Chamberss Edinburgh Journal, No. 437

Edinburgh Journal, No. 437, by
Various

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Title: Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 437 Volume 17, New Series,
May 15, 1852
Author: Various
Editor: Robert Chambers and William Chambers
Release Date: July 23, 2006 [EBook #18898]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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CHAMBERS'S EDINBURGH ***

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CHAMBERS' EDINBURGH JOURNAL

CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS,
EDITORS OF 'CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE,'
'CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE,' &c.
No. 437. NEW SERIES. SATURDAY, MAY 15, 1852. PRICE 1-1/2d.

LONDON CROSSING-SWEEPERS.
There is no occupation in life, be it ever so humble, which is justly
worthy of contempt, if by it a man is enabled to administer to his
necessities without becoming a burden to others, or a plague to them by
the parade of shoeless feet, fluttering rags, and a famished face. In the
multitudinous drama of life, which on the wide theatre of the
metropolis is ever enacting with so much intense earnestness, there is,
and from the very nature of things there always must be, a numerous
class of supernumeraries, who from time to time, by the force of
varying circumstances, are pushed and hustled off the stage, and
shuffled into the side-scenes, the drear and dusky background of the
world's proscenium. Of the thousands and tens of thousands thus rudely
dealt with, he is surely not the worst who, wanting a better weapon,
shoulders a birch-broom, and goes forth to make his own way in the
world, by removing the moist impediments of filth and refuse from the
way of his more fortunate fellows. Indeed, look upon him in what light
you may, he is in some sort a practical moralist. Though far remote
from the ivy chaplet on Wisdom's glorious brow, yet his stump of
withered birch inculcates a lesson of virtue, by reminding us, that we
should take heed to our steps in our journeyings through the wilderness
of life; and, so far as in him lies, he helps us to do so, and by the
exercise of a very catholic faith, looks for his reward to the value he
supposes us to entertain for that virtue which, from time immemorial,
has been in popular parlance classed as next to godliness.
Time was, it is said, when the profession of a street-sweeper in London
was a certain road to competence and fortune--when the men of the
brooms were men of capital; when they lived well, and died rich, and
left legacies behind them to their regular patrons. These palmy days, at

any rate, are past now. Let no man, or woman either, expect a legacy at
this time of day from the receiver of his copper dole. The labour of the
modern sweeper is nothing compared with his of half a century ago.
The channel of viscous mud, a foot deep, through which, so late as the
time when George the Third was king, the carts and carriages had
literally to plough their way, no longer exists, and the labour of the
sweeper is reduced to a tithe of what it was. He has no longer to dig a
trench in the morning, and wall up the sides of his fosse with stiff earth,
hoarded for the purpose, as we have seen him doing in the days when
'Boney' was a terror. The city scavengers have reduced his work to a
minimum, and his pay has dwindled proportionately. The twopences
which used to be thrown to a sweeper will now pay for a ride, and the
smallest coin is considered a sufficient guerdon for a service so light.
But what he has lost in substantial emolument, he has gained in morale;
he is infinitely more polite and attentive than he was; he sweeps ten
times as clean for a half-penny as he did for twopence or sixpence, and
thanks you more heartily than was his wont in the days of yore. The
truth is, that civility, as a speculation, is found to pay; and the want of it,
even among the very lowest rank of industrials in London, is at the
present moment not merely a rarity, but an actual phenomenon--always
supposing that something is to be got by it.
The increase of vehicles of all descriptions, but more especially
omnibuses, which are perpetually rushing along the main thoroughfares,
has operated largely in shutting out the crossing-sweepers from what
was at one period