CHAMBERS' EDINBURGH JOURNAL
CONTENTS
LONDON CROSSING-SWEEPERS.
INSECT WINGS.
RUSTICATION IN A FRENCH VILLAGE.
PHANTOMS OF THE FAR EAST.
DECIMAL SYSTEM OF WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.
THE LITTLE GRAY GOSSIP.
THE WET SHROUD.
CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF 'CHAMBERS'SINFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE,' 'CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE,' &c.
| No. 437. New Series. | SATURDAY, MAY 15, 1852. | Price 1½d. |
LONDON CROSSING-SWEEPERS.
There is no occupation in life, be it ever so humble, which is justlyworthy of contempt, if by it a man is enabled to administer to hisnecessities without becoming a burden to others, or a plague to themby the parade of shoeless feet, fluttering rags, and a famished face.In the multitudinous drama of life, which on the wide theatre of themetropolis is ever enacting with so much intense earnestness, thereis, and from the very nature of things there always must be, anumerous class of supernumeraries, who from time to time, by the forceof varying circumstances, are pushed and hustled off the stage, andshuffled into the side-scenes, the drear and dusky background of theworld's proscenium. Of the thousands and tens of thousands thus rudelydealt 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 theworld, by removing the moist impediments of filth and refuse from theway of his more fortunate fellows. Indeed, look upon him in what lightyou may, he is in some sort a practical moralist. Though far remotefrom the ivy chaplet on Wisdom's glorious brow, yet his stump ofwithered birch inculcates a lesson of virtue, by reminding us, that weshould take heed to our steps in our journeyings through thewilderness 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 tothe value he supposes us to entertain for that virtue which, from timeimmemorial, has been in popular parlance classed as next to godliness.
Time was, it is said, when the profession of a street-sweeper inLondon was a certain road to competence and fortune—when the men ofthe brooms were men of capital; when they lived well, and died rich,and left legacies behind them to their regular patrons. These palmydays, at any rate, are past now. Let no man, or woman either, expect alegacy at this time of day from the receiver of his copper dole. Thelabour of the modern sweeper is nothing compared with his of half ac