The picture of John Smith that accompanied the article.

He Knew Not his Parents, but was Discovered a Foundling in a Basket - He was Sent to Sea to Hunt the Whale, but Settled on Shore to Sweep Chimneys and Woo the Muses.

Once upon a time The Star had a poet of its own. But he got his hair cut, and we had to make him a sub-editor. It was with peculiar pleasure, therefore, that we received, simultaneously with the news that Alfred Austin was to be Poet Laureate, that little tribute of verse from "John Smith, poetical chimney sweep," about the brave lads of the Kingstown lifeboat. Wishing, therefore, to pay a graceful compliment to plain John Smith, poetical chimney sweep, we sent a Star man to interview him at his humble home in Little Randolph st., at Camden Town.

Little Randolph st., reports the Star man, is a byway of mean houses, with here a barber's shop and there a front parlour given over to the penny grocery trade; there a mouldy row of almshouses with the small coal man delivering full or short weight at the door, and "Mangling taken in here." I found my man at No. 20, and a very interesting man I found him. He is - I quote his business card - "A thing we often hear about, but very seldom see - a Clean Sweep." To permit him to continue the process of auto-description:

Being now impaired in health, and of an uncertain age (of which more anon), John Smith entrusts the clean sweeping to his son and his journeyman, and himself conducts

in "machines", as the bundles of rods with brushes at the ends, which constitute the sweep's implements of trade are technically termed. The brush business is transacted in the front parlour. Here John Smith busied himself, a frail, emaciated man with an intellectual face, sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought and of ill-health. In the back parlour Mrs. Smith, a comely, capable-looking woman, was making breakfast for several sooty young men who had just finished their grimy calling for the day. As John Smith truthfully says - 

In the early hours of morn, before the break of day
The chimney sweep he may be seen, wending on his way
No matter what the weather be - hail, rain, snow, or fog -
Give him your order overnight, and you'll find him on the job.

It was news in Randolph st. that Mr. Austin was "on the job". "Oh, it's him is it?" said John Smith when he was told about it. "Well, I never did think as Lewis Morris would get the place. It stands to reason they wouldn't have no Socialism and all that. Not but what I'm a broad-thinking man myself, and always have been,

THOUGH SELF-TAUGHT.

No, I can't say as I can express any opinion of Alfred Austin's poetry. If you believe me, I never read other men's works. I've never read Shakespeare, nor none of these here. I just sit at home and thinks things out for myself. I sit at home on a Sunday and read Lloyd's. That's been all my books, and I wouldn't miss it for all the money in the world. I have my own thoughts about most things. As I said in a little bit of mine,

War has begun, fleets are sailing
Far away to distant shores;
Many a mother's heart is aching
For the son she'll see no more.
See the foe - "

"But," I interrupted, "what about yourself and your poetry, Mr Smith?"

"Well, I never gave a thought to poetry till I was turned 40. What am I now? Well, it's a queer thing, but I don't rightly know. There's a queer history belonging to me.

I never knew a father,
I never knew a mother
I never knew a sister,
I never knew a brother,
I never had an uncle,
I never had an aunt,

But I know where I was brought up." He abruptly dropped into prose. "As a matter of fact, if you believe me, I was found,

FOUND IN A BASKET,

in a market garden, down where Pimlico now is. That was in '40 or '41. I was taken to the workhouse at Mount st. in what was called Petty France, and there they gave me a good schooling, so far as reading and writing goes, and learning to make my own boots and clothes, which they don't teach everybody now.

Hark, I hear an angel's whisper,
In the stillness of the night:
"Though you never knew your mother
You shall see her in the land of light!"

That's another little thing o' mine."

"And they made you a chimney sweep?"

"Not at first. At the age of 13 they 'prenticed me to the North Sea fishing. Grimsby? No, Grimsby wasn't hardly known of then. Barking Creek I sailed out of. That was the place for fishing boats in them days. But after two months I poisoned my hand, and they sent me back to the workhouse, and I was 'prenticed to a chimney sweep, name of Hewitt, near the Foundling Hospital. In them days we swept chimneys by day and emptied cesspools by night. My food was what I had gave me at ladies' houses, and I slept on the floor. Consequence is, I'm suffering at this day from what I'd never ought to have had if I'd been tret fair.

As thro' my life I struggled on,
I had my troubles rather strong;
But I never will regret the day
That I learned the honest and truthful way.

"Yes, I've got on very well, don't owe a penny, has hundreds owing to me, and can lend a man a shilling and never ask for it. In the summer I go to Margate or Southend for a week or two, and just take a bundle of these little poems of mine as I've had printed as recitations. Then I put 'em round, on the marine parade or on a steamboat at a penny a time, and every penny goes in the lifeboat box.

The lifeboat! the lifeboat!
Run her down to the beach.
See, yonder ship's sinking.
She has just sprung a leak.
Who'll volunteer to make a crew?
I will, and I will, said not a few.

That's from a bit I wrote about the Aldeburgh lifeboat. And this,

Old England! Look after
Thy sons on the sea;
For the time it will come
When wanted they'll be,
To uphold the honour of Country and Queen
On the sea, to the whole world,
Prove Britannia supreme.

"I've got a son in the North Sea fishing now. He would go. He's served his time, and he likes it. As for me, I don't believe I shall never want, somehow. I wouldn't care if I'd got to go tomorrow. I'm ready."

The Star man combated this gloomy philosophy, which appeared to be due to ill health. It had inspired Mr. Smith to write of his death - 

It comes to me a welcome friend
To free me from all pain,
And were the world laid at my feet
I have no wish to live again.

And again -

When I am dead
Bear me quickly down the street
When no one is about.
Lay me in a six-foot hole,
And then my requiem shout,
"Hurrah! hurrah!
He's now at rest,
Free from all pain and care;
He envies no one; no, not he,
There is no envy there."

His domestic philosophy is more cheerful. He says:

I envy not the rich man's gold
If I on work can lay my hold
With health and strength and energy
I can keep myself and family.

Turning over his manuscript books I came again and again on revilings of the unscrupulous rich. For example:-

A millionaire, his name was gold,
His earthly riches were untold:
He ruined the widow, crushed the poor,
And spread starvation from door to door;
But at last that greed it found a level,
For he's kicked the bucket and gone to the -----.
Bad luck to him!

It is needless to tell in detail how Mr. Smith founded the first Sweeps' Society in London, or how his present thriving brush and machine business grew out of an unsuccessful attempt to get his unenterprising brother sweeps to join him in a co-operative alliance to supply themselves with the tools of their trade at something less than the exorbitant prices charged by the old makers. He has succeeded better than some more pretentious poets in combining art with the faculty for paying his way, and is, in fact, a square man all round.

We wish him better health and a long life in which to woo the moody muse.