The chimney-sweepers always came early in the morning, before the fires were lighted; and their coming was a great event to the children of a household. "When a child," says a famous English writer, speaking of the chimney-sweepers of London, "what a mysterious pleasure it was to witness their operation!—to see a girl no bigger than one's self enter into that dark hole—to pursue him in imagination, as he went sounding on through so many stifling caverns—to shudder with the idea, that 'now surely he must be lost forever!'—to revive at hearing his feeble shout of discovered daylight,—and then (oh, fulness of delight!) running out of doors, to come just in time to see him emerge in safety!"
There are chimney-sweepers even now; but none of the old-fashioned kind. In many places it is forbidden by law to send boys up the chimneys. So the modern chimney-sweeper puts his brush on the end of a pole, which is made in joints, like a fishing-rod, and, by attaching joint after joint, thrusts it farther and farther up the chimney.

License information: nan
MPAA: G
Go to source: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/28131/28131-h/28131-h.htm#Page_65