Between 1833 and 1836, the nineteenth-century writer Charles Dickens wrote a number of sketches which were originally published in various newspapers and other periodicals including The Morning Chronicle, The Evening Chronicle, The Monthly Magazine, The Carlton Chronicle and Bell’s Weekly Messenger. Many were published under the pen name of Boz, which Dickens adopted early on in his career as a writer and journalist. The popular sketches were reproduced in 1836 in a collected work (along with some new material), Sketches by Boz, which contained 56 sketches divided into four sections: Our Parish (7 sketches) Scenes (25 sketches), Characters (12 sketches) and Tales (12 sketches). The material in the first three sections consists of portraits of London life and the last section comprised fictional stories.
The following sketch, The First of May, first appeared in the third edition of Chapman and Hall’s The Library of Fiction, or Family Story-teller under the title A Little Talk about Spring, and the Sweeps. It was revised and renamed for inclusion in the second series of Sketches by Boz. The sketch bemoans the decline of May Day celebrations, once an important festival throughout the country, but by the early part of the nineteenth-century had been appropriated by chimney-sweeps who would parade in costume, collecting money as they passed.
Sketches by Boz. Scenes, Chapter 20.
THE FIRST OF MAY.
‘Now ladies, up in the sky-parlour: only once a year, if you please!’
Young Lady with Brass Ladle.
‘Sweep—sweep—sw-e-ep!’
Illegal Watchword.
The first of May! There is a merry freshness in the sound, calling to our minds a thousand thoughts of all that is pleasant in nature and beautiful in her most delightful form. What man is there, over whose mind a bright spring morning does not exercise a magic influence—carrying him back to the days of his childish sports, and conjuring up before him the old green field with its gently-waving trees, where the birds sang as he has never heard them since—where the butterfly fluttered far more gaily than he ever sees him now, in all his ramblings—where the sky seemed bluer, and the sun shone more brightly—where the air blew more freshly over greener grass, and sweeter-smelling flowers—where everything wore a richer and more brilliant hue than it is ever dressed in now! Such are the deep feelings of childhood, and such are the impressions which every lovely object stamps upon its heart! The hardy traveller wanders through the maze of thick and pathless woods, where the sun’s rays never shone, and heaven’s pure air never played; he stands on the brink of the roaring waterfall, and, giddy and bewildered, watches the foaming mass as it leaps from stone to stone, and from crag to crag; he lingers in the fertile plains of a land of perpetual sunshine, and revels in the luxury of their balmy breath. But what are the deep forests, or the thundering waters, or the richest landscapes that bounteous nature ever spread, to charm the eyes, and captivate the senses of man, compared with the recollection of the old scenes of his early youth? Magic scenes indeed; for the fancies of childhood dressed them in colours brighter than the rainbow, and almost as fleeting!
In former times, spring brought with it not only such associations as these, connected with the past, but sports and games for the present—merry dances round rustic pillars, adorned with emblems of the season, and reared in honour of its coming. Where are they now! Pillars we have, but they are no longer rustic ones; and as to dancers, they are used to rooms, and lights, and would not show well in the open air. Think of the immorality, too! What would your sabbath enthusiasts say, to an aristocratic ring encircling the Duke of York’s column in Carlton-terrace—a grand poussette of the middle classes, round Alderman Waithman’s monument in Fleet-street,—or a general hands-four-round of ten-pound householders, at the foot of the Obelisk in St. George’s-fields? Alas! romance can make no head against the riot act; and pastoral simplicity is not understood by the police.
