The chimney-sweep’s case was almost as bad as the miner’s. He too was taken at a very early age, and his duty was to climb the chimney, sweeping it as he went up. It is not a pleasant thing to climb a chimney choked with soot; it abraded hands, elbows, and knees: sometimes the little wretch could get no higher; if he failed he was beaten unmercifully. There was a curious prejudice against sweeping with a brush: the child was allowed to go unwashed, though the neglect of cleanliness was certain to bring on a dreadful disease. It was not till four years after the Queen began her reign that an Act was passed protecting the children and substituting the brush for the human body. [Illustration: BUCKINGHAM PALACE--FRONT VIEW] [Illustration: BUCKINGHAM PALACE--GARDEN VIEW] This was the treatment of children in mill, in mine, in town. There were other lines and branches of cruelty because children are helpless. But these examples will suffice. Let us leave the children and turn to the men. The change for the better began, I believe, with the ideas of the French Revolution, at first eagerly caught by the English working people: it was continued by the long agitation for the Reform Act of 1832 and the fierce resistance of the Duke of Wellington and the Bishops: these ideas and this agitation taught the people how to combine and act together. They also taught the people to hate a Government in which they had no share or part or lot. A great many--though still the minority--could now read; the papers they read were bitterly hostile to the ruling powers. As I have already pointed out, there was no loyalty at all among the working-men of the Thirties; they did not pretend any. Their papers were revolutionary; the things they said of the Queen and the Prince Consort were revolting; the aristocracy, according to them, were open and shameless; the clergy were pampered hypocrites. What has happened since then? The people have been admitted to their share in the Government; they can do what they like: if they choose they can alter the Constitution. Do they choose? Not at all; they have become loyal; they have become, comparatively, conservative. [Illustration: THRONE ROOM, BUCKINGHAM PALACE] [Illustration: BALL AND CONCERT ROOM, BUCKINGHAM PALACE]