COMMITTEE. (Hansard, 3 June 1864)

§ THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURY
My Lords, I had hoped I should have been Bared the necessity of troubling your Lordships at any length on this Bill, but having heard that some objections are entertained to its provisions, I feel it to be my duty to state the principles of the existing law, the necessity for it, and the provisions I consider necessary for carrying that law more effectually into operation. The Bill which I have laid on the table does not contain any new principle. It contains only provisions to give effect to the law already existing. In 1840 a Committee was appointed by this House, out of which came a Bill which prohibited the system of climbing boys altogether; and if that law had been observed there would have been no necessity for the present Bill. In 1853 I introduced a Bill for the purpose of rendering the previous Bill more operative. The Bill was referred to a Select Committee upstairs, and although we examined thirteen witnesses, every one of whom bore testimony to the necessity of the law, and to the necessity for strengthening it, yet the Bill was not allowed to proceed any further, the Committee simply declaring that it was not expedient. Now, both these Bills—the Bills and the evidence before the Committee—set forth in the clearest manner the enormity of the system and the great degradation and cruelty inflicted on children engaged under it. They also set forth the sufficiency of the remedy and the entire safety of it. In 1862 a Commission was appointed to inquire into the various trades in which children were engaged. The Commission, amongst many other matters, took evidence on the state of climbing boys, which confirmed everything that had gone before, only that the evils were greater in amount and intensity than existed in former times. It is the evidence that was then adduced I am now about to bring before your Lordships, in order to show the absolute necessity of the provisions I propose; — and let me say that, revolting and disgusting as the evidence in the Report is, the facts stated In the Appendix are ten times more so. To give your Lordships a picture of the entire 1124 system I will first state the age at which these children are generally forced into this work. The concurrent testimony of all is that the usual age is from 6 to 8; but there are many instances of 5, and even 4½ years. The hours of working in the smaller towns are 8 and 9, in the larger towns 12 to 16; and for the greater part the work begins at 4, 3, and even 2 o'clock in the morning. This shows the cruelty of the system as affecting children of such tender years and such delicate frames engaged in this disgusting and revolting employment. Sixty-three witnesses were examined by the Commissioners. They came from all parts of England, and thirty-three of them were master sweeps. Let me give your Lordships some examples of the evidence they adduced to show the extreme cruelty of the system and the abominations to which these poor children are subjected. The first evidence I shall quote comes from a master sweep in Nottingham—Mr. Ruff; and his testimony may be taken, the Commissioners state, and so says Mr. Ruff himself, from great experience, as a very fair sample of what is going on in various parts of the country. He says— No one knows the cruelty which a boy has to undergo in learning. The flesh must be hardened. This is done by rubbing it, chiefly on the elbows and knees, with the strongest brine, close by a hot fire. You must stand over them with a cane, or coax them by the promise of a halfpenny, &c., if they will stand a few more rubs. At first they will come back from their work with their arms and knees streaming with blood, and the knees looking as if the caps had been pulled off; then they must be rubbed with brine again. This painful description, the Commissioners observe, they would have hesitated to record, but that it was so amply confirmed by the testimony of many practical witnesses from all parts of the country. Mr. Clark, another master sweep, says— If, as often happens, a boy is gloomy, or sleepy, or anywise 'linty' [I do not know the meaning of this expression], and you have other jobs on at the same time, though I should be as kind as I could, you must ill-treat him somehow, either with the hand, or brush, or something. It is remembering the Cruelty which I have suffered which makes me so strong against boys being employed. I have the marks of it on my body now, and I believe the biggest part of the sweeps in the town have the same; that (showing a deep scar across the bottom of the calf of the leg) was made by a blow from my master with an ash plant—i.e. a young ash tree that is supple and will not break—when I was six years old; it was cut to the bone, which had to be scraped to heal the wound; I have marks of nailed boots, &c. on other parts. It was a common thing with sweeps 1125 to speak of 'breaking in a boy.' If he was hard, like a ground road or a stone, they gave it up. The other sweeps and I do not like to think of our children growing up to such a business, I believe that in every respect, except the sleeping department and washing, the condition of the boys is now as bad as ever as to treatment, perhaps worse, as the men who have boys are only the least respectable. The evidence of Mr. Elton, a chimney sweeper at Basingstoke, is to the same effect. He says— Some boys are more awkward and suffer more; but all are scarred and wounded. James Brown, a journeyman at Winchester, says— Some chimneys are rough, and, of course, that skins you on the elbows and back; some put pads on the knees if you are very bad; saltpetre, what they call brine, is the only way of getting over it; I remember very well having that rubbed on every morning and night. Mr. P. Hall mentions a child not more than seven or eight years old, at Birmingham, who could scarcely walk from sores and bruises received in climbing. But