Well; many years ago we began to be a steady and matter-of-fact sort of people, and dancing in spring being beneath our dignity, we gave it up, and in course of time it descended to the sweeps—a fall certainly, because, though sweeps are very good fellows in their way, and moreover very useful in a civilised community, they are not exactly the sort of people to give the tone to the little elegances of society. The sweeps, however, got the dancing to themselves, and they kept it up, and handed it down. This was a severe blow to the romance of spring-time, but, it did not entirely destroy it, either; for a portion of it descended to the sweeps with the dancing, and rendered them objects of great interest. A mystery hung over the sweeps in those days. Legends were in existence of wealthy gentlemen who had lost children, and who, after many years of sorrow and suffering, had found them in the character of sweeps. Stories were related of a young boy who, having been stolen from his parents in his infancy, and devoted to the occupation of chimney-sweeping, was sent, in the course of his professional career, to sweep the chimney of his mother’s bedroom; and how, being hot and tired when he came out of the chimney, he got into the bed he had so often slept in as an infant, and was discovered and recognised therein by his mother, who once every year of her life, thereafter, requested the pleasure of the company of every London sweep, at half-past one o’clock, to roast beef, plum-pudding, porter, and sixpence.
Such stories as these, and there were many such, threw an air of mystery round the sweeps, and produced for them some of those good effects which animals derive from the doctrine of the transmigration of souls. No one (except the masters) thought of ill-treating a sweep, because no one knew who he might be, or what nobleman’s or gentleman’s son he might turn out. Chimney-sweeping was, by many believers in the marvellous, considered as a sort of probationary term, at an earlier or later period of which, divers young noblemen were to come into possession of their rank and titles: and the profession was held by them in great respect accordingly.
We remember, in our young days, a little sweep about our own age, with curly hair and white teeth, whom we devoutly and sincerely believed to be the lost son and heir of some illustrious personage—an impression which was resolved into an unchangeable conviction on our infant mind, by the subject of our speculations informing us, one day, in reply to our question, propounded a few moments before his ascent to the summit of the kitchen chimney, ‘that he believed he’d been born in the vurkis, but he’d never know’d his father.’ We felt certain, from that time forth, that he would one day be owned by a lord: and we never heard the church-bells ring, or saw a flag hoisted in the neighbourhood, without thinking that the happy event had at last occurred, and that his long-lost parent had arrived in a coach and six, to take him home to Grosvenor-square. He never came, however; and, at the present moment, the young gentleman in question is settled down as a master sweep in the neighbourhood of Battle-bridge, his distinguishing characteristics being a decided antipathy to washing himself, and the possession of a pair of legs very inadequate to the support of his unwieldy and corpulent body.
The romance of spring having gone out before our time, we were fain to console ourselves as we best could with the uncertainty that enveloped the birth and parentage of its attendant dancers, the sweeps; and we did console ourselves with it, for many years. But, even this wicked source of comfort received a shock from which it has never recovered—a shock which has been in reality its death-blow. We could not disguise from ourselves the fact that whole families of sweeps were regularly born of sweeps, in the rural districts of Somers Town and Camden Town—that the eldest son succeeded to the father’s business, that the other branches assisted him therein, and commenced on their own account; that their children again, were educated to the profession; and that about their identity there could be no mistake whatever. We could not be blind, we say, to this melancholy truth, but we could not bring ourselves to admit it, nevertheless, and we lived on for some years in a state of voluntary ignorance. We were roused from our pleasant slumber by certain dark insinuations thrown out by a friend of ours, to the effect that children in the lower ranks of life were beginning to choose chimney-sweeping as their particular walk; that applications had been made by various boys to the constituted authorities, to allow them to pursue the object of their ambition with the full concurrence and sanction of the law; that the affair, in short, was becoming one of mere legal contract. We turned a deaf ear to these rumours at first, but slowly and surely they stole upon us. Month after month, week after week, nay, day after day, at last, did we meet with accounts of similar applications. The veil was removed, all mystery was at an end, and chimney-sweeping had become a favourite and chosen pursuit. There is no longer any occasion to steal boys; for boys flock in crowds to bind themselves. The romance of the trade has fled, and the chimney-sweeper of the present day, is no more like unto him of thirty years ago, than is a Fleet-street pickpocket to a Spanish brigand, or Paul Pry to Caleb Williams.
