Andrew Wynter

It is but natural to suppose, that in such a busy hive of industry as England, where so large a proportion of the population—at least one-half—is engaged in the prosecution of arts and manufactures, that the effects of unceasing toil, and the debilitating influences of many employments, will have a certain effect upon the health and longevity of the artisan. We cannot pit the tender muscles of the child against the senseless energy of steam, without producing a strain upon the vital principle of the workers which must be highly injurious to it. We cannot consign a population as large as that of many German States to live perpetually in the bowels of the earth, without being prepared for an increased death-rate. The hundreds of diverse manufactures and handicrafts, which make the land hum with labour, must all be prosecuted under circumstances more or less inimical to perfect health. If we take the agricultural labourer of the better class, whose daily toil is performed under the roof of heaven, it must be clear that all trades which pursue their monotonous vocations in the crowded workshops of crowded cities, in constrained attitudes, and subject to debilitating emanations, must, to a certain extent, fall short of his standard of health. Nevertheless, we do not think the public are prepared for the state of things which a close examination of the sanitary condition of certain portions of the working population divulges. Accustomed to be furnished with all the appliances of easy life and luxury, the great middle and upper classes have never perhaps given a thought as to the manner in which these wants and appliances are supplied. Accustomed to sip the honey, it never strikes us that perhaps its product involves in some cases the life of the working-bee. Yet the lady, who, from the silken ease of her fauteuil, surveys her drawing-room, may learn a lesson of compassion for the poor workman in nearly every article that lies before her. Those glazed visiting cards, if they could speak, possibly could tell of the paralyzed hand that made them; that splendid mirror, which lights up the stately room, has, without doubt, reflected the trembling form of the emaciated Italian artificer poisoned with mercurial fumes; those hangings, so soft and delicate, may have produced permanent disease to the weaver, whose stomach has been injured by its constant pressure against the beam; the porcelain vase on the bracket has dragged the “dipper’s” hand into a poison that, sooner or later, will destroy its power, and, may-be, produce in him mania and death; nay, the very paper on the walls, tinted with all the vernal brightness of spring, has, for all we know, ulcerated with its poisonous dust the fingers of the hanger. The history of the manufacture of almost every article of elegance or virtÙ would disclose to us pictures of workmen transiently or permanently disabled in the production of them. All this suffering—much of it totally preventible—goes on without complaint, the workman falls out of the ranks, and another instantly takes his place, to be succeeded perhaps by a third. We are convinced that such a waste of health and life could not be endured, if the public were fully alive to the magnitude of the evil; for this reason we shall endeavour, in the following essay, to give a true picture of what may, perhaps, without pedantry, be termed the pathology of industrial occupations and professions in this country.

Foremost among those artisans who suffer from the inhalation of dust and other gritty particles given off in the pursuit of their employment are the grinders of Sheffield. Dr. J. C. Hall, in a series of papers published lately in the British Medical Journal, draws a picture of the condition of these unfortunate men, which is indeed appalling, and without doubt gives them the bad pre-eminence of pursuing the most deadly trade in existence. Grinding is divided into dry, wet, and mixed; that is, the various articles of steel turned out of the cutler’s shop of Sheffield are subjected to the stone entirely dry, revolving in water, or to processes involving both methods. Of the three, the former is by far the most deadly: forks, needles, brace-bits, &c., are ground entirely on the dry stone, and the amount of finely-divided metal dust and siliceous grit given out in the process may be imagined, when we state that a dozen of razors, weighing 2lb. 4oz. as they come from the forge in the rough, lose in the process of “shaping” on the dry stone, upwards of five ounces, and the stone itself, seven inches in diameter, would be reduced one inch. To receive the mixture of stone and steel thus rapidly given off, the position of the grinder is but too convenient; straddled across his “horsing,” as the frame in which the grindstone revolves is called, with his knees bent in an acute angle, his body inclined forwards, and his head hanging over the work, his mouth is brought into fatal contact with the poisonous dust, and his eyes with the rush of the sparks. Fork-grinding is performed entirely on the dry stone, and consequently it is the most deadly occupation pursued in Sheffield. About 500 men and boys are at present devoting themselves to destruction during the period of early manhood, for the benefit of the users of steel forks. “The silver fork school” imagines perhaps that these vile appliances have long been banished to the same limbo as snuffers, and will be surprised to learn that more steel forks than ever are thus fashioned in Sheffield, and the poor grinder, as he receives into his lungs the products of the fashioning, in his own person exemplifies the awful passage in the burial-service—“dust to dust”—as the disease thus induced cuts him off at the average age of twenty-nine years! “I shall be thirty-six years old next month,” remarked a grinder, pathetically, to Dr. Hall, “and you know, measter, that’s getting a very old man in our trade.” Another operation, almost as deadly as fork-grinding, is that of “racing the stone.” These grindstones are but roughly reduced to the circular form by the quarry men, and the grinder undertakes the business of reducing and removing all their asperities, which he does by revolving them against a piece of steel—a tremendous dust being given off in the process. In wet grinding, which is employed in the manufacture of saws, files, sickles, table-knives, and edge-tools, comparatively little dust is made, and in these employments the grinders enjoy comparatively longer life; their average age ranging from thirty-five to forty years. In addition to the destructive effects of these particles of metal and stone upon the delicate membrane of the lungs, the dry-grinder is subjected to serious injury of the eyes from the red-hot particles of steel thrown off in the shape of sparks. The more careful of the workmen protect themselves from the danger, however, by wearing large spectacles of ordinary window glass. These spectacles, when they have been in use a little time, give practical evidence of their utility, for on examining them they are found to be speckled all over with the particles of steel, which, when red-hot, become embedded in the glass.

