Your Committee would now enumerate some of the transactions of the year that is gone by. The first cheering result of their labours is the having obtained the work at the India-House for your Agents. Many attempts had been made to attain this object, but every previous application to the inferiors in the establishment, had been met with grave assurances of the utter impossibility of cleansing the majority of the Company’s chimneys with a machine; and a mock trial of it was got up. This year the subject was most favourably introduced to the notice of the Directors by a benevolent and influential man, and happily it was found in this, as in all other cases, that the defect had been in the mind, and not in the machine. Encouraged by this success, an application was made to Timothy Curtis, Esq., then the Deputy Governor of the Bank, begging him to appoint Glass, one of your Agents, as the chimney-sweeper to that establishment. In answer to this, the Deputy Governor directed, in the handsomest manner possible, and with a frankness which always characterizes his movements, that an experiment should be made of the comparative efficiency of the two systems, in the presence of the Clerk of the Works. The following is a copy of his Report:-- “Bank of England, Dec. 31, 1836. “I, the undersigned, do hereby certify, that I received the orders of the Deputy Governor of the Bank, to try the comparative efficiency of sweeping chimneys by boys, and by Glass’s Machine; that such experiment was made in the Bank, in my presence, by sweeping eleven chimneys; that out of this number, five were swept by boys, and six were swept by the machine; that the five swept by the boys were afterwards swept by the machine, and the six swept by the machine, were afterwards swept by the boys; and that the following is the result:-- “Soot brought down by the boys, after six chimneys were considered fairly swept by the machine, 19 quarts. Soot brought down by Glass’s Machine out of five chimneys, after the boys had finished their labours, 41 quarts and a half. (Signed,) “GEO. TOPPLE, “Clerk of the Works.” This, as may be supposed, led to the discharge of the then existing chimney-sweeper, and the appointment of your Agent. Your Committee has great pleasure in stating, that the same Agent is now employed at the Phœnix Fire-office, which is considered very important. Repeated attempts had been made to gain this point, and the success in this house neutralizes, in a great measure, the mischievous evidence before the Lords’ Committee, which was given by the Manager of that establishment. And your Committee has much satisfaction in stating, that the machine was regularly employed in this Fire-office, for some months before the lamented death of the gentleman alluded to. The following Fire-offices have promised to employ your different Agents, in addition to those who have already certified to the efficiency of the machine:--