This gradual decay and disuse of the practice of leading noble youths into captivity, and compelling them to ascend chimneys, was a severe blow, if we may so speak, to the romance of chimney-sweeping, and to the romance of spring at the same time. But even this was not all, for some few years ago the dancing on May-day began to decline; small sweeps were observed to congregate in twos or threes, unsupported by a ‘green,’ with no ‘My Lord’ to act as master of the ceremonies, and no ‘My Lady’ to preside over the exchequer. Even in companies where there was a ‘green’ it was an absolute nothing—a mere sprout—and the instrumental accompaniments rarely extended beyond the shovels and a set of Panpipes, better known to the many, as a ‘mouth-organ.’
These were signs of the times, portentous omens of a coming change; and what was the result which they shadowed forth? Why, the master sweeps, influenced by a restless spirit of innovation, actually interposed their authority, in opposition to the dancing, and substituted a dinner—an anniversary dinner at White Conduit House—where clean faces appeared in lieu of black ones smeared with rose pink; and knee cords and tops superseded nankeen drawers and rosetted shoes.
Gentlemen who were in the habit of riding shy horses; and steady-going people who have no vagrancy in their souls, lauded this alteration to the skies, and the conduct of the master sweeps was described beyond the reach of praise. But how stands the real fact? Let any man deny, if he can, that when the cloth had been removed, fresh pots and pipes laid upon the table, and the customary loyal and patriotic toasts proposed, the celebrated Mr. Sluffen, of Adam-and-Eve-court, whose authority not the most malignant of our opponents can call in question, expressed himself in a manner following: ‘That now he’d cotcht the cheerman’s hi, he vished he might be jolly vell blessed, if he worn’t a goin’ to have his innings, vich he vould say these here obserwashuns—that how some mischeevus coves as know’d nuffin about the consarn, had tried to sit people agin the mas’r swips, and take the shine out o’ their bis’nes, and the bread out o’ the traps o’ their preshus kids, by a makin’ o’ this here remark, as chimblies could be as vell svept by ‘sheenery as by boys; and that the makin’ use o’ boys for that there purpuss vos barbareous; vereas, he ’ad been a chummy—he begged the cheerman’s parding for usin’ such a wulgar hexpression—more nor thirty year—he might say he’d been born in a chimbley—and he know’d uncommon vell as ‘sheenery vos vus nor o’ no use: and as to kerhewelty to the boys, everybody in the chimbley line know’d as vell as he did, that they liked the climbin’ better nor nuffin as vos.’ From this day, we date the total fall of the last lingering remnant of May-day dancing, among the élite of the profession: and from this period we commence a new era in that portion of our spring associations which relates to the first of May.
We are aware that the unthinking part of the population will meet us here, with the assertion, that dancing on May-day still continues—that ‘greens’ are annually seen to roll along the streets—that youths in the garb of clowns, precede them, giving vent to the ebullitions of their sportive fancies; and that lords and ladies follow in their wake.
Granted. We are ready to acknowledge that in outward show, these processions have greatly improved: we do not deny the introduction of solos on the drum; we will even go so far as to admit an occasional fantasia on the triangle, but here our admissions end. We positively deny that the sweeps have art or part in these proceedings. We distinctly charge the dustmen with throwing what they ought to clear away, into the eyes of the public. We accuse scavengers, brickmakers, and gentlemen who devote their energies to the costermongering line, with obtaining money once a-year, under false pretences. We cling with peculiar fondness to the custom of days gone by, and have shut out conviction as long as we could, but it has forced itself upon us; and we now proclaim to a deluded public, that the May-day dancers are not sweeps. The size of them, alone, is sufficient to repudiate the idea. It is a notorious fact that the widely-spread taste for register-stoves has materially increased the demand for small boys; whereas the men, who, under a fictitious character, dance about the streets on the first of May nowadays, would be a tight fit in a kitchen flue, to say nothing of the parlour. This is strong presumptive evidence, but we have positive proof—the evidence of our own senses. And here is our testimony.
