[Editor: This brief article regarding May Day was published in Heads of the People: An Illustrated Journal of Literature, Whims, and Oddities (Sydney, NSW), 8 May 1847.]
The sweeps of Sydney.
May-day was ushered in with the usual festivity. The murky sons and daughters of the soot-bag, with their faces and hands washed, and their outward furniture glittering like a rainbow, attended by drum and fife, danced through the streets of Sydney to the delight of many a native.
There are but few chimney-sweeps in Sydney; but of sweeps of another sort, not clean handed, there are too many; and we could not help thinking that if they were all decorated and dancing through the town, we should have considerably more sweeps than chimneys.
Source:
Heads of the People: An Illustrated Journal of Literature, Whims, and Oddities (Sydney, NSW), 8 May 1847, p. 38 (column 1)
[Editor: The original text has been separated into paragraphs.]
Leave a Reply