"Satan finds some mischief still For idle hands to do."
The divisional police-offices were filled each morning with small "suttees"--whose researches after handkerchiefs and snuff-boxes were of the most active kind; while their full-grown brethren, first impacted in a funnel of ten inches by eight, were cursing the Commons, and consigning to all manner of misfortune the benevolent framer of the bill.
Now, I cannot help asking myself, was this the intention of the legislature--did they really mean that big people should try to penetrate where little ones were not small enough to pass?--or was it some piece of conciliation to the climbing boys, that they should see their masters grilled and wasted, in revenge for "the disabilities they had so long laboured under?" This point of great difficulty--and after much thought and deliberation, I have come to one solution of the whole question, and I only hope it may prove the right one. It is this. The bill is a parable--the climbing boy, and the full-grown sweep--and the chimney, and the householder, and the machine, are mere types which I would interpret thus:--the householder is John Bull, a good-natured, easy fellow, liking his ease, and studying his comfort--caring for his dinner, and detesting smoke above all things; he wishes to have his house neat and orderly, neither confusion nor disturbance--but his great dread is fire; the very thought of it sets him a-trembling all over. Now, for years past, he has remarked that the small sweeps, who mount so glibly to the top of the flue, rarely do anything but make a noise--they scream and shout for ten minutes, or so, and then come down, with their eyes red, and their noses bloody, and cry themselves sick, till they get bread-and-butter. John is worried and fretted at all this; he remembers the time a good-sized sweep used to go up and rake down all the soot in no time. These were the old Tory ministers, who took such wise and safe precautions against fire, that an insurance-office was never needed. "Not so now," quoth John; "'od! rabbit it, they've got their climbing boys, who are always bleating and bawling, for the neighbourhood to look at them--and yet, devil a bit of good they do the whole time."