In the rough nomenclature of the trade, the disease which thus early destroys the fashioner of forks and needles is termed the grinder’s rot. The lung, when examined after death, looks as though it had been dipped in ink, and the texture, instead of exhibiting the usual spongy character of that organ when in health, cuts like a piece of india-rubber! The colour and the solidification of the dry-grinder’s lung is owing to the chronic inflammation to which it has been subjected by the presence from an early age of irritating particles of steel and stone within its finest air passages. But why dry-grind at all, the reader will involuntarily exclaim, if the wages of the occupation are death? The grinder replies, that there are certain operations which cannot be done on the wet stone; giving the rounded back to razors, technically called “humping,” and the rounded side to scissors, are quoted as examples. The pressure during the process of shaping is so great, that the rolling friction would speedily make the stone wear, and the workman would be unable to hold the blade upon it. Then, again, we may ask, where is the necessity for this rounded form—would the shaver on a cold morning care a jot whether his razor had a round or a square back? Would the lady, as she manipulated her lace-work with her scissors, hesitate to accept a three-sided scissor-leg in place of a half-round one, if she knew that the difference involved the life of a fellow-creature? Yet such trifling differences as these between round and flat, stand in the way of the health or misery of an entire class of workers! We give a list of the average duration of life of artisans in steel in Sheffield:—Dry-grinders of forks, 29 years; razors, 31 years; scissors, 32 years; edge-tool and wool-shears, 32 years; spring-knives, 34 years; table-knives, 35 years; files, 35 years; saws, 38 years; sickles, 38 years—the ascending longevity being in proportion to the amount of water used on the stone, and to the greater amount of adult labour employed; such articles as saws, sickles, and tools are happily too heavy to be manipulated by the children employed, and thus early diseased in the manufacture of the lighter articles.

The only relief to be gathered from this dismal picture of wasted life, is the fact that things are not so bad as of old. By means of greater speed being given to the stone, many articles, such as pen and pocket-knives, are now ground with a wet stone that formerly were ground with the dry; and happily much of the dust has been abolished in the best shops, such as that of Messrs. Rodgers, by the introduction of fans on the principle of a winnowing-machine, which blows the dust and grit as it comes from the grindstone clear away through a flue placed in connection with the chimney. This fan is, however, only partially used; the grinders themselves, whom they are intended to benefit, complaining that the “trade is bad enough as it is, and if men lived longer, it would be so over-full that there would be no such a thing as getting a living:” the same spirit rejected Mr. Abraham’s mask of magnetized wire, invented many years ago for the same object. There can be no doubt, however, that intelligence should rule in this matter, and that the Legislature should make it a fineable offence to work a dry stone without a fan, just as it is to work dangerous machinery without guards; for where one life is lost by neglect in the latter case, thousands sink into a premature grave in the former. Grinders, wet or dry, may also protect their lungs, in a most remarkable manner, by simply allowing the beard and moustache to grow. The hirsute appendages of the upper lip and chin are Nature’s respirators, and it has been observed that those men who have allowed her in this respect to have her way, have discovered that she is somewhat wiser than fashion or popular usage.

Of those artisans exposed to irritating dust, probably miners take the second place after the miserable dry grinders. If we investigate the condition of these men, we are immediately struck with the lamentable conditions under which they labour, and astonished at the endurance and patience with which they submit to toil to which that of the well-fed, well-housed felon is pleasant pastime. There are at present upwards of 300,000 human beings acting the part of gnomes for the good of the community at large, entering day by day into the bowels of the earth, and emerging in the evening. Of human life they see as little as the train of black ants we watch emerging from their holes in the ground. Yet the miner is the industrial Atlas of England. Were he to cease to labour, this busy hive of men would speedily be hushed, and the giant limbs of machinery, which now do the drudgery of the world, become as still as the enchanted garden of the fairy tale ere the advent of the prince. Without the coal and the iron, the copper and the tin, they toilfully evolve from vast depths, England would be but a third-rate power. A life so cheerless, and yet so useful—nay, essential, to our national existence—should at least receive at the hands of the Government every protection that can be thrown around it; yet, if we follow the miner into his gallery and working cell, we are amazed at the dangers and the difficulties which are needlessly thrust upon him in the black realm in which he moves and has his being. Let us take the collier, for example. In many pits in the West of England, the seams of coal are not more than twenty or twenty-five inches thick; and inasmuch as the object of the worker is to remove the coal with as little as possible of the surrounding soil, he often drives his working to a considerable distance through an aperture not more than, and often not so much as, two feet high. If our adult male reader will condescend to squat himself on the floor, À la Turque, say under the dining-table, for instance, and then picture to himself the inconvenience of picking with an axe the under side of the prandial mahogany for twelve hours, he will obtain some slight idea of the muscular knot into which the poor collier has to tie himself, for the whole term of his working life, having to use violent exercise throughout. Can it be wondered at that, under such circumstances, the Apollo-like form of man becomes permanently twisted and bent, like the gnarled root of an oak that has been doubled up in the fissure of some rock? If we look at a collier, we see instantly that his back is curved, his legs bowed, and the extensor muscles of his calves withered through long disease. He has knotted himself so long, that the erect position of his race becomes a punishment to him. It is credibly related that a number of colliers, having been sentenced to imprisonment in Wakefield jail, with hard labour, the only complaint they made was, that they were obliged, whilst at work, to keep the ordinary posture of rational creatures. But confined space is only one of the many evil conditions under which they labour. In the majority of cases the collier works in foul air; for, notwithstanding all the official inspection, the ventilation of mines is still execrable. The fire-damp either blasts him into a cinder, or the choke-damp noiselessly blots out his life. However good, moreover, the general system of ventilation in a mine, unforeseen accidents will happen at any moment. The pick of the collier strikes into the gallery of an old pit, where carbonic acid gas has been gathering perhaps for a century; and the poisoned air rushes in and does its work in an instant; or a sudden invasion of carburetted hydrogen, disengaged by the fall of a mass of coal, meets the miner, who is working, perhaps imprudently, with a naked candle;—and an explosion follows which crowds the pit’s mouth with a wailing multitude of newly-made widows and orphans.