Upon the morning of the second of the merry month of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty-six, we went out for a stroll, with a kind of forlorn hope of seeing something or other which might induce us to believe that it was really spring, and not Christmas. After wandering as far as Copenhagen House, without meeting anything calculated to dispel our impression that there was a mistake in the almanacks, we turned back down Maidenlane, with the intention of passing through the extensive colony lying between it and Battle-bridge, which is inhabited by proprietors of donkey-carts, boilers of horse-flesh, makers of tiles, and sifters of cinders; through which colony we should have passed, without stoppage or interruption, if a little crowd gathered round a shed had not attracted our attention, and induced us to pause.
When we say a ‘shed,’ we do not mean the conservatory sort of building, which, according to the old song, Love tenanted when he was a young man, but a wooden house with windows stuffed with rags and paper, and a small yard at the side, with one dust-cart, two baskets, a few shovels, and little heaps of cinders, and fragments of china and tiles, scattered about it. Before this inviting spot we paused; and the longer we looked, the more we wondered what exciting circumstance it could be, that induced the foremost members of the crowd to flatten their noses against the parlour window, in the vain hope of catching a glimpse of what was going on inside. After staring vacantly about us for some minutes, we appealed, touching the cause of this assemblage, to a gentleman in a suit of tarpaulin, who was smoking his pipe on our right hand; but as the only answer we obtained was a playful inquiry whether our mother had disposed of her mangle, we determined to await the issue in silence.
Judge of our virtuous indignation, when the street-door of the shed opened, and a party emerged therefrom, clad in the costume and emulating the appearance, of May-day sweeps!
The first person who appeared was ‘my lord,’ habited in a blue coat and bright buttons, with gilt paper tacked over the seams, yellow knee-breeches, pink cotton stockings, and shoes; a cocked hat, ornamented with shreds of various-colored paper, on his head, a bouquet the size of a prize cauliflower in his button-hole, a long Belcher handkerchief in his right hand, and a thin cane in his left. A murmur of applause ran through the crowd (which was chiefly composed of his lordship’s personal friends), when this graceful figure made his appearance, which swelled into a burst of applause as his fair partner in the dance bounded forth to join him. Her ladyship was attired in pink crape over bed-furniture, with a low body and short sleeves. The symmetry of her ankles was partially concealed by a very perceptible pair of frilled trousers; and the inconvenience which might have resulted from the circumstance of her white satin shoes being a few sizes too large, was obviated by their being firmly attached to her legs with strong tape sandals.
Her head was ornamented with a profusion of artificial flowers; and in her hand she bore a large brass ladle, wherein to receive what she figuratively denominated ‘the tin.’ The other characters were a young gentleman in girl’s clothes and a widow’s cap; two clowns who walked upon their hands in the mud, to the immeasurable delight of all the spectators; a man with a drum; another man with a flageolet; a dirty woman in a large shawl, with a box under her arm for the money,—and last, though not least, the ‘green,’ animated by no less a personage than our identical friend in the tarpaulin suit.
The man hammered away at the drum, the flageolet squeaked, the shovels rattled, the ‘green’ rolled about, pitching first on one side and then on the other; my lady threw her right foot over her left ankle, and her left foot over her right ankle, alternately; my lord ran a few paces forward, and butted at the ‘green,’ and then a few paces backward upon the toes of the crowd, and then went to the right, and then to the left, and then dodged my lady round the ‘green;’ and finally drew her arm through his, and called upon the boys to shout, which they did lustily—for this was the dancing.
We passed the same group, accidentally, in the evening. We never saw a ‘green’ so drunk, a lord so quarrelsome (no: not even in the house of peers after dinner), a pair of clowns so melancholy, a lady so muddy, or a party so miserable.
How has May-day decayed!
May Day celebrations.