the treatment they receive in the course of their training is not the only hardship these young children have to endure. Let us look at what they have to undergo in the process of their work. They are subjected to cruel usage from their masters, and it is a remarkable fact that all the witnesses concur in stating that it is the most cruel masters who persist in refusing to use the sweeping machines. Many of the children are seriously burnt in consequence of being compelled to ascend the flues on fire, and others are killed or maimed. One case occurred at Ashton-under-Lyne, where a child of seven was burnt badly, and at Preston a boy was severely flogged by his master for refusing to go a second time into a hot boiler flue. Mr. Michael Brown, coroner for the borough of Nottingham, states that he held two inquests on climbing boys; in one case the fire was burning, and something was put over the still hot fireplace to enable the boy to rest his feet on at starting. In this case Mr. Brown attributed the death partly to the air in the chimney not being fit for breathing. A hole was broken in the wall to got the boy out. In the other ease the master had lit straw under the chimney to bring the boy down, as it was supposed he was asleep, when in reality he was dead. Even within the last two years (the Commissioners say) a child lost his life in the West End of London having "stuck" in the chimney. According to Mr. Peacock, 1126 of Burslem, Mr. Herries of Leicester has collected twenty-three eases of boys who have been killed in chimneys by being stifled since the Act of 1840 was passed. I am sorry to detain your Lordships with these details, but it is essentially necessary that I should give you the authority on which I make these statements; and I beg of you to recollect for whom I am now pleading. Mr. Richard Stansfield, a master sweep at Manchester, says— Why, I myself have kept a lad four hours up a chimney, when he was so sore that he could scarcely move; but I wouldn't let him come down till he had finished; it has often made my heart ache to hear them wail, even when I was what you may call a party to it. In learning a child you can't be soft with him—you must use violence. I shudder now when I think of it. I have gone to bed with my knee and elbow scabbed and raw, and the inside of my thighs all scarified; we slept five and six boys together in a, sort of cellar with the soot bags over us, sticking in the wound sometimes; that and some straw were all our bed and bedclothes; they were the same bags we had used in the day, wet or dry. Some are burnt, some suffocated, some tortured and half killed, or quite killed, when stuck in a chimney, by the very means used to extricate them. Some are drawn out at the top and some at the bottom of the chimney, and a case is mentioned by Mr. Ruff of Nottingham, in which a boy was smothered in a chimney there; and the doctor (he added) who opened his body (naming him) said that they bad pulled the boy's heart and liver all out of place in dragging him down. So much for their hours of work. What for their hours of so-called repose? A large proportion of them are lodged in low, ill-drained, ill-ventilated and noisome cellars. They "sleep black" — that is, they lie unwashed for the whole week, perhaps for many weeks. Hence that most frightful disorder called the chimney sweep's cancer—a disease which I will not seek to describe to your lordships further than to say that, having witnessed it, I have never seen a more terrible form of physical suffering. It almost always proves fatal. I come now to the moral condition of these children. On Sundays, in a great many instances, they are shut up altogether, that their neighbours may not see their miserable plight. The moral and intellectual state of boys so trained and treated must necessarily be degraded to the lowest possible point. Out of 384 boys examined by Mr. P. Hall, that witness says he found "only six who could write, and twenty-six who could read, 1127 most of them very imperfectly." "They never go even to Sunday School," says one; "they do not get a chance," says another. There may be an exception here and there; but what more striking estimate could we have of the low, despised, brute condition in which these children are kept, or of how completely they are overlooked and degraded by the community, and regarded as mere pariahs for administering to the wants and comforts of the wealthier classes, than that furnished by the remark of a lady to Mr. Ruff:— Formerly," says Mr. Ruff, "the sweeps, as they said themselves, had three washes a year —namely, at Whitsuntide, Goose Fair (October), and Christmas; but now they are quite different. This is owing a great deal, I think, to a rule which we brought about of taking no orders after twelve midday, and washing then. The object of this was to let the boys go to school in the afternoon. At first most did, but they do not now. A lady complained of this to me, because she could not get her chimney done, and said, 'A chimneysweep, indeed, wanting education! what next?' Good Heavens! my Lords, I say that the woman who could speak in that way of a human being with reference to his temporal and eternal interests is a woman who would cut up a child for dogs' meat or for making manure. In the worst days of slavery a more disgusting sentiment, or one more offensive both to God and man, could hardly have been uttered than that implied in this woman's "What next?" There is also a regular traffic in these children. They are constantly bought and sold. Mr. Jones, of the Midland Association, read a paper before a meeting on Social Science, in which he stated that— In the country young children are bargained for by their parents and master sweeps; they are bought and sold; and the more tender their age the more valuable they are considered. Mr. E. S. Ellis, a magistrate of Leicester, says— I am satisfied that great numbers of children are bought and sold, and that, practically, they