the chimneys from the grates, and then to wriggle their way up by
digging their toes into the interstices of the bricks, and by working
their elbows and knees alternately; stifled in the pitch-darkness of
the narrow flue by foul air, suffocated by the showers of soot that
fell on them, perhaps losing their way in the black maze of chimneys,
and liable at any moment, should they lose their footing, to come
crashing down twenty feet, either to be killed outright in the dark or
to lie with a broken limb until they were extricated--should, indeed,
it be possible to rescue them at all. These unfortunate children, too,
were certain to get abrasions on their bare feet and on their elbows
and knees from the rough edges of the bricks. The soot working into
these abrasions gave them a peculiar form of sore. Think of the
terrible brutality to which a nervous child must have been subjected
before he could be induced to undertake so hateful a journey for the
first time. Should the boy hesitate to ascend, many of the
master-sweeps had no compunction in giving him what was termed a
"tickler"--that is, in lighting some straw in the grate below him. The
poor little urchin had perforce to scramble up his chimney then, to
avoid being roasted alive.

All honour to the seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, the philanthropist, who
as Lord Ashley never rested in the House of Commons until he got a
measure placed on the Statute Book making the employment of
climbing-boys illegal.

It will be remembered that little Tom, the hero of Charles Kingsley's
delightful Water-Babies, was a climbing-sweep. In spite of all my care,
I occasionally met some of these little fellows in the passages,
inky-black with soot from the soles of their bare feet to the crowns of
their heads, except for the whites of their eyes. They could not have
been above eight or nine years old. I looked on them as awful warnings,
for of course they would not have occupied their present position had
they not been little boys who had habitually disobeyed the orders of
their nurses.

Even the wretched little climbing-boys had their gala-day on the 1st of
May, when they had a holiday and a feast under the terms of Mrs.
Montagu's will.

The story of Mrs. Montagu is well known. The large house standing in a
garden at the corner of Portman Square and Gloucester Place, now owned
by Lord Portman, was built for Mrs. Montagu by James Wyatt at the end
of the eighteenth century, and the adjoini