Chamberss Edinburgh Journal, No. 437 | Page 5

impossible
things, such as the sweeping of the whole width of Charing Cross from
east to west, between the equestrian statue and Nelson's Pillar, where, if
he sweep the whole, he can't collect, and if he collect, he can't sweep,
and he breaks his heart and his back too in a fruitless vocation. He
picks up experience in time; but he is pretty sure to find a better trade
before he has learned to cultivate that of a crossing-sweeper to
perfection.--Many of these occasional hands are Hindoos, Lascars, or
Orientals of some sort, whose dark skins, contrasted with their white
and scarlet drapery, render them conspicuous objects in a crowd; and
from this cause they probably derive an extra profit, as they can
scarcely be passed by without notice. The sudden promotion of one of
this class, who was hailed by the Nepaulese ambassador as he stood,
broom in hand, in St Paul's Churchyard, and engaged as dragoman to
the embassy, will be in the recollection of the reader. It would be
impossible to embrace in our category even a tithe of the various
characters who figure in London as occasional sweepers. A broom is
the last resort of neglected and unemployed industry, as well as of
sudden and unfriended ill-fortune--the sanctuary to which a thousand
victims fly from the fiends of want and starvation. The broken-down
tradesman, the artisan out of work, the decayed gentleman, the ruined
gambler, the starving scholar--each and all we have indubitably seen
brooming the muddy ways for the chance of a half-penny or a penny. It
is not very long since we were addressed in Water Street, Blackfriars,
by a middle-aged man in a garb of seedy black, who handled his broom
like one who played upon a strange instrument, and who, wearing the
words pauper et pedester written on a card stuck in his hat-band, told
us, in good colloquial Latin, a tale of such horrifying misery and

destitution, that we shrink from recording it here. We must pass on to
the next on our list, who is--
No. 4, the Lucus-a-non, or a sweeper who never sweeps.--This fellow is
a vagabond of the first-water, or of the first-mud rather. His stock in
trade is an old worn-out broom-stump, which he has shouldered for
these seven years past, and with which he has never displaced a pound
of soil in the whole period. He abominates work with such a crowning
intensity, that the very pretence of it is a torture to him. He is a beggar
without a beggar's humbleness; and a thief, moreover, without a thief's
hardihood. He crawls lazily about the public ways, and begs under the
banner of his broom, which constitutes his protection against the police.
He will collect alms at a crossing which he would not cleanse to save
himself from starvation; or he will take up a position at one which a
morning sweeper has deserted for the day, and glean the sorry remnants
of another man's harvest. He is as insensible to shame as to the assaults
of the weather; he will watch you picking your way through the mire
over which he stands sentinel, and then impudently demand payment
for the performance of a function which he never dreams of exercising;
or he will stand in your path in the middle of the splashy channel, and
pester you with whining supplications, while he kicks the mire over
your garments, and bars your passage to the pavement. He is worth
nothing, not even the short notice we have taken of him, or the trouble
of a whipping, which he ought to get, instead of the coins that he
contrives to extract from the heedless generosity of the public.
No. 5 is the Sunday Sweeper.--This neat, dapper, and cleanly variety of
the genus besom, is usually a young fellow, who, pursuing some
humble and ill-paid occupation during the week, ekes out his modest
salary by labouring with the broom on the Sunday. He has his regular
'place of worship,' one entrance of which he monopolises every
Sabbath morning. Long before the church-going bell rings out the
general invitation, he is on the spot, sweeping a series of paths all
radiating from the church or chapel door to the different points of the
compass. The business he has cut out for himself is no sinecure; he
does his work so effectually, that you marvel at the achievement, and
doubt if the floor of your dwelling be cleaner. Then he is himself as

clean as a new pin, and wears a flower in his button-hole, and a smile
on his face, and thanks you so becomingly, and bows so gracefully, that
you cannot help wishing him a better office; and of course, to prove the
sincerity of your wish, you pay