Arizona republican., 1901-01-11
Sold everywhere. % cents.

a class numbering rot more than half a dozen people in all. but possessing q ubiquity which makes them familiar sights at least, though fheir work, with it's drawbacks of danger, small rrmu- neration, uncongenial conditions and other attributes, are probably not known or fas details even guessed at. On foot awheel or in the express wa gons which they use, clad in their black shoeS, with sooty hands and faces. and bearing upon their shoulders the i'm plements of their calling. and with their heads crowned with tall hats. (silk hats alt that-can anyone explain why that is the style with chimney sweepsD' these men are always an interesting sight.
 John Wandt is the nes,.or of the Mill waukee sweeps. He has been thirty five years in the business in this city, having the entire field to himself at one time, later being the employer of half a dozen othrr sweeps. and living on to the days of the present, when the increasing popularity of the gas range and the gas grate bids fair to destroy a time-honored occupation and compel men now engaged in it to seek another means of livelihood. John Wandt re- calls the day when he made $l,000 a year profit out of the business. He Is still a chimney sweep and conducts a saloon on east water street, but he says that if 1t had not been for out side com- petition he would never have been com- pelled to open a saloon.
 Sometimes now" he says, 'I am all most ashamed of thc business. So many people who are without principle take it up for a month or two months or three months, just to carry them through hard straits, and then drop 1t again, but it is not the same pleasure to me 1t once was. dc not take pride in it any more. Y,s, it is dangerous business. You see We have to crawl around on slippery roofs, where the shingles are wet or slimy, where there is ice, or where '.he footing is traach- erous. Sometimes We have to work on slate roofs. where the rain has frozen into glare ice where there is no pro- lection from the wind, and where a fall is always possible. I have fallen from roofs nine times, have had both
 
 injured, but you See I am a pretty good man yet. Thrn Lihere Is danger in the 2hmneys down which We have to go. and in cleaning furnaces or the pipes leading from furnaces, but have ncv- CT lost man Sometimes the masons have done their work v,ry badly, and th3t makes our work more difficult but We get along. I have a great many customers whom I have had for years. When l once work for people they don't wart anyone to work for them again but only mt.
 Most of the work is done at residen- ces. but the business Is not on the in crease, though the city is growing. Gas Is driving us out of work Since 1893 the people of Milwaukee have betn using gas more and more. and there Is no choking of chimneys from gas ranges or gas grates. Then the new buildings are so built that they havr one large chimney, through which all the smoke passes. Therc is always a strong draft which itself keeps the chimney clean, so we don't get much to do therr. No, the business is falling off, the prices are smaller and the com petition is sharper
 A city without gas, with soft coal used in every house, with no big, straight chimneys, with safe roofs to all houses, and with big money in ey- cry job, one of the sweeps said, would be an ideal place for him; but he does not expect to find 1t, and he was far sighted enough to observe that some day electricity will do away with all smoke except that in few central fac tories Where sweeps are net employed. Progress is driving us to the wall" said one with a laugh, and our chil- dren will havo to seek some cthur oc- cupation.-Milwaukee Sentinel.