Ill-treating little boys

Right - now I have your attention....

I have seen the future and it is quite …. interesting. The houses fronting onto the market square here are really maisonettes over shop premises. This means that they are four storey buildings which pose problems for window cleaners. They need long ladders but there is the danger that passing vehicles will drive into them – indeed, it was such an accident that caused the change I saw this morning. The cleaner had a very long telescopic aluminium pole. At one end was a large brush. The other end was connected to a rubber hose leading back to a van with a small tanker on the back. Using a trigger on the handle of the tube the cleaner sprayed water on the glass, mopped it with the brush and then gave it another squirt of water. No squeegee was needed. Talking with the guy revealed that the water was specially treated not to leave smears. Isn’t science wonderful – who would have thought that such an old-established craft as window cleaning could be improved?

This led me onto other thoughts in my grasshopper mind. Having seen this at the end of my life, I thought how nice it would be if I could also lay claim to have been around when they pushed small boys up chimneys as part of the sweeping procedure. I had a Google of Chimney Cleaning Small Boys. (Very few hits on chimney cleaning but zillions about small boys – another change in my lifetime.) Moving swiftly on, I discovered that a group concerned about the exploitation of children founded the "Society for Superseding Climbing Boys" (1803). George Smart invented effective equipment. Joseph Glass made important improvements (1828). The use of the equipment, however, did not catch on. Master sweeps were reluctant to change, especially because the use of boys was cheaper then the equipment.

The House of Lords voted down a bill to ban the use of children under 10 as chimney sweeps (1804). MP H. Bennett sponsored legislation to stop the most serious abuse of child sweeps (1817-19). The issue was debated by notable figures of the day like William Wilberforce (the anti-slavery crusader) and the Earl of Lauderdale. No progress was made until a law was finally passed prohibiting anyone less than 21 years of age from climbing chimneys (1840). The law proved ineffective because the fines were so small. It was until the publication of The Water-Babies that public opinion finally demanded action (1862-63. Lord Shaftsbury introduced an act which imposed a £10 fine. At the time this was a considerable fine for a master-sweep to pay. Passage of the act finally ended the practice of child sweeps (1864). 61 years to get a change – obviously not deemed an urgent measure.

So, thwarted about what happened in my life span, I shall have to console myself with, “In my grandfather’s day they sent small boys up chimneys and now we have mechanised window cleaning”

Saw this somewhere today, “Almost every act of the social democratic state says: don't worry, you're not responsible, leave it to us, we know best. The social democratic state is, in that sense, profoundly anti-social and ultimately anti-democratic” Sorry about lack of attribution but it was just something that popped up and drew my attention long enough for me to note it down. From here, I wandered to whether democracy is such as good thing in these ‘modern’ times. We now have such a broad spread of beliefs – not just religious but life style as well – such that finding any consensus must be almost impossible. Some centrally imposed governance must decide what is best for the community as a whole. OK, but how does one attain a government that has some idea or claim as to the consensus? Hardly the way we do it now when the ruling body is there despite the imbalance of for and against votes. I’ve figured out that we need to vote for a party on a national basis rather than a ward or electorate. This gets over the gerrymandering of electoral areas. I’m stuck on how we might get a local MP from the share out that the national preference gives us. Maybe one MP per 5,000 voters. It is all too complex for me – I’m off to watch a violent video.

Just having a quick look at Huffington's blog. Monster production - obviously she has a crew size of The Times production. Found this little story

Boy Meets Girl

Boy and girl have sex. While girl is on top, girl shifts her body in a way that causes a painful injury to boy. (Really, I hear this sort of injury is indeed extremely painful and debilitating.)

Boy then sues girl, for negligence. Hey, boy's lawyer doubtless argued (I'm guessing on this, though everything else is true): If girl had hit boy with her car, or had fallen on boy from a ladder, she would have been liable if a jury found that she hadn't exercise reasonable care. Why not here?

A Massachusetts appellate court just yesterday told boy to take a hike. Interestingly enough, his legal claim was far from outlandish: The general rule is that people who injure others can be held liable if they were acting negligently (i.e., didn't exercise the care that a reasonable person would have exercised under the circumstances). Still, the court got it right -- do we really want trials about how exactly the Reasonable Sexual Partner would have had Reasonable Sex?

I love the law; never a dull moment. How long, by the way, until this plot makes it onto one of the law TV shows? Or has it already, and I've missed it?

And, no, I don't know what 'movement of her body' was involved! I'm not even going there. For those who deem it worth further study - follow the Appellate link above.