Yesterday week Lord Shaftesbury got the Chimneysweepers' and Chimneys Regulation
Bill. through Committee in the House of Lords. He gave a sickening account of the tortures to which the small boys are still exposed in "breaking them in" to go up the chimneys, and carried his clause that a chimneysweeper entering a house to sweep a chimney shall never take with him any person under sixteen years of age. The penalty for- a breach of any of the regulations of the Bill is to be 10/. Lord Cranworth kindly suggested that in case of fire, as "every facility should be given to extinguish fires," the boys should be permitted to go up,—in other words, that, when the torture of personal combustion might be added to the ordinary torture of the chimney-ascent, all restrictions should be withdrawn. This amiable suggestion was, however, not well received, and fell to the ground, as the boys probably would have done had it been acted upon.
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