Oldalképek
PDF
ePub

Rougham Hall, near Bury St. Edmunds.

X X X. is the signature affixed to a memorial addressed to the President of the Board of Agriculture by R. KEDINGTON.

me,

N. B. The Board may be assured the subscribing witnesses are principal occupiers in the parish; and more signatures would have been affixed, but I wished to select those who had lived the whole thirty years in the parish, which the first five had, and the sixth has been resident more than twenty years.

WE the undersigned inhabitants and occupiers of land in the parish of Rougham, in the county of Suffolk, do hereby certify, that the Rev. R. Kedington has employed horses, oxen, and bulls, upon his farms in this parish nearly for the space of thirty years, as stated in his memorial. And we do also declare that it is a true and just account to the best of our knowledge and belief.

Witness our hands, this 17th of April 1807.

ROB. ALDERTON.
DANIEL ALDERTON.

JOHN HAYWARD.

SAM. CRASEse.

WILL. HAYWARD.

JOHN DENTON.

Account

(35)

Account of an Apparatus for cleaning Chimneys. By Mr. SAMUEL ROBERTS, Chairman of a Committee appointed

at Sheffield for encouraging the Sweeping of Chimneys without the Use of Climbing Boys.

With a Plate.

From the TRANSACTIONS of the SOCIETY for the Encouragement of ARTS, MANUFACTURES, and COMMerce. The Society, anxious to relieve the sufferings of humanity, have attended with much pleasure to the Endeavours of the Inhabitants of Sheffield, and co-operate with them in their attempts to supersede the Necessity of employing Climbing-boys; they have, therefore, immediately on receiving the following Communication, ordered it to be inserted in their Volume, and an explanatory Engraving of the Machinery employed to be annexed.

The original Drawings are preserved in the Society's Repository.

I HAVE taken the liberty of sending herewith some papers, and a request from the Committee formed here for encouraging the use of machines in sweeping chimneys, that you will have the goodness to lay them before the Society instituted for the Encouragement of Arts, &c. It is the wish of the Committee here, that they should be published in that Society's Transactions, as appearing the most likely method of drawing the attention of the public to the subject. We think there will be a necessity of an Act of Parliament; and, without that, no great good will be done in the business.

In making this statement to the Society instituted for the Encouragement of Arts, &c. respecting an object

[blocks in formation]

which has frequently engaged their attention, the Committee who make it are actuated by a desire of putting the Society and the public in possession of all that information which they have obtained from extensive experience, thereby enabling the Society to form a more accurate and just estimate of the degree of probability that there is of final success, than they otherwise might be able to do. As the Committee mean not to found any claim to reward, they have only been anxious to convey the information in the most convenient and ready way, without perhaps exactly observing the forms prescribed by the Society. The same considerations which have so frequently pressed themselves upon the notice of the Society, respecting boys employed by chimney-sweepers as climbers; operated on the minds of many individuals in this town, and upwards of two years ago gave rise to a general meeting, which appointed a Committee for the purpose of endeavouring to improve their situation, and of superseding the necessity of employing them at all, by substituting machines for that purpose. This Committee procured by subscription a sum, which, though not large, has hitherto served to defray those expenses necessarily incurred in the prosecution of the object for the attainment of which they were appointed. The Committee then procured one of the machines from Mr. Smart, and engaged a clever, active man to undertake the working of it (having first offered it to all the regular sweepers, who refused it). The Committee then endeavoured, by public and private application, to induce as many of the inhabitants as they could to encourage the use of the machine; in which endeavour they were as successful as could have been reasonably expected. As all the regular chimney-sweepers have

endeavoured

seen.

endeavoured by every means in their power to impede the use of the machine, the Committee found it necessary to procure a boy to assist the man with the machine, and in cases where necessity required it to go up the chimney, because the regular chimney-sweepers refused to suffer their boys to complete the sweeping of those chimneys where the machine had failed. The brush procured from Mr. Smart being found rather difficult to work, and liable to be out of order, the Committee made, and caused to be made, many experiments for the purpose of improving it. Those of which they have sent drawings, (Plate III.) Figs. 1 and 2, seem to them the most simple, the most easy to work, the most durable, and the most efficacious of any which they have tried or The result of all the experience which the Committee have now had is, that though probably ninetenths of the chimneys in this town, as they now are, might be swept with the machines, yet that not one in ten of those will voluntarily be permitted to be swept by them, however much the Committee may exert themselves, because it probably will always take up some more time in the operation, and there is some risk in the first instance that the chimney may not admit of being swept by the machine, and because the ordering of it is generally left to servants, indifferent to the object, and inimical to new experiments, which might cause them more trouble. It is very possible, by stating striking and recent cases of oppression and suffering, to arouse humanity to expressions of sorrow and commiseration, but not often to great and continued efforts to assist, especially if it require any sacrifices, however trivial. It therefore follows, that, unless the method of sweeping chimneys with machines can be rendered less expensive

and

and less inconvenient than by boys, (a thing not to be expected,) the practice will never voluntarily become so extensively adopted as to diminish in any considerable degree the number of climbing boys. The Committee are therefore decidedly of opinion, that the object which they are endeavouring to reach, can be in no other way effectually obtained than by an Act of Parliament prohibiting chimney-sweepers from taking any more climbing-apprentices, and from employing any others than apprentices as climbing-boys. The Committee are of opinion that such an Act would effectually produce the desired end, without subjecting either the public or chimney-sweepers to any very serious loss or inconvenience, because the chimney-sweepers would have an opportunity to get into the practice of using the machines, before the present apprentices were out of their servitude, and the generality of those chimneys, which now cannot be swept with the machines, would be easily so altered as to render them capable of being swept with them, and all new chimneys would of course be so constructed. The Committee further feel confident, that the attention and ingenuity of able mechanics and others interested, would be so much' turned to the completion of the object, that very considerable improvements in the machines, and in the manner of working them, would be very soon made. As one of the most likely methods of producing the effect, the Committee have thought it right thus candidly to state their sentiments and opinions to the Society, to whom they will be happy to give any further information in their power, whichmay be thought likely to conduce towards obtaining the object of which they are in pursuit. The Committee need not attempt to describe the degree of suffering,

conse

« ElőzőTovább »