are as much slaves as any negro children in South Carolina. Mr. Francis Peacock, of Burslem, says— I have bought lads myself. I used to give the parents so much a year for them. In Liverpool, where there are lots of bad women, you can get any quantity you want. This system in the provinces generally, with some exceptions, is very largely on the increase. And here I may pause for a moment to ask your Lordships by what social right or by what law of God you take these children of such tender years, who can have no will of their own, and who derive 1128 no benefit from the trade, because they receive no wages — their clothing does not deserve the name, and their food is of the scantiest character — and compel them to enter upon a career the most filthy and the most degrading, physically and morally, it is possible to conceive. In that career they suffer during all their tenderest years, and when they emerge into manhood — I mean, of course, those of them who survive so long—they find themselves crippled in body and mind, and without knowledge or ability of any kind. Under such circumstances can you wonder that a larga proportion of them, when they arrive at manhood, are found either in gaol or upon the gibbet? If when taken possession of they had reached their riper years, and were able to judge for themselves, they might have made their own bargain, and entered upon the career with a full knowledge of what was before them; but I ask you, in the name of God, what right you have to impose upon human beings, as good and as responsible as yourselves, having the same rights, the same hopes, and the same destinies, so degrading, so filthy, and so disgusting an occupation? This is mere wanton cruelty, for, as the evidence proves, it is totally unnecessary. I should have thought that the evidence taken before the Commission of 1840 would have satisfied every one of the efficacy of the machine if properly used. Before the Committee of 1853, when my Bill was on the table, thirteen witnesses deposed to that fact without a single dissentient voice. Even that Committee of 1853, which declared that it was not expedient my Bill should be proceeded with, gave it as their opinion that the machine was capable of doing the work assigned to it, and was even safer than the climbing boys. The present evidence proves the same thing at great length. The universal testimony is that every chimney, however angular or tortuous, can be swept by the machine, provided occasionally that, at a very small expense, apertures called soot-doors are opened at certain places. It is obvious, indeed, that the machine must do the work better than a boy. A boy avoids every hole and corner he can, and gets through the business as speedily as possible, whereas the machine goes into every nook and does the work thoroughly and well. But the masters do not like the machine, because it imposes upon them a certain amount of labour, whereas, under the climbing system, the poor boy has to go through all 1129 the toil. In this metropolis itself yon have two remarkable instances of the efficacy of the machine—in the Athenaeum and the Bank of England. The chimney of the Bank of England is a most peculiar structure; it has six different angles, and yet it is swept effectually by the machine. So also with the chimney of the Athenaeum. But I am now speaking after an experience of twenty-one years, and I have further proofs to submit to your Lordships. The climbing system has been suppressed altogether in Edinburgh for thirty years by the action of by-laws, and it has also been totally suppressed in Glasgow. In Bath, with its thousands of tall chimneys, it is extinct, and it no longer exists in the town of Leicester or in the Potteries. There is an enormous population among whom it has been suppressed without any injurious consequences whatever; but I have a stronger proof still. In this huge metropolis the machine has been used for twenty-one years. The Commissioners say— As the experience of London is so important in the solution of this question, the number of houses being about one-tenth of those in England and Wales, it appears desirable briefly to explain the facts of this case. According to the census of 1861 the total number of houses in the metropolis was 379,222, and in 1851 it was 327,391, thus showing an annual increase in the number of houses of 5,183. Allowing on an average six chimneys to a house, the total mini- her of chimneys may be estimated at 2,375,332, all of which, with some few exceptions, are swept by the machine. Is it necessary to ask for more proof? Everybody in London is satisfied with the work the machine does. But we have also the testimony of the late Mr. Braidwood. Superintendent of the London Fire-engine Establishment, who said that no risk whatever would attend the discontinuance of the use of boys for sweeping chimneys provided where the machine could not sweep them there were doors made by which they could be swept. Captain Shaw, the present Superintendent of the Fire engine Establishment, was likewise requested to give the result of his experience. The Commissioners say— We are indebted to Captain Shaw for a very instructive table, showing the total number of fires from all causes, and the number caused by flues, in each year from 1833 to 1862. From this document it appears that while the total number of fires has increased with the increase of new houses, the proportion of fires caused by flues to the total number has considerably diminished, the average percentage in the ten years previous to the application of the Act (namely, 1130 1833–42) amounted to 11.8, while the average percentage of the twenty years subsequently (1843–62) was only 8.6; the highest percentage in any one year being 15.5—namely, in 1833, and the lowest, 6.4, in 1861. We have received similar information from the surveyors of some of the principal London Assurance Companies; and we are therefore satisfied that all fears of the increased