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 adjoining
Montagu Street and Montagu Square derive their names from her.