Upwards of 1,500 lives are annually lost, principally through these causes, and not less than 10,000 accidents in the same period testify to the dangerous nature of the miner’s occupation, notwithstanding the strict Government inspection.[50] It is humiliating to know that England is yet far behind continental nations in her methods of preventing these dreadful catastrophes. Mr. Mackworth, in his lecture at the Society of Arts, stated that the mortality from accidents was, in the coal mines of

		Killed		Persons.
Prussia		1·89	per	1000	per annum.
Belgium		2·8		"
England		4·5		"
Staffordshire		7·3		"

This comparison, so humiliating to England, cannot be explained by the superior adventure of our countrymen, inasmuch as the production of coal in Belgium is half as much again per acre of the coal-field as in England. It is not, however, to the dramatic accidents of coal mines which every now and then startle the community, to which we wish to draw attention; but rather to the silent progress of disease, which makes his death so premature, and his life so miserable. In addition to his cramped condition, whilst at work, his supply of oxygen is small; for in all probability the air supplied to him has to circulate many miles through the mine, and to pass over the excrementitious deposits of man and horse, and the decaying woodwork of the mine, ere it finally reaches him, in enfeebled streams, in his solitary working cell. Long deprivation of solar light, again, tends to impoverish his blood, to blanch him, in short, like vegetable products similarly deprived of the light of day. It is through the lungs, however, that the health of the miner is principally attacked. The air of a coal mine (such as it is) holds a vast amount of coal-dust in mechanical suspension, and this, as a matter of course, is constantly passing into the lungs of the miner. The proof of this is the so-called “black spit” of the collier, which, on being subjected to the microscope, is found to consist of mucus, filled with finely divided particles of coal. The permanent inhalation of such an atmosphere results in what is termed the “black lung.” The breathing apparatus of the collier becomes clogged, in short, with coal-dust, and after death it has the appearance of being dipped in ink. A writer,[51] who has lately investigated this singular pathological condition, thus gives his experience of two post-mortem examinations:—

“In each case, the black treacly fluid obtained by thus cutting the various portions of the lung (more especially the posterior and inferior portions of the lower lobes), and by slitting up the bronchial tubes, was evaporated to dryness, and the residuum being broken up and subjected to a red heat in a porcelain tube retort, behaved precisely as coal under similar circumstances, i.e. it evolved a smoke-like gaseous product, which, on being slightly condensed, deposited hydro-sulphide of ammonium and coal tar, and being thus purified, burnt in all respects like the well-known compounds of the two carbides of hydrogen (common gas).”

Dr. Gregory, of Edinburgh, many years since, by destructive analysis, came to the same conclusion respecting the carbonaceous nature of this deposit. The presence of this foreign body in the lungs leads to the whole train of pulmonary diseases. Asthma, bronchitis, and pneumonia are but too frequent, and we are consequently not surprised to hear that the aggregate amount of sickness experienced by this class, for the period of life from twenty to sixty, is 95 weeks, or 67 per cent, more than the general average.

Rheumatism, leading to heart disease, is another very common complaint of the miner. Indeed, all the conditions of ill-managed mines seem ready prepared for the propagation of this disease. When mines are driven to any considerable depth, the temperature proportionably increases, and 80 degrees of Fahrenheit is a common temperature at the end of workings, all the year round. After exposure to this oppressive atmosphere during the whole day, the collier perhaps suddenly emerges into the open air at the pit’s mouth, vitally depressed by his prolonged exertion, when the bitter wind is shaving the surface of the earth at a temperature much below freezing point. In the coal-field stretching from Valenciennes to Aix-la-Chapelle, the mines are made conspicuous a long way off by the presence of huge buildings, which enclose the machinery and the top of the pit. In these buildings apartments are prepared in which the colliers change their clothes before and after labour, and wash themselves in baths filled with hot water from the steam waste-pipe. The importance of this sanitary precaution is very great, inasmuch as colliers, like chimney-sweeps, are subject to a skin disease, in consequence of the begrimed condition of their skins. Lady Bassett has established these baths, we understand, at her mines at Camborne, in Cornwall; but we think that the enforcement of a sanitary act of such importance should not be left to the philanthropic tendencies of individuals, but should be required by the Government. If a provision of this kind were made compulsory, and stricter legislation with respect to ventilating mines were established, no doubt a vast amount of disease could be eliminated. It is estimated that the worst coal mines can be ventilated thoroughly at a cost of one penny per man per day, and that in well-constructed furnaces the consumption of one ton of coals per day at the bottom of an up-cast shaft will enable each collier to cut one ton of coals more per day with the same amount of exertion. Such being the case, there can be no excuse for asphyxiating the miners wholesale. Those proprietors of mines, who are only open to these breeches-pocket appeals, should know that it is their interest, in a pecuniary sense, to ventilate well, inasmuch as the preservative effect of pure air upon the wood brattrices, which form so expensive an item in mining, effects a saving of 80 per cent.

Our remarks hitherto have been directed entirely to coal mines and colliers, as these are by far the most extensive industrial occupations of the kind. The metalliferous mines, such as the tin and copper mines of Cornwall, and lead mines of Derbyshire, are in pretty much the same pestiferous condition, but in one particular they are still more destructive of life than coal mines. In the latter the tired workman is lifted from the depths of the mines to the surface by a rope. The Cornwall miner, on the other hand, has to carry his exhausted body in some cases thousands of feet up a series of steep ladders to the mouth of the mine. It has been estimated that many miners have thus to make an exertion every night equal to climbing to the summit of Cader Idris, and this in an up-cast shaft used for the extraction of the foul air! The disastrous effect upon the already weary miner has long been known, yet in only a few of the great mines of Cornwall has the tireless arm of the steam-engine been called in to save him from this unnecessary labour. The machinery used is called a man-machine, and differs entirely from that employed in coal-pits. In place of a rope, a beam of wood or iron descends through the whole length of the shaft; this beam, at regular intervals of ten feet, has little platforms attached to it, sufficient to afford standing-room to a miner; at the sides of the shaft are similar platforms, at the same intervals. At every stroke of the engine the beam ascends or descends through the space of ten feet, consequently the miner has only to step from the fixed platform to the moving one to be lifted ten feet every time it ascends. In this manner as many as a hundred men are lifted at the same time several thousand feet in a few minutes, without any more exertion than is necessary to make a few score steps. This curious invention has materially benefited the miner, and where it is used there is a manifest absence of the heart disease, induced by the climbing of interminable ladders placed in an almost vertical position.

Dr. Greenhow, in his report on the prevalence of certain diseases in different districts of England and Wales, very clearly proves the deleterious nature of the lead-miner’s employment by the comparisons he makes between the death-rates of the men and women of Reeth and Alston, which are purely lead-mining districts. In the former, the lead-miners die at the rate of 2,037 per 100,000 of all ages, whilst their wives, sisters, and daughters, who are variously employed, die at the reduced rate of 1,711 per 100,000; in other words, lead-mining in this one typical district caused an excess of no less than 3·26 deaths in every 100,000 inhabitants; and if we make a comparison relative to the prevalence of pulmonary disease between the two sexes, above the age of twenty, we find the death-rate of the men is double that of the women. The evil influence of copper-mining on the male population is not quite so marked, but still it is apparent enough. Thus, in Redruth, in which this kind of labour is exclusively carried on, we find that in every 100,000 of population, 220 males die from pulmonary disease more than females; and in Penzance, which is exclusively a tin-mining district, the superior waste of male over female life, in the same population, of all ages, is 104.