risk of fire from the abolition of climbing-boys are entirely without foundation. That being the state of things, every one being satisfied that the machine could be used with safety, it is desirable to inquire into the causes and modes of the violation of the Act. I am bound to say, at the outset, that the master sweeps are not principally to blame. No doubt there are some who dislike the trouble of the machine, but the vast majority, go where you will, are most anxious to get rid of the climbing system. It is the householders, and especially the great people, who keep it up, declaring that no power on earth would induce them to allow a machine to enter their premises. These are the persons who, in spite of the law, will have children to go up their chimneys. Everywhere you have one and the same testimony. One master says: — The use of boys is much encouraged by the fact that many householders will have their chimneys swept by boys instead of machines. I have myself lost a good deal of custom which I should otherwise have, and some which I formerly had, at large houses and public establishments, because I will not use boys. That reason was not given, but I was not employed after I refused. I have been sent away even from magistrates' houses, and in some cases even by ladies, who have professed to pity the boys, for refusing to use them. Many householders refuse to alter their flues, or to incur the smallest expense for putting in soot doors, and persist in setting the law at defiance. The whole burden of the evidence of the Committee of 1853 and of this Commission goes to prove the determination of the magistrates, with some exceptions, not to carry the law into effect. They may not go the length of saying that they will not convict, although it is reported they have done even that in some instances; but they take good care to prevent convictions by demanding evidence of such a kind that it is next to impossible it should be produced, and dismissing cases with rebuke and even insult to the prosecutors. Even where there is a grave charge, it is too often treated with lightness, and acquittals are granted in the face of the most conclusive testimony the other way. Thus it happens that of the hundreds of cases which are annually brought before the magistrates, only a 1131 small percentage result in convictions. Then, again, we have also, I think, reason to complain of the builders of houses. By a section of the Act of 1840, it was ordered that flues should be constructed in such a manner that machinery could be used, and the services of climbing boys dispensed with. As far as we can learn, however, the builders have pertinaciously refused to obey that provision of the Statute. Scarcely any chimneys have been constructed as directed, and the consequence is that this pretext still remains for the employment of climbers. One builder, indeed, Mr. Cubitt, of Belgravia, deserves to be mentioned as a noble exception, for he strictly carried out the Act, and built all his chimneys in such a way that the occupants of the houses to which they are attached never think of sending up boys, for they know the work can be done more speedily, effectually, and conveniently by machinery. Not only, my Lords, is this a matter of very serious importance, involving the temporal, and I may say the eternal, condition of these youths; but it is one that really concerns the political character of the country. These things of which I have been speaking are done, in the main, for the use and comfort of the wealthier classes, and you may depend upon it that a rankling feeling is kept up in the mind of the people by the thought of a system which is a scandal to a civilized country. If your Lordships reject the proposal I have now the honour to submit, you will be perpetrating a system more cruel and disgraceful than almost anything I know of—a system which, however it may be connived at, and however it may be palliated, cannot be justified—a system which day by day and week by week leads persons of all conditions to violate the law and outrage their sense of humanity. Your Lordships must remember that I am not seeking to establish any new principle. I am asking only for the means of giving effect to a principle which has already been affirmed, and which is quite in accordance with the spirit of modern legislation, in alleviating toil and suffering. I well recollect how, when I was engaged in carrying my measure of factory reform, the most terrible predictions were uttered as to the ruin alike of employers, parents, and children which must befall them. Now I hear nothing but praise on all sides; and I cannot express the joy I felt when a master manufacturer said to me, "I opposed you tooth and nail as long as I could; but 1132 now the law is passed, take my advice, for God's sake, and do not part with a hair's breadth of it, for it is a measure which must do great good to the people, and can do no harm to the employers." I appeal to you now on behalf of another class of weak and suffering humanity. I ask you to protect, not adults, who can take care of themselves, but the helpless young, many of them orphans, and some the offspring of cruel and unnatural parents. The other evening your Lordships were engaged in discussing the intellectual progress of the children of the upper classes—a very right and proper subject of debate. But now you have to consider whether a small and humble ray of light shall be allowed to fall on the children of the poorest and most unhappy in the land I pray you, my Lords, not to reject this Bill. I entreat you to show your goodness and consideration for these unfortunate children by granting them the repose, leisure, and opportunity necessary to enable them by the blessing of God to acquire such secular learning as may give them the possibility of a life of industry, honesty, and comfort in this world, and above all to attain that religious knowledge which alone can make a man wise and just.

