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AITCHISON'S SUGAR-BOILING APPARATUS.

We

In the manufacture of sugar in the colonies much injury is commonly done to the syrups, by subjecting the finishing teach to the direct action of a strong open fire. There have been many contrivances to obviate this, but none (we believe) which could boast of more than a very limited degree of success. have now, however, to bring under the notice of our colonial readers, an invention for the purpose, which, we are assured answers excellently in practice, and, which bears, on the face of it, every indication of being well calculated to remove the evil complained of. The inventor is a Mr. John Aitchison, sugar-refiner, Glasgow, who has obtained a patent for the apparatus. Some resemblance will be observed between it and the patent evaporating apparatus of Mr. Godfrey Kneller, which we described some months back; but Mr. Aitchison's patent is the older in point of date,

The prefixed engravings represent, 1, a sectional elevation of the apparatus; and 2 and 3, end views.

It consists, it will be observed, of an oblong double-bottomed pan, on which is suspended a double-surfaced revolving cylinder, both of which being heated by steam (through the induction pipe A), an immense surface acts upon the syrups or liquors in the pan, and consequently a regular and rapid evaporation takes place. A strong moveable wooden cover is placed on the rim or frame of the pan, having foldingdoors, to open and inspect the syrups during the process, and which, when completed, are discharged by a plug (C) in the bottom of the pan, into a cooler. The vapour that rises in the pan is carried of by a small fan, placed on the top of the cover. The condensed water passes off by the pipe B. During the process the scum floats all to one side of the pan, and is easily taken off with a small ladle. The cylinder flywheel and fan may be turned with a handle by a stout boy or lad, or by a belt and drum, on a shaft from a steamengine or water-wheel, as may be inost convenient to the boiling house.

CHILDREN CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS THIRD LETTER.

Sir,-If there is no reliance to be placed on the climbing boy for the detection of a flaw, there can be none for the repairing of any such defect.

Mr. Decimus Burton, when asked whether he considered that (the boy) a satisfactory mode of repairing defects, replied," Not at all; there is great uncertainty whether a boy does effectually repair them." One of the master chimney-sweepers, who had been a climbing boy, being examined on the same topic, said," I have very often gone and said I had done it, but it was no such thing indeed I could not do it, I had not room. "I have taken bricks and mortar both up, and I have managed to put them into the sack and taken them away, that is the way I have managed. We have done it very well up some of those chimneys in the weald of Kent, where we can put a ladder up from top to bottom, then a boy can mend it very well, but not a chimney 9 by 13. This is the position in which a boy must be up (describing it); he is obliged to hold his arm over his head to rest; they cannot stop a hole there; the light is of no use to them, they cannot see.""I have felt about and put in the mortar, and before I could get down it has been upon my head." In the examination of another, who had also been a climbing boy, the following questions and answers occur:-" Were you ever employed to fix bricks in chimneys ?" "Yes, I have been employed several times."" When you are employed to rectify defects in chimneys, how do you do that; do you take up a lighted candle ?" "I have taken up a lighted candle, but we cannot use it."- "Are you able to see the flaws ?" "No; we cannot keep our eyes open; the draught would drift the soot into our eyes; we are compelled to shut them."—" You do not think you have been of any use in repairing chimneys, when you have been sent up that way? "No, none at all; I think it is all matter of form; it is nothing but deception altogether repairing chimneys." Testimony to the same effect was given by others.

Now as to the coring of chimneys. This operation is the removal of such superfluous matter as is unavoidably or

carelessly left in the chimney by the workman who builds it. The superfluities are, first, a number of small projecting bits of mortar, or other substance, in the upright or merely sloping parts of the chimney. These are removed easily, and equally well by the machine, and by the boy-body-rag instrument. But the superfluities are, secondly, lumps of mortar, and brick, and rubbish, which fall during the construction of the chimney, and harden in masses on horizontal, or very little inclined, parts of it. An extract from the evidence given by a master chimney-sweeper, who had been a climbing-boy, will elucidate this head:

"You have been employed, perhaps, to core chimneys ?" "Yes, I have." "Can a straight chimney, an upright chimney, be cored without the aid of a boy ?"

"Yes; a good stiff brush, made with good stiff whalebone, will get out the fragments to come out of that chimney; but a crooked chimney a boy makes but a bad job of it. I have been coring chimneys many times. I have been in chimneys for five and six hours together, where, if there had been an aperture cut, in half an hour it might have been done with the greatest ease. I have been five or six hours in a chimney successively many and many times, and then very often come down and left it undone, and made just room for myself to get down, and very glad to get down."