The mason, like the miner, is particularly liable to suffer from the presence of irritating substances in the lungs. It has been asserted that in Edinburgh members of the craft rarely live more than fifty years. This is doubtless owing to the nature of the material they work upon. There is great reason to suppose that the degree of damage done to the delicate air-cells of the lung is to be measured by the nature of the particles inhaled. Thus, the ragged portions of granite detached by the chisel are much more likely to do harm than the less irregular dust of the bricklayer. In this manner we can account for the high rate of mortality said to exist among the masons of our northern metropolis. The scourers in the potteries exercise their fearful trade in an atmosphere loaded with pulverised flints, a mineral dust of the most distressing character: we are not surprised, therefore, to hear that in this process pulmonary disease is still more rampant than among the Edinburgh masons, and is little inferior to that of the dry grinders of Sheffield, who receive into their lungs jagged particles of steel as well as grindstone dust.[52] It will be unnecessary to consider all the trades which are affected by dust, inasmuch as the artisans employed in them are similarly subjected to pulmonary affections, if not in a like degree. Thus millers are rendered consumptive and asthmatic by the floating meal of their mills; snuff-makers by the snuff which pervades the air of their places of work; pearl-button-makers suffer still more from the same cause; and the men of Sheffield who haft knives with cocoa-wood or ebony are affected with a disease exactly like the hay-asthma. The shoddy-grinders of the West Riding, who grind and break up rags in a machine called “a devil,” are subjected to what they term the shoddy fever, in consequence of the devil’s dust given off in the tearing process. The dressers and preparers of hair, especially of foreign hair, are speedily broken in health by the dust and stench produced by their operations.

The evil effects arising from the prosecution of these trades sink into insignificance, however, when compared with the destruction caused by the floating fluff of flax-mills. These mills employ children of tender years, who have to work in an atmosphere loaded with vegetable particles to such a degree, that in a measure it clouds the vision. The hecklers are the chief sufferers in this department of industry, especially the children, who are, many of them, forced to work the same time as adults—that is, as long as human nature can possibly hold out. We shall have more to say, however, when we come to consider the effects of bleaching and dyeing works, respecting those trades which exhaust the youthful powers of large portions of the working population, and thus do infinitely more damage to the race than the more curious diseases of smaller trades, which may be severe enough, but do not affect more than infinitesimal portions of the population.It would be supposed that workers on decomposing vegetable and animal matter would suffer a sickness and mortality only inferior to the artisans subjected to the emanations of poisonous metals. A priori, we should say, for instance, that dustmen, night men, and the workers in sewers, would be amongst the most unhealthy of the working classes, and, indeed, routine sanitarians would summarily tell us that such must be the case. The begrimed and dusty scavenger, whose very name is a reproach, spends the best part of his life in clearing away the disgusting refuse of civilization; he has yet another duty to perform which brings him into still closer contact with unsavoury emanations. The lay-stall, or scavengers’ yard, is of course a huge collection of the sweepings of the streets, the refuse of the markets, and the night-soil and dust of the houses, but it is not allowed to remain in a fermenting and indiscriminate mass. Almost as soon as it is deposited, men, women, and boys are employed to sift and sort the heap; bones, glass, woollen and linen rags, old iron and other metals, have to be eliminated from the mass and set aside, and the coals and great cinders are extracted from the useless ashes by the “hill-men.” It would scarcely be possible to bring human life into closer contact with filth of every kind than we find it to be in the workers in these lay-stalls. Yet, strange to say, Dr. Guy, who has investigated their sanitary condition, finds them to be among the healthiest of our working population. “They are, with a very few exceptions,” he tells us, “a healthy-looking, ruddy-complexioned race;” that is, they wear their natural rouge under their artificial tint, reversing the more fashionable method of May Fair.

“One or two boys,” he tells us, “whom I saw at work, would have been excellent models for the artist.” Our London readers will perhaps remember to have seen troops of robust and rosy-looking young women, not perhaps in afternoon toilet, making their way, about five o’clock, from the Marble Arch across Hyde Park; these are the “hill-women,” chiefly Irish, trooping home to the rookeries of Westminster; their appearance quite confirms Dr. Guy’s views as to the healthful appearance of these workers. The master scavengers, who live with all their families amid these heaps of dusty desolation, excite the admiration of this searcher after truth still more; and at last, breaking out of the calm unimpassioned manner which the philosophical statist, who deals only with general truths, is wont to impose upon himself, he thus fairly gives vent to his admiration for the genus dustman:—