May Day festivities have been celebrated in the U.K. (and also many parts of Europe) for over 2,000 years, going back to Pagan and Roman times. The Celts celebrated the festival of Beltane on the first of May to mark a halfway point between spring and summer, whilst Roman society celebrated their Floralia, or festival of Flora, the goddess of flowers, to hail the return of spring between 28 April and 3 May. Over time, a number of traditional festivities developed including Morris dancing, a dressed-up Jack-in-the-Green character and dancing around a maypole. Young people would rise early to collect spring flowers, branches and greenery from local woodlands and decorate their houses and communities with garlands. A Jack in the Green—a man decorated with green foliage and flowers—would lead a May Day procession through a town or village, accompanied by musicians and dancers. This would be followed by dancing around a Maypole—a tall wooden log decorated with hanging ribbons—erected on a village green. Many May Day festivities, including the use of the Maypole, were banned following the English Civil War when Oliver Cromwell and his Puritans viewed them as immoral. Following the Restoration period, people put up maypoles as a sign of loyalty to the crown, but May Day festivities began to die out over subsequent years. By the mid to late eighteenth-century, milkmaids appropriated the festival to parade themselves, adorned with garlands of flowers. By the early nineteenth-century the milkmaids had given way to chimney sweeps.
The only remnant of the old festivities now left us, like a sorry jest and a smeared face, is that melancholy burlesque the chimney-sweepers,—melancholy, however, not to themselves, and so far, to nobody else; neither would we have them brow-beaten, but made as merry as possible on this their only holiday;—but it is melancholy to think, that all the mirth of the day is left to their keeping. If their trade were a healthy one, it would be another matter; if we were even sure, that they were not beaten and bruised when they got home, it would be something. As it is, we can only give money to them (if one has it) and wish them a less horrible mixture of tinsel, dirty skins, dance, and disease. Nevertheless, the dance is something: sacred be the dance, and the desecration thereof; and sacred the laugh of the frightfully red lips amidst that poisonous black.
Leigh Hunt’s London Journal. Wednesday, 30 April 1834 (on May Day festivities).
- In the novel Little Dorrit, Charles Dickens adds the imagery of a Jack in the Green to a scene with the simile ‘the dress went down the staircase like a richly brocaded Jack in the Green, and nobody knew what sort of small person carried it‘ (Book 1, Chapter 21).
A Little Talk about Spring, and the Sweeps (renamed The First of May) was one of two sketches Charles Dickens contributed to Chapman and Hall’s The Library of Fiction, or Family Story-teller, the other being The Tuggses at Ramsgate which had appeared earlier in the first edition.
The sketch was revised and renamed for inclusion in the second series of Sketches by Boz. Editions of this collected work from 1850 onwards omitted most of the last paragraph. The following was the original final paragraph we have reproduced from the The Library of Fiction, or Family Story-teller (3rd edition), where the sketch first appeared under the title A Little Talk about Spring, and the Sweeps.:
‘Duke of York’s column in Carlton-terrace‘ (parag. 2) refers to the London monument to Prince Frederick, Duke of York (second eldest son of King George III), situated where Regent Street meets The Mall. The column was completed in December 1832 and a statue of the Duke of York, by Richard Westmacott, was placed on the top in April 1834.
‘Alderman Waithman’s monument in Fleet-street‘ (parag. 2) refers to an obelisk, erected in 1833, to to the memory of Robert Waithman. Waithman (1764–1833) was a master draper who in later life was a British politician; an economic progressive Whig from an industrial background and a political reformist. He established a successful shop near the site of the present Ludgate Circus, from which he made a considerable fortune. Waithman was elected an Alderman for Farringdon in 1818. In 1820 he became Sheriff of London and Middlesex, and three years later was elected as the Lord Mayor. He also served as a Member of Parliament for the constituency of London from 1818-1820 and again from 1826 until his death on 6 February 1833. The memorial was originally erected near Waithman’s shop in Fleet Street at its junction with Farringdon Street, but was later moved.
‘the Obelisk in St. George’s-fields‘ (parag. 2) refers to the monument in honour of Brass Crosby, the Lord Mayor of the City of London, that stood at a road junction in the St. George’s Fields area of south London, at the point now known as St George’s Circus. The obelisk was built in 1771.