"If a brick or two were left open at the time of building the chimney, could it be done effectually by a bricklayer ?" "It could be done by a bricklayer much better than by a boy.""" In your opinion, there would be no difficulty and no inconvenience, when the chimney was built, in leaving a brick or two open for the purpose of affording facility for coring the chimney, afterwards to be filled up, and making the chimney good ?"" Certainly, that is the way it

should be done; and I have often wondered it has not been thought of. I have since put it forward myself, even lately. About our neighbourhood they say it is nonsense, the bricklayers in general; they say there is no occasion for it whatever. Boys can do it, it has been done by boys, and they may still do it; but they do not know the pain that a boy is in while he is doing it.""They have not been chimney-sweepers?"

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"No; they know nothing about sticking in a small angle in a flue four or five hours, and to come down to get breath, and to be smothered with lime-dust, which is worse than the soot, in our mouth. They could do it well themselves all in half an hour."-Another witness being questioned, with reference to coring, "Do you often find considerable quantities of bricks and mortar ?" answered, Yes; we cored fifty-four chimneys in Jermyn-street by machine. We have got stiff brushes. If it cannot be done by them it may be dangerous to a boy, and then an aperture must be made to get it out."

Certainly, as to this second, and more troublesome, class of superfluous matter left in chimneys on their construction, it does appear that the machine may not be able to remove it, but so neither may the boy, effectually, or without protracted bodily suffering, or great danger.

It seems, however, that it may be absolutely necessary, in some cases, though they must be few, and I do not yet feel myself bound to admit there really are any-to send a human being up the chimney. It may be convenient now and then, but I have yet to learn that it may be necessary. Let us suppose, for the moment, that it may. The promoters of the act have not aimed at doing away with climbing altogether. They endeavoured merely to prevent boys being apprenticed to chimney-sweeping at an earlier age than fourteen (the Legislature has fixed ten, instead of eight, as was the law until this session), in order that no more mere children should be brought into the occupation, none not old enough to have some judgment in choosing an employment, none not having strength and sense enough to resist unjust treatment. But what is to prevent diminutive persons, and plenty there always will be, long past the age of boyhood, small enough to climb, devoting themselves exclusively to the acquirement of particular skill and adroitness in exploring chimneys, and detecting and repairing defects in them, and coring; if these things be practicable (as, in my opinion, they are not)? Surely, assuming the practicability of such operation, there would be always within reach some man of small stature, generally known among his neighbours engaged in trades con

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nected with building, to whom recourse might be had on emergencies. Such a person would be much more trustworthy for the business for which he would be called in, than, a mere child, or even a lad of seventeen (the latest age at which, generally, they can climb) who should have been only occasionally set about similar work. Such a person would be able to decide, at once, whether it would not be better to make an opening from without, rather than to labour to remove the obstruction from within: at all events, being his own master, he might refuse to be "sticking in a small angle in a flue four or five hours, and to come down to get breath, and to be smothered with lime dust, which is worse than soot in the mouth."

In the year 1818 a bill," for the better regulation of chimney-sweepers, and their apprentices, and for preventing the employment of boys in climbing chimneys," passed the House of Commons, but was lost in the House of Lords, mainly owing to a speech of Lord Lauderdale, in which he repeated the old joke about a couple of live ducks being as good as one live goose for the purpose of sweeping a chimney, and otherwise employed against the measure, ridicule,-a weapon of the most fatal force, applied to a subject of this nature. I have before me a copy of the evidence taken before the Lords' Committee of 1818. With reference to that bill, as well as to the bill just now passed into an act, the master chimney-sweepersthe housekeepers I mean, not the itinerants-made a most determined resistance. They employed counsel at a great expense, and they spared no pains to procure evidence, several of them also appearing personally to give testimony in opposition to the bill.

In 1818 the principal machine in use was Smart's, now superseded by Glass's. Mr. Smart appears to have invented and made machines rather from benevolence, and for the credit of the thing, than for pecuniary gain. Mr. Smart gave evidence before the Lords' Committee of 1818. The following extract from that evidence will exhibit the temper of the master chimney-sweepers at that time:

"You did not take up the making of a machine with any view of profit ?" "No, not at all; for some years I threw

away 100 or 150l. a year; but I desired that it might come forward, with the aid of those gentlemen who took so active a part in it; and, from a circumstance which occurred at the London Coffeehouse, I was quite convinced that master chimney-sweepers were no friends to it.”

"What circumstance was that ?" "Those gentlemen were invited there by the committee, each of them to have a machine. I was invited likewise; [ knew nothing of them, nor they of me. I asked the waiter which was the waitingroom for the committee. I was ushered into the room where the master chimneysweepers were. After being there a little while, a Mr. Green, or Smith, said, Mr. Porter was his partner, who was then a member of the committee, and that he had been informed by Mr. Porter what the purport of their meeting was; that he would take the liberty of locking the door, as we were all upon one busi

ness.