This is high praise, and doubtless deserved; but few people, however, would have suspected that Hygeia clasped so closely to her bosom the grimy scavenger in his filthy frock. Dr. Guy, however, gives us hard figures for his pleasant flourishes. If we compare the scavenger with other workmen placed under somewhat similar circumstances, he rises triumphant over them. Thus whilst the bricklayer’s labourer, generally a very poor Irishman, it is true, suffers from fever, a ratio of 35½ per cent., and the brickmaker 21 per cent., the scavenger experiences only 8 per cent. of illness from the same cause. This result does seem astonishing when we remember that sanitarians sometimes attribute so much illness to the presence of a neglected dust-heap; but as Dr. Guy very justly remarks, those emanations which may prove injurious when confined within a small space—and our houses, like bell glasses, cover and keep in numberless impurities—become innoxious when fully exposed to the air. We suspect, however, that the power of ashes to absorb noxious emanations of all kinds, is at the bottom of the striking immunity which the scavenger exhibits from all febrile complaints. Nightmen and sewer-men, again, are brought into direct communication with the most disgusting, and as the public are led to suppose, the most poisonous animal effluvia; they stir in the very nidus of fever, yet it has been remarked by many observers that they are singularly exempt from this disease. Sir Anthony Carlisle tells us that out of fifty men employed in the sewers in his time, only three had had fever. Thakrah declares that out of eighteen examined by his assistant, only two had even slight disorders, and they informed him that appetite was increased by the effluvia; and finally Dr. Guy tells us that out of thirty-four nightmen examined by him, only one had had an attack of fever, and he only through being out of work for three weeks; he suffered, in short, from change of air, and perhaps want of food. Dr. Guy, in the little pamphlet we have already quoted from, states a most remarkable fact, illustrative of the changes of opinion, even amongst medical men, relative to the effects of snuffing sewer emanations. He says, that a gentleman who accompanied him in one of his inspections over a scavenger’s yard, informed him that, “he perfectly well recollects thirty years ago, when he was a lad, seeing as many as twelve patients directed by the faculty of that day to walk round the shoots for the night-soil on his father’s premises; and he appealed for confirmation of this statement to his brother, who said that he had seen scores of patients industriously inhaling this curious dose of physic.” Thakrah, who wrote his celebrated “Treatise on the Effects of Trades and Professions on Health,” about this period, tells us that the parents of consumptive youth, in his time, brought them up to the business of a butcher, in the hope of averting that formidable malady. In endeavouring to avoid Scylla, they fell into Charybdis, inasmuch as it is a well-ascertained fact that butchers, although exempt from consumption and scrofula, are very prone to inflammatory diseases. They are seldom ill, but when ill, it goes hard with them,—so much so, that, as a class, these jolly, red-faced men, the very pictures of their own beef, are but short-lived. The effects of animal emanations, and the contact of animal substances with the skin in protecting workmen from consumption, is a very remarkable circumstance. Tanners constantly at work among tan-pits, are rarely, we believe, attacked with phthisis; and those artisans in the woollen-manufacture termed cloth-piecers, whose skins are smeared with oil in the course of the day, present a remarkable contrast to the workers in cotton factories,—their flesh being plump and rosy, and their muscles strong. Mr. Thompson of Perth, who has investigated this subject, found the weight of one hundred young persons, so employed, increased in three months 575 lbs., giving an average increase of 5¾ lbs., and in eight selected cases the gain during the same brief period averaged no less than 17 lbs. each person. The beneficial effect of this department of the woollen-manufacture is so well known, that in Yorkshire the better classes frequently send the delicate members of their families to the woollen-mills for the benefit of their health. The application of oil, especially of cod-liver oil, to the skin, has indeed been recommended to consumptive patients, as thereby a greater amount of carbonaceous material can be thrown into the system without deranging it than by any other. After having drawn attention to so many occupations which are positively injurious to artisans, it is at least gratifying to be able to point to one large and rapidly-increasing manufacture which is so clearly beneficial in its operations upon human health.

There is a class of artisans which suffers from the inhalation of poisonous matters into the lungs, like the grinders and the masons, &c., but the foreign matter here presents itself in the form of a subtle vapour, rather than in that of dust. We little think, when we strike a lucifer-match,—that incomparable product of civilization, whose inventor deserves a statue in every capital in Europe,—what suffering it may possibly have caused in its manufacture. The composition at the end of a match is composed of phosphorus combined with oxymuriate of potash and glue, made into a paste, and kept liquid by being placed over a heated metal plate. Into this composition the “dipper” dips the bundle of matches, and in doing so he is forced to inhale the vapour given off, which is strongly charged with phosphoric acid, the effect of which upon him is sometimes most disastrous. After a time he experiences most excruciating pains in the bones of the jaw, but principally in the lower one; they begin to swell, a purulent discharge takes place, and, finally, the bone dies and comes away. Mr. Stanley, one of the surgeons of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, had a patient who thus lost the whole of the lower jaw. There appears to be considerable doubt whether the poison acts locally or constitutionally. One would naturally suppose that if the action were local, it would first take effect upon the bones of the nose, but, as far as the experience of surgery goes, the “dipper” always preserves his nose intact. That the poisonous fumes have a certain constitutional effect, the aspect of the workman at once declares; cadaverous in complexion, emaciated to a degree, and painfully nervous, he presents the appearance of a person suffering from the presence of some irritant poison in the blood. It certainly is very remarkable that phosphorus, which, in the form of phosphate of lime, is a very important constituent of bone, should have such an extraordinary effect upon it when received into the system in the manner we have described. We are not aware that this drug, when received into the stomach only, has ever produced the local effect noticed; but, without doubt, it is the quantity of the poisonous agent to which the workman is subjected, as he not only receives the fumes directly into his mouth and air-passages in the act of “dipping,” but the whole atmosphere of the factory becomes so impregnated with phosphorus, in consequence of its volatilization when the process of drying the matches is being proceeded with, that his clothes even become saturated to such an extent that in the dark they appear quite luminous. In Vienna, where enormous numbers of lucifer-matches are made, necrosis of the jaw is of common occurrence among the workmen; and the German physicians believe that the disease arises principally in persons of scrofulous habit, the periosteum or lining membrane of whose bones are peculiarly liable to take on inflammatory action, the death of the bone following as a matter of course. If this view of the case be true, all scrofulous persons should be warned from the employment, as dangerous, and in all cases employers should adopt every precaution in their power to prevent the recurrence of such mischief to the employed. Mr. Stanley says that the oil of turpentine, which is a solvent of phosphorous, when exposed in saucers, absorbs the vapour which does so much mischief, and that its employment in a large lucifer-match factory in the neighbourhood of the London Hospital was attended with the happiest success. Thus we have another example of the power of the chemist to make the good elements of his craft do battle with the evil ones in the cause of humanity.

Another and more common instance, in which the workman is sacrificed to luxury, is the case of the water-gilder. The skill of this artisan is employed in gilding metals, principally silver, by the action of fire. The metal to be gilded is coated with an amalgam of gold and mercury, and is then exposed to the fumes of a charcoal fire, which drives off the mercury, and leaves the gold adherent to the metal. During the process the fumes of the mercury are inhaled by the workman, and, indeed, deposit their metalliferous particles over the entire surface of the skin. The result is, that he speedily becomes afflicted with mercurial tremor, or, in the language of the workshop, he gets “a fit of the trembles.” If he proceeds with his work the tremor rapidly increases. Dr. Watson, in describing a patient thus afflicted, says:—

Were it not painful to contemplate, the incoherent muscular action of workmen thus afflicted would appear ludicrous. In endeavouring to put his food into his mouth he will sometimes, as in chorea, bob it against his eye or his cheek; and extreme cases have been known in which the unfortunate water-gilder thus afflicted has been forced to take his food like a quadruped. As the disease increases, the complexion becomes of a brown hue, and presently delirium, and, lastly, want of consciousness supervenes. To this complexion comes the water-gilder; and as the silverer of looking-glasses is exposed to the action of mercury, both by touch and inhalation, the same effects are produced upon him. If the charming belle, as she surveys her beauty in the glass, could but for a moment see reflected this poor shattered human creature, with trembling muscles, brown visage, and blackened teeth, she would doubtless start with horror; but, as it is, the slaves of luxury and vanity drop out of life unobserved and uncared for, as the stream of travellers disappeared one by one through the bridge of Mirza. Happily, the subtle finger of electricity has in a measure emancipated the water-gilder from the horrors of his art. The voltaic battery now deposits the metal without the intervention of quicksilver, and science has eliminated another of those destructive agencies which have hitherto afflicted this class of artisans.

