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Show Chimney Sweep Is Swept Away hy Machine Era Picturesque Figure Disappears as the'Lamp-; the'Lamp-; lighter, Town-crier and Horse-shoer 1 His Place Taken b Giant Vacuum Cleaner. "t. ... - -n it';) rCl ) v -yl I 1 I (I II CHALK up nnother one for Tho Machine, i This time It's the chimney- 1 weep whom It Is supplanting. The appeitranee In many parts of the country of slant vacuum clean- i en, operating on the principle of the , familiar vacuum cleuner and designed ( to do furnace and chimney cleaning freat deal more efficiently and in less time than has been the ' ease op till now, Is reported to be gradually cutting Into the ranks of j chimney-sweeps who have survived In . gome of the rural sections or who have been eking out a partial living from this work as 'handy" and "casual ; service" workers In the cities. There Is little donbt In the minds f persons who have been watching this new development In the heating heat-ing field that the day Is at hand when the chimney-sweep must Join the lamp-fighter and the town-crler the horse and buggy and the horse-hoer horse-hoer as relic of a bygone age. Sweepers Migrate From Europe. ' Here In America chimney-sweeps have seldom been r lewed In the same - FT The Old-Time Chimney Sweep, Pic turesque Figure of His Day, Who Has Cone the Way of the Horse and Buggy. sweeping" Is passing out of the hands of Individuals and Into the bands of large companies. The largest of these companies today Is the Holland Furnace Fur-nace Company of Holland, Mich., wulth controls vacuum cleaners for cleaning heating systems In some 622 of the fcjrer cities In the United States. Thw company last year reported re-ported an Incotrid pf more than two million dollars Just fro?) the cleaning pf furnaces and chimneys'; Soot Never Appears. The thing about suction cleaning which appeals particularly to the housewife Is Its cleanliness. The giant cleaner firs sucks In all the dlr an . every dook and corner of the heating plunt and chimney, and then curries It all away. The work Is done quickly, quietly Htid effectively effective-ly hy a trained man who loaves no (ilrt to he cnrrled out or soot to fall In the basement or on the floors, Inwns and walks. Hulldlng experts have found that ; In t he ordinary house three-fourths of the dirt comes from the outside atmosphere through the cracks around the outside windows and doors, Sweeping Chimney Wrth a Duck, Onct a Common Practice In Certain Southern States, plain cup and clean overfills now worn by his present dny successor, the mechanic me-chanic attending the vacuum furnace and cMnmey cleaner. There Is scarcely scarce-ly a sign of o,ot or dust anywhere on' his gurincpts. Ie riilKlit be the Janitor, uie rJ"niir I 1117 of 8 dozen of workers of that tjpe. He has none of the plcturesquene.ss of his prede-cjpssor, prede-cjpssor, but whnt he lacks In pktur-esljjenefs pktur-esljjenefs he makes op n efhcleni'y nnJ resulta, ' . ' , . Vow rTs se jSir-"it? . miKiern sweep ti .or. lie conies "on the Job" with n truck, on which Is mounted a 40-horsepower 40-horsepower motor, n hujie ennvns has nnd many sections of whnt nppenr to be (lt-x!lilo stovepipes. lie unloitds several sections of these flexible pipes. Joins one to another, giving t lie com pleied whole the appearance of n huge grisly snake. One end of the "snnke" Is fastened to one' side of the truck, connecting wiMi the fun that Is operated by the motor. The other end. the mechanic attaches to the flue clennout door at the front of the furnace fur-nace In the basement. lie then makes sure that the bag Is linked with the motor. The motor Is then started. Day's Work In Half Hour. The huge bag begins to show life, and in the course of a few minutes it fills out so that It resembles a blimp. It Is about 4(1 feet long and a man's size In height. The motor continues to run except for brief Intervals In-tervals while the attendant shifts the flexible pipes to the heating plant, the warm air pipes, cold air ducts, the chimney, the ash pit, the registers o the rooms In the house. The motor Is again turned olT, the pipe sections are dissembled find replaced on the truck the bag, which has by this time collapsed col-lapsed on the ground, Is again placed aboard, and. the mechanic is off for another Job. Can you see now why the old time chimney-sweep couldn't stay? In something like hulf an hour, nnd with the help of suction furnished by motor, mo-tor, the present-day mechanic has accomplished ac-complished what the old-time chimneysweep chimney-sweep couldn't have done a frnctlon as well if he had taken all day. There are many cracks and crannies In modern mod-ern heating systems which are beyond be-yond the reach of human hands, but which yield XJdiii to tllt sacUon, cleaning method. WltTiont the least fuss, muss, dirt or dust, nnd perhaps with the decorator or laundress working work-ing In the house, re giant vacuum cleaner gathers nil the soot and dirt from the heating system