§ LORD REDESDALE
said, he doubted whether some of the provisions of the Bill were absolutely necessary or desirable. Clause 9, for instance, provided that any constable or other peace officer might Take into custody, without warrant, any chimney-sweeper believed by such constable or officers to be committing any such offence as aforesaid, within the view of such constable or officer; and might secure him until he could be brought before the justices, or be bailed. A chimney sweep was not a vagrant, he was always known, and if he had committed an offence, surely he might be apprehended on a warrant. Again, by Clause 10, a constable might detain Any person apparently under the age of sixteen years or of ten years (as the case may be), who is caused or allowed to enter a house, in contravention of the Bill. Surely this was going rather further than was necessary.

THE MARQUESS OF BATH
pointed out that under the Bill a master chimneysweep would be liable to penalties if even he employed a child to drive the donkeycart in which he carried his soot.

§ LORD PORTMAN
said, he thought the clause too stringent.

§ THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURY
said, if the boys were allowed to go into the house with their masters, the offence would certainly be committed. The clause was stringent, but the only way of preventing this intolerable abuse was by interdicting boys from entering the house on any pretence whatever.

§ LORD CRANWORTH
proposed to leave out the words "or for extinguishing fire in any such chimney or flue." Every facility should be given to extinguish fires, and it might happen that the only person at hand was a boy under sixteen.

§ EARL GREY
said, the great cruelty complained of was that of forcing boys to go up chimneys which were on fire.

§ EARL GREY
moved to add the words— If any occupier of a house shall knowingly allow any person under sixteen years of age to be sent up a chimney in the house he occupies, he shall be liable to a penalty not exceeding £10.

§ LORD PORTMAN
said, it would not be right to subject householders to such a penalty; at all events, he objected to the Amendment being considered without notice.

THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE
said, it was only proposed to punish the particeps criminis. Of course there must be some proof to satisfy a magistrate that the occupier had knowingly allowed an infraction of the Act.

THE MARQUESS OF BATH
opposed the Amendment upon the ground that the occupier of a house could not tell whether a boy were under sixteen, though his master might know it perfectly well.

§ EARL GREY
said, this objection might show the difficulty of convicting the occupier, but it did not show that the occupier who knowingly allowed the offence to be 1134 committed was not equally liable with the master-sweep.

THE MARQUESS OF BATH
desired an explanation.

§ THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURY
said, that the provision was inserted, because to necessitate the production of proof on the part of the prosecutor would be to insure a constant failure of justice. The defendant always had the opportunity of ascertaining the child's age from the register when he engaged him; but it would be impossible for the prosecutor to do the same, because a boy might have been born in Dublin, and might be employed at the Land's End.