The silvering of mirrors and looking-glasses still remains a dangerous operation; but there can be no doubt that with properly-constructed flues the floating metal would be entirely conducted away. Indeed, it is by the chimney that much of the metal now escapes; for Thakrah tells us that he has been informed by a manufacturer that from the sweepings of the chimney on one occasion he had collected twenty pounds of good quicksilver. Another, and a very manageable expedient, sometimes resorted to by those exposed to the fumes and the oxide of mercury, is to cover the mouth with a tube-like proboscis, which hangs out of the way of the floating metal, and thus conducts pure air to the operator.

Thakrah tells us that workers in brass also suffer from the inhalation of the volatilized metal. The brass-melters of Birmingham suffer from intermittent fever, which they call the brass ague. This malady leaves them in a state of great debility. The filers of brass, on the same authority, are subject to a most peculiar affection, like Tittlebat Titmouse, their hair turning a vivid green. It is supposed that the copper in the brass-dust combines with the oil of the hair, and thus an oxide of copper is formed. Coppersmiths are, of course, similarly affected. Plumbers, whilst casting, are subject to the volatilized oxide of lead, which in time produces paralysis; and while they are soldering, many deleterious fumes arise, of a sweetish taste, and of a highly astringent nature, which often produces violent attacks of constipation.

But poisonous metals may attack the mucous membrane in the shape of finely-divided powder used in the arts. There is an exceedingly beautiful paper, of an apple-green colour, which is often selected for the coolness and cheerfulness of its appearance. The writer was himself once deluded by the seductive appearance of a paper of this description, and had his library furnished with it. Strange to say, a violent cold seemed to seize every one, even in the midst of summer, who stopped long in this apartment, especially if they came much in contact with the walls. On questioning the paper-hanger the mystery was speedily explained. “I never hang that kind of paper,” he said, “without getting a bad sore throat and a running of the eyes. All the trade knows it is good for a cold to have any dealings with it.” The cheerful green of the paper is nothing less deadly than the aceto-arsenite of copper, an irritant poison of the first class. The flock part of the paper contains a large quantity of pigment in the form of dust, which is of course liable to be detached from the walls on very slight occasions. It has been erroneously supposed that the metal must be volatilized by heat ere it can be separated from the paper; but the action of detachment is mechanical, and not chemical; the poisonous dust either falls or is brushed off the wall, and becomes mixed with the ordinary dust of the room; the lifting of a book, or the displacement of a pile of papers, proves sufficient to set these particles in motion, and to bring them in contact with the mucous linings of the eyes, nose, and throat; hence the violent irritation produced, which similates so closely the effects of a bad cold in the head. Professor Taylor, the celebrated medical toxocologist, has moreover proved the presence of arsenic in the dust fallen from this kind of paper. In a letter to the Medical Times and Gazette, of January 1st, 1859, he says,—

After this unimpeachable testimony to the poisonous character of the pigment in this paper, it is not difficult to understand that the workmen employed in its manufacture are particularly liable to attacks of illness which exhibit all the symptoms of acute influenza; or that the paper-hangers, in putting it up, are sometimes obliged to leave work for a time, in order to get rid of the distressing symptoms to which its manipulation gives rise.

There is in Sheffield an occupation connected with tool-making which forms, as it were, a connecting link between the diseases produced by working in steel and those which flow from working in lead: we allude to file-making. Unfortunately, the various preparations of lead enter very largely into the arts and manufactures of this country; and as its action upon the human body is very great, its pernicious influence is felt in a vast number of occupations of a diverse nature. Thus, white-lead manufacturers, sheet-lead rollers, painters, plumbers, potters, china manufacturers, colour-grinders, glaziers, enamellers of cards, lead-miners, and shot-makers, all come under the saturnine influence; even the poor lacemakers of Belgium do not escape, for the manufacturer, in order to make the fibre look white, requires them to dust it with white-lead powder, and possibly, by this means, it may find its way into the fair skin of a duchess!It may seem strange that a worker in steel should suffer from the poison of lead, but it occurs in this manner:—The file-maker, in order to hold the file securely, and, at the same time, to protect the fine edge of the sharp chisel with which he cuts the face of the file, places it upon a bed of lead which rests upon an anvil. In cutting the larger three-square files, the workman uses as much as a pound of lead a week; this is detached from the mass by friction and the use of the chisel, in the form of a fine black powder. It is curious that the first portion of the file-cutter’s anatomy that is affected is the finger that rests upon the lead; at first it feels numb, and then becomes paralyzed. If the artisan will not take warning by this fastidious touch of a digit, before long the poison grips him by the wrist, and then some fine morning he wakes and finds that he has what is termed in the trade “a dropped hand;”[53] that is, the extensor muscles of the wrist are paralyzed, and the hand falls helplessly forward, like the fore-paw of a kangaroo. Here the specific action of the poison has exerted itself through the skin of the part affected. The same thing is observable in painters, who are more subject to lead-paralysis than perhaps any other workers in lead. The finger which first touches the brush first suffers; and the potter, who has in the course of his trade to dip his ware in a preparation of lead and flints in order to form the glaze, is in like manner, but still more severely, afflicted. It is well ascertained, however, that the constitutional effects which show themselves in obstinate constipation and cholic, arise from the reception of the lead directly into the mouth, either in the shape of finely-divided particles, or floating in the air, or direct from the fingers to the manipulators: thus, painters will eat their food with fingers soiled with the brush. The mere exhalations of paint are sufficient to paralyze some constitutions very speedily; a single night spent in a newly-painted house is sufficient to produce cholic, especially in young children. And Dr. Watson, in his “Practice of Physic,” relates a case in which a person suffered from dropped hands who had, she said, no concern with lead in any way: on cross-examining her, however, it at last came out that her sons “had in the preceding summer occupied their leisure time with making birdcages and painting them green in the one room in which she habitually lived.” The dippers, as they are termed in the potteries, are perhaps subjected to more frightful effects from lead-poisoning than any other workmen: in addition to paralysis and cholic, the subtle poison sometimes creeps into the brain, mania comes on, and they die raving mad. The grinding and packing of white lead is so destructive, that the men can work at the occupation for a few hours in the day only; the dust that is given off penetrates the clothes, and covers the skin to such an extent that these artisans, after taking a medicated bath of sulphuret of potassium in water, come out like blackamoors.