Into Its huge bag, which Is then carded off to the city' dump and emptied. As might be surmised, considerable capital Is required to equip nnd keep In operation one of these giant vacuum vacu-um cleaners. It Is not surprising, therefore, to find that "chimney colorful or romantld JJJght In which their craft Is regarded ip some European Eu-ropean countries, notably Germany, Hungary nnd England. Tbe old-time chimney-sweep stood low In th social scale, was most always poverty ttrleken and In the bope of Improving Improv-ing bis lot, one would permit the wave of migration to America which 11 Europe experienced during the Nineteenth Century to pick hltn up isntf transplant him to New World soil In the only manner he ' The duck appears to be Amerlcu's lone coiijrlbutlon to the chinjney-Bweep's chinjney-Bweep's u'rt. It was chance, no doubt, - first tnncht one of follows "that TnT flick's flai'I-hTs wlngt f'e effective jniiTrienjs '.'ft dislodging Boot ptTcufifg tVie walls of the chimney. chim-ney. At any rate, use of ducks for chimney denning has been popular for many years In parts of North America, especially Canada and some of the Southern states. The English chimney-sweep ap pears to have caught the fancy of writers more than any of the others. " Certainly he must have presented un amazing spectacle as. with his soot-smeared soot-smeared face and tall peaked or chimney pot" bat. his brooms and brushes and ropes and rods over one shoulder nnd ladder and bag under un-der an nrm, he perambulated down the streets of London blowing his bugle nnd crying "Sweep" In a husky voice. Little Boys Did tho Job. No description of the old time Rng lis!) chimney-sweep Is complete Hint does not mention the one or more smallish boys who always accompanied accom-panied him on his dally rounds. Tiny, emaciated, always looking half starved, they were forced to crawl Into llie (lues and scrape them down while the sweep "oversaw" llie Job. However, this practice was stopped In England about the end of our Civil War when a bill forbidding the employment em-ployment of child sweepers was put through Parliament by the benevolent Earl of Shaftesbury. What undoubtedly made the English Eng-lish chimney-sweep's costume so strik Ing was that It was all planned with a view to preventing the soot from penetrating to every part of his body. The tight-fitting black hood or helmet running down the back of bis neck, was Intended primarily to keep thi-soot thi-soot out of his hair and ears. His coat cuffs were, mof always turned In to 'prevent the soot tr6ii huiunig Its way In via that roule. Small sTnip's were ,tled about bis legs Just below the ' knee to keep the soot stirred up f roiu ascending his trouser legs. The wide black cravat, which ran closely around bis neck nnd all but covered the entire upper half of his body, was intended as much as a protection to the chest ns for dress purposes. Less Picturesque, More Efficient. In sharp contrast with the regalia worn bv the M tlrrp sweep Is the and one-quarter from the heating system. However, where the heating system Is defective, the amount of dirt from the heating plant Increases until It equals that which comes from the windows. A cleaning of the heat- I Ing system by tke suction method often brings these defects to light and when remedied, mean less dusting, dust-ing, lower laundry costs, smaller cleaning clean-ing and decorating expense, reduced wear on draperies, and even smaller doctor bills, because the house Is more sanitary. Clean System Is Economical. In former days the chimney sweep was called In when the poor draft prevented the Hie in the fireplace from burning In lively ninnnor. Today we know that obstructions of any kind In the chimney Interfere with the efficient ef-ficient heating of the house, and that defective flues nnd heating systems j comprise one of the chief causes of fire losses which In the United States takes a toll of more than half a billion bil-lion dollars a year. An annua'i cleaning clean-ing and going over of the heating system by the suction method will cut this figure down considerably. Not a single chimney fire was reported from the more than 400,000 homes cleaned by the Holland Furnace Com- j pany's battery of giant vacuum clean- ers last year. I Dirty and sooty heating plants ore fuel-wasters, Recent tests have proved that ns little os one-eighth of an Inch of soot on the heating surfaces of the furnace will reduce the plant's eflieleiicy 28 per cent and that one-quarter one-quarter of an inch will cut It down fully 48 per cent. This would Indicate that the average householder can save himself the price of two tons of coal each year simply by having his house-heating house-heating system thoroughly cleaned before firing np for the winter. 1 . Y.-itJPr.i" -"frr- : - vr'-.-"-' -I today s Chimney Sweep Is This Giant V.cuum-Clean.r Which 8uck All.tho Soot an Dirt Out of th Heatlnfl Plant J L and Chimney Into a Hupo Bag Which Is Then Carried Off to ths City J?ump and Emptied. |