POKING FIRES FOR A LIVING.
The trades of London are many, 'and some of them may seem to you to be very strange. . - One occupation by which a score of Britons are said to earn their livelihood /Is that of "poking fires." By the Rabbinical Jaw, no Jew is allowed to kindle or mend any lire on the Sabbath ; and. in certain places in England, where Jews are very numerous, this prohibition makes it necessary that persons shall be employed from sunset on Friday to the same hour on Saturday, in going from house to house Lighting fires and lamps and' attending to them. One woman in the East End of London often has .as many as fifty houses to attend to, and draws small fees from each of them. It is not long since a male "'fire-poker"in that quarter died worth more than three hundred pounds, which he. had saved out of his earnings... It often happens at the East End that a strict Jew goes out into the street and says to some Christian passer-by, "Would you be so kind as to come indoors and light my lamp ? The " fire-poker ' has failed me." Many a tip do the police-constables: get for services of this kind. One of them said that he had received scores of small presents for putting kettles on the fire.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/KCC19140815.2.8
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King Country Chronicle, Volume VIII, Issue 694, 15 August 1914, Page 3
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225POKING FIRES FOR A LIVING. King Country Chronicle, Volume VIII, Issue 694, 15 August 1914, Page 3
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