In these works rats and mice are speedily poisoned by the fine white-lead dust, which penetrates even to their holes. The artisan who handles lead in its various combinations may, however, vastly mitigate his trouble by adopting perfect cleanliness. Before every meal he should wash his hands thoroughly, and after work he should change his clothes. Medical science has given him the means of being forewarned that lead is entering his system by a particular and rarely-failing diagnostic sign: where the metal has entered the system a blue line will be discovered near the edge of the gums; when this blue Peter is hoisted he may know that danger is at hand, and that, unless he is more careful, his bread-earning hand will speedily drop powerless by his side. In all cases, however, prevention is better than cure; and we are glad to learn that almost perfect exemption from painter’s cholic and paralysis has been secured in some extensive painting establishments, by causing artisans to drink a lemonade made by adding a drop of sulphuric acid to a gallon of water. The sulphuric acid is supposed to form, with the lead received into the mouth and stomach, a sulphuret of that metal, which is insoluble, and, therefore, cannot be taken up by the absorbents into the system.

There are many important classes of workers whose sufferings have nothing either curious or dramatic about them, who nevertheless furnish the largest contingent to the army of death. At the head of these dismal companies march tailors, bakers, and milliners of large cities and towns. These three classes supply more victims to what has been erroneously termed “the English death,” or consumption, than any other. Yet there can be no doubt that there is but one condition wanting to render these employments comparatively speaking healthy, and that one want is pure air. Dr. Arnot makes the monkeys in the Zoological Garden teach us a lesson in this particular which should not be lost upon us. In his evidence before the Health Commission he says:—

The post-mortem examination proved that these monkeys all died of consumption; so that we have a practical proof that this dread disease can be brought on at will. Now, what took place in the monkey-house is taking place, in a milder form, in the hundreds of workshops in which tailors and milliners work in this metropolis. In the great majority of cases tailors work together in rooms by no means proportioned to the number that occupies them. In many cases they work knee to knee on the shop-board with the thermometer ranging from 95 to 100 degrees, no ventilation whatever being present, for when it is provided, the enfeebled workers, fearing catarrhal complaints, stop them up. The result is, an amount of consumption among them second only to that prevalent among the grinders of Sheffield and bakers. The cross-legged fashion in which he works in some measure assimilates him to the collier. It has been suggested that instead of thus doubling himself up for the whole time of his working life, he should work on a board having a hole in it of the circumference of his body, with a seat fixed for his support beneath. Such a contrivance would render his position easy, and enable him to bring his work pretty close to his eyes without his having to bend over it as he does at present. As the tailor is principally employed on black and dark clothes, his eyes are much strained, especially if he works by gas-light: hence he is subject to great impairment of vision.

The baker is subjected to a still greater number of debilitating influences as regards his health than the tailor. In all cases his place of work is in a confined basement, where the oven and the gas contrive to keep the temperature at a tropical point. There is generally a privy close at hand, and the drains are not always in good order; the air, already foul enough, has yet to be contaminated with the floating flour-dust so irritating to the fine air-passages of the lungs. In an atmosphere thus deliberately poisoned with the elements of sickness, the journeyman baker is confined ordinarily from seven o’clock at night until four the following morning, and towards the end of the week he is engaged nearly two entire days in succession. Is it surprising that their rate of sickness is dreadful—greater than even that of the tailors? Dr. Guy tells us that no less than thirty-one in the hundred spit blood, and that every other journeyman of the low-priced bakers, who work under still worse conditions, is subjected to this most dangerous disease. We feel convinced that the public cannot be aware that they eat their daily bread at the expense of the life-blood of the producers. Parliament has refused to interfere in their behalf, but Lord Shaftesbury has taken up their cause, and we believe that ere long the force of public opinion will lead to the abolition of the nightwork, which is at the bottom of the evil. At all events, those who wish to assist in the emancipation of these slaves of civilization, will see with pleasure the introduction of the aËrated bread, which by the aid of machinery manufactures the loaf in a much more cleanly method than by hand-labour, and performs the whole process in less than an hour. The introduction of machinery into this trade will at once cure the evils complained of, which result in the majority of cases from the confined establishments and insufficient means of the master-bakers.

The milliners, especially of London, are nearly as unhealthy as the tailors. The evidence given before the Select Committee of the House of Lords in 1855, to inquire into the expediency of passing a bill for the protection of needlewomen, certainly is appalling in the tale it tells of the waste of youthful life. During the season of four months, the shortest time these poor young creatures work is from six in the morning until twelve at night, and when they are very hard pressed for time they are obliged to take their meals standing. At times of great pressure young girls have been worked four days and nights consecutively; and Lord Ashley publicly made mention at the meeting at Exeter Hall, July 11th, 1856, of a witness who had worked without going to bed from four o’clock on Thursday afternoon until half-past ten on Sunday night. Such toil as this in close rooms reeking with human exhalations, and further deteriorated by the excessive use of gas, is scarcely to be matched in deadliness by any occupation engaged in even by the stronger sex; and we are not surprised to hear that it is a frequent thing in fashionable millinery establishments to find the workers faint from sheer exhaustion; as the Queen’s physician emphatically says, “a mode of life more completely calculated to destroy human health could scarcely be contrived.” Mr. White Cooper, the Queen’s oculist, states, in his lately-published work on the eyes, that he has generally observed a great increase of patients of this class come to him after there has been a general mourning. The committee of the Society of Arts which some few years since made a report on the industrial pathology of trades which affect the eyes, recommend that the light should be thrown on the work rather than the eye; they also recommend that the colour of the material upon which needlewomen are engaged should be changed as often as possible, upon the ground that to preserve the tone of the organ it should have variety of stimulus, its long application to the same colour inevitably exhausting it. The following suggestion from a traveller, which is embodied in this interesting report, is worthy of notice:—“Needlewomen, embroiderers, and lacemakers should work in rooms hung with green blinds and curtains to the windows. When in North China, I became convinced of the very great advantage with which this rule has been adopted by the exquisite embroiderers of that part. Their books of patterns are frequently called ‘Books of the Lady of the Green Window.’” Among the diseases affecting female workers we must not omit to mention an affection called “housemaid’s knee,” which is peculiar to those servants who kneel much upon hard wet stones or boards. The pressure on the knee gives rise to a very painful inflammation of the bursa, or pad, which nature has interposed between the skin and the patella, or knee-cap.