He began by telling them, that if this business was suffered to go on, that every gentleman who had got a left-off coachman or footman would be introducing him as a chimney-sweeper, and recommending him to his friends, and that they who had served seven years to so dreadful a business might go and rake the streets; and said a great deal with regard to how they ought to behave to the gentlemen in the next room; that it would not do for them to appear to contradict them in their opinion, but to side with them, and to pity the condition of the children, and a great deal of that. I saw through the business pretty quickly. They then said they were to have each of them a machine, and that they were to report on its utility that day month. That, for his part, the first use he should put it to would be to light the fire, and that he hoped they would all do the same, and then report that it would not answer. Another said, then, D-n the inventor, I wish he was in Garnerin's balloon, and I had a good rifle, and the first shot at him. I stopped to hear all the conversation I could, and when they had done, I then told him that, very fortunately for the business, I was accidentally ushered into this room; that my name was Smart, and that I had got a fine tale to tell those gentlemen in the next room."-"What happened then?" "I was the first that was called by the com

mittee; and I then went away and heard no more about it till that day month.""You stated what you had heard to the committee? "Oh, yes.". "What occurred that day month ?" "I went, expecting to have a great deal of foul language and abuse, when they knew me; but quite the reverse; the men behaved very civilly, and said they were sorry for what they had said, and hoped I would think no more of it; and if I would accept of a dinner at any tavern, they should be happy to give it me."-"Were you not perfectly satisfied, from all that passed, that sweeping chimneys by machinery would not have a fair trial from those gentlemen? "Perfectly so; and as to the servants, I have gone out with the men early in the morning; there was a house in Tokenhouse-yard, Mr. Burke's, a very old friend of mine; we went there, the housekeeper came down quite in a passion, swearing, how dare we presume to ring and knock at the door; why could we not call out as other sweeps did; this was after we had waited an hour in the cold; she said she wished the inventor was at the devil, and the machine with him; we then proceeded and swept some of the chimneys; I asked her whether she had any objec tion to it now; she said a serious one; I asked what it was; she said, if there was any thing that a servant had a perquisite from, there was always some damned person to rob them of it. I asked her what she meant? she said her master allowed her so much for the kitchen chimney, and so much for the others; that the master chimney-sweeper did it for one half, and she had the other half for herself."

No attempt was made to impeach Mr. Smart's testimony.

In the Lord's Committee which sat in the present year, it was, with some difficulty, elicited from the master chimneysweepers examined against the bill, that it is still usual for them to give the servants money. The common perquisite seems to be 5 per cent. upon the amount of the bill.

The same inveterate spirit of hostility to machinery, that existed in 1818, yet appears to possess the master chimneysweepers. I speak from my own observation, as well as from the printed papers. In the evidence of the honorary secre

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tary of the Society for Superseding the Use of Climbing Boys, are the following passages:

"Do you know how many master chimney-sweepers make use of the machine ?" "I should hope very few. They are the worst enemies the Society has. There was a very strong instance at Bristol. The people were kind enough to subscribe and furnish every chimneysweeper in the city of Bristol with a machine, and they have since thought seriously of subscribing to buy them back again, they had so abused the public mind. I have known this conversation frequently take place:-'I have a much better machine outside the house. It is all very well-your master is a very humane man; it is all very well in theory, but it can never be adopted to general use.' The servant says, 'Well, my master is not up; you may send up the boy.' If I could prevent any master chimney-sweeper having a machine, who also keeps boys for sweeping, I should feel most happy to do it. They are the worst enemies we have."

Comment on these extracts would be superfluous. I have said as little as the subject would permit of the sufferings of children chimney sweepers, reserving that topic for another opportunity. Lam desirous the public should judge coolly on the heads I have proceeded on. I am, Sir,

Your obedient servant,
ARCHIBALD ROSSER.

15, New Boswell-court,
Sept. 15, 1834.

WORKING INCLINED PLANES-MR. HOAR'S PLAN IMPROVEMENT IN THE WAGGONS SUGGESTED.

Sir, I would beg to ask your correspondents (see No. 569), if the invention of Mr. Hoar's inclined railway carriage or truck has proved a failure or not? For, from what they assert, others may be led to suppose that the persons deputed to reward the inventor did so, either without the proper exercise of their judgment, or competent discrimination; or else your informant, in No. 555, (who states that the trial terminated "with the most perfect success,") has misrepresented the thing altogether. For my part, I am inclined to credit a prac