q day after the receipt OF SIM
liar order from the cwner of a modest lit
tie cottage. the big man has to wait until
the latters chimneys are cleaned before he
can expect the appearance Of the sweeps
gang TO begin work upon his fiues.
From December until April both months
inclusive. the official chimney sweeps time
hangs pretty heavily upon their hands.
This Is their duh season, because during
the cold weather all Of the chimneys are
in daily use. The sweeps busy time be-
gins about the 1st of May. and from that
date on until the last of November they re-
ceive and attend to an average of about
thirty orders day. so that within this
period each year something like $500
houses chimneyS are swept. The revenue
which the official sweeps derive during the
busy season is considerable. but good deal
of 1t is eaten up by wages which they have
to pay out to their assistants
A Change of Methods.
Householders who had their chimneys
cleaned in the old days will recall what
frightful mess the sweeper and his boy
used generally to make of 1t; how carpets
and rugs were totally ruined during the
progress of the job, and the interiors of
domiciles were murky with flying SCOT for
weeks afterward. The old-time chimney
sweep made no preparations whatever Tor
the preservation of cleanliness in the houses
whose chimneys he cleaned. and the own
erS of the houses forgot all about It also
as often as not. Thus the descent OF the
sweeps boy down the chimney would be
heralded to the occupants OF rooms below
by big black masses of SCOT thudding on
the CRATES and spreading over all the fur
niture in 'tha apartments. If there were
stoves in the rooms instead OF CRATES. one
or more of the stoves doors would usually
be found to have been inadvertently LETT
open. giving the SCOT a fine outlet for dis
tribution and permeation throughout the
house.
Owners Of houses do not suffer from this
sort of thing under the regime Of the Of
ficial chimney sweeps. not alone because
the regulations require the sweeps 10 ne
scrupulousy careful not to make any un-
necessary dirt. but because the methods OF
cleaning chimneys have all changed during
recent years. The sweeps boy is altogether
out of date, and long ago went glimmering.
His usefulness an institution dlSap-
peared with the general adoption of numer-
Gus fiues within chimneys. Before individ-
ual fiues for separate fires were used there
was room i'm almost any chimney for the
needless sweeps boy to crawl gradually
down and get in his deadly work in the
way of creating unSpeakabie messes OF
SCOT. With the common adoption or the
SX1O flue, of which there may be as many
as dozen in large chimneys, the sweeps
boys day ended.
There are only five chmneys in Washing
ton that now require the aid OF boy in
cleaning them. The Treasury Department
has four of these and the other one Is the
chimney which carries off the smoke from
the CRATE fire in the office of the Secretary
of the Interior boy is needed to de-
scend these chimneys account of the
fact that half way down each of them there
is break iii the shape of a wide platform,
and, as these platforms are generally more
thickly covered with SCOT than the sides of
the chimneys temporarily employed
sweeps boy-not one Of the old genuine
sort-has to be let down to scrape them.
How 1t is Done.
The most important part of the official
sweeps present day methods is to look cut
for the perfect cleanliness of the house on
which he Is working, and his preparations
to this end take up good deal more of his
time than the cleaning of the chimneys.
The sweep has always two assistants.
These men, working from the bottom of
house up, carefully stuff the outlet of each
f1ue with thick wooden cloths before the
work OF sweeping the chimneys is begun.
AS an additional precaution, they spread
wide sheets of canvas around stoves and
iatrobes or within fireplaces. AS they fin
lsh these preparations at the outlet of eacn
nue., they announce the fact to the sweep
at the top of the chimney by burning a hit
of paper. The arising smoke tells the
sweep that all is in readiness for him to go
to work on that separate fiue.
The only tool now used by the sweep is a
heavy bar of iron. about half a yard in
length, at the end of which is fastened
brush of fine steel wire, which may be ad-
1usted to the size of any f1ue. This the
sweep simply drops into the chimney fue a
few times. and the job is done The deposit
of SCOT in the f1ue is forced to its bottom
outlet, and rests upon the cloths that have
peen stuffed there for its reception. After
giving the SCOT in each fiue plenty of time
to settle. the assistant sweeps gently haul
out these cloths and quickly stuff them into
gunny sacks. They then repair to an alley
and dump the SCOT into ash barrels Their
foot n
careful that they very rarely leave behind
them a grain of SCOT In the rooms Of the
houses whose chimneys they clean.
Annual Cleaning.
Chimney Sweep Nelson. the colored man.
who does all Of the work in his line in the
second district, gives the chimneys of near
iy all of the government departmental
buildings an annual securing. He said to a
Star reporter the other day that the CHM
neys on these buildings especially the
older ones. could easily stand a sem;-annual
sweeping to lessen the danger of fire In the
fues. particularly the f1ues which convey
the smoke from open CRATES in which green
wood is burned. The SCOT formed from the
smoke OF green wood Is much more COM
bustible than that from any other sort Of
fuel. and the chimney sweep considers it
rather miraculous that frequent serious
fires don't occur from the rapid clogging
up OF the gaseous SCOT in these flues
Sweep Nelson says that of all the promi-
nent men whose house chimneys he has
swept during the past twenty years Sena-
tor Sherman takes the greatest interest in
the business. The Ohio statesman makes
a day of 1t at home when the sweeps are
working on the chimneys Of his residence
and supervises the job from beginning to
end. Nelson thinks that q fine chimney
sweep was wasted in the man who Is to be
Secretary of State.