Labor shortages post COVID-19 pandemic have driven Gustavus Building Services to find creative solutions to ensure the workforce is present to clean up after Gustavus’s sticky student body. We ask, dear reader, that you try and think of the hardest workers in all of history. The most reliable, the most exploitable, the smallest workers you can imagine. You’ve guessed right, reader. Building Services is set to hire a slew of plucky Victorian child chimney sweeps, still coated in a light layer of soot. 

These child chimney sweeps will all be imported from the dirty streets of East London and put to work immediately. Director of Building Services Tim Sisk shares that the department is “Very excited for our new employees to arrive. The kiddos have a great reputation for hard work and the occasional choreographed dance number. Ever seen Mary Poppins?”. These pint-sized laborers will be able to squeeze into the various nooks and crannies around campus in need of extra attention. “Last week oi found meself ‘alfway up tha chapel spire, govna. Just scrubbin’ the muck right awf!” shared new hire Leicester Railway, hardly over 11 years old. Child labor laws don’t apply to the scrappy street urchins because they’re technically over 100 years old. “I don’t question how they’re still around, I’m just happy I don’t have to crawl inside the Lund lockers to clean them anymore” stated custodian Jim Jimmers.

“Oim pretty pleased tew be employed govna, me lungs couldn’t take anova year up the chimneys ya see” stated Clifton Glouchestershireton, standing hardly 5 feet tall “Works ‘ard, but at least ‘ere we get a shilling. Back ‘ome we got nuffin but gruel and maggoty bread”. Building Services does intend to compensate the children in the US dollar, but the youths can’t wrap their minds around paper money. The Fourth Crown is excited to see the new, yet dusty faces wandering around campus and is looking forward to the occasional, yet alarming “OI MISTA”. More to follow.