Shoemakers live a sedentary life, like tailors and milliners, but they do not work so frequently in company, consequently they escape the destructive influence of foul air; they are subject, like weavers, however, to disease of the stomach, owing to the constant pressure made upon it, in their case, by the last. Some old cobblers are found to have a depression at the pit of the stomach of the shape of the heel of the boot, moulded in fact by the pressure of this article, which he clasps between this portion of his body and his knees whilst sewing. Like the milliners and tailors, their sight suffers through having to direct so fine an object as a needle point: patent bootmakers are particularly liable to suffer in their eyes through the brilliant blackness of the material they work upon. We perceive that sewing-machines have been introduced into this trade at Northampton, much to the disgust of those whom they will benefit. The introduction of this useful machine will at once elevate this and scores of other handicrafts, such as those of tailors, milliners, glovers, and all who use the needle, to the dignity of manufacturers requiring considerable capital, the presence of which is some guarantee for the intelligence and benevolence of the masters, and for the adoption of larger and more healthful workshops for their people. As this very large class of workers numbers upwards of half a million in Great Britain, we hail the sewing-machine as an emancipator from drudgery of no ordinary kind.

The compositor, who works in an atmosphere very similar to that breathed by the tailor and milliner, is, like them, subject to severe pulmonary diseases. In some newspaper offices they are planted as thickly as their type-cases can stand, and they carry on their monotonous labour, which is confined to a multitude of small motions of the right hand, conveying to the left types in course of “setting up,” Jobbing printers, who have a much greater variety of motion, are invariably healthier than newspaper compositors; and Dr. Guy has remarked that those compositors who work in the upper stories of large establishments, and consequently in an atmosphere reeking with the impurities which have ascended from the crowded rooms below, and possibly from an engine-room in addition, are much more troubled with spitting of blood and consumption than those working beneath them. In a printing office thus foully ventilated, he was enabled to make a very instructive comparison; for instance, there were fifteen men employed on the second floor, and seventeen men in precisely the same way on the third and uppermost floor. On making personal inquiries of each of the men respecting his health, four only out of the fifteen on the second floor made any complaint; one was subject to indigestion, a second to cough, the third to ulcers of the legs, and the fourth was what might be termed a valetudinarian. But of the seventeen employed on the uppermost floor, three had had spitting of blood, two were subject to affections of the lungs, and five to constant and severe colds. Ten of these seventeen, therefore, were subject to diseases affecting the chest, while only one of the fifteen in the room beneath had a disease of this nature. In the course of his inquiries respecting the health of workers in printing-offices, the same intelligent statist hit upon another fact with respect to pressmen, which appears to be of general application. Pressmen, or those who take the impressions of the types set up by the compositors, are generally located in the same building with them, and often in the same room, under precisely similar conditions as regards ventilation and quality of air; yet a series of inquiries brings out the fact that the pressmen are far the healthier of the two. The only manner of accounting for this difference lies in the nature of their labour. The pressman has to use long-sustained and somewhat violent exertions in swinging round the lever of his press, unfolding and refolding the tympan, and screwing up its bed. Compared to these varied muscular movements, the compositor’s hardest work is lifting types from his case to his composing-stick; yet the result is, that the pressman’s liability to consumption is but half that of the compositor, and of other diseases a third less.

This is a very remarkable fact, and irresistibly points to the conclusion that foul air and a heated atmosphere can be borne with far greater impunity by those who labour hard than by those who employ themselves in a sedentary manner. The fair lady who honours us with her attention will perhaps draw a conclusion of her own from this experience, which, no doubt, tallies with her practice and her instinct, that it is far better to waltz till five o’clock in the morning in a crowded ball-room than to remain for the same period a disconsolate “wall-flower.” There appears also to be another law, with respect to the two classes of workmen, equally worthy of remark. The pressman, although he enjoys the best health, and the greatest green age, does not, in individual cases, live as long as the compositor. In the same manner, the stalwart blacksmith, although a far healthier man than the tailor, and generally longer-lived, does not yet count so many patriarchs among his ranks as snip does. This comparison holds good between those who take much or little exercise out of doors. Mr. Neison, who has carefully worked the fact out, in his volume on Vital Statistics, gives the following highly interesting table:—

Thus, between twenty and thirty, the gardener, the labourer, the thatcher, the drover, and the whole class of men who earn their bread toilfully in wind, rain, and sun, have the expectation of living at least six years longer than the coachman, the watchman, and others who are equally exposed to the weather, but whose blood is not equally circulated or sweetened by continual and active exertion. It will be remarked also, that the out-door worker with little exercise comes off but badly in the comparison with the sedentary in-door worker—in other words, the coachman’s is a worse life than the shopman’s. We suspect, however, with Mr. Neison, that intemperance must thus kick the beam against sedentary out-door employments. We all know, for instance, that Jehu is not a teetotaller, and our suspicions are, moreover, strengthened by the fact that engine-drivers, who are forced to maintain a strict sobriety, although among the class of sedentary out-door workers and exposed to a hurricane of air, and to driving wet during the greater part of their existence—are yet remarkably free from consumption—the fell disease which decimates the poor printer, who cannot tolerate the minutest draft in his place of work.

As we ascend in the social scale, it would naturally be supposed that we should find the value of life greater, and occupations more healthy. It is a great question, however, if the artisan, subject as he is to so many injurious circumstances, has not the advantage over the shopkeeper. This may appear at first impossible, but when we come to consider the life led by the tradesman, and especially by the smaller ones, who form so large a proportion of the class, we find they are subjected to an accumulation of adverse influences. In the generality of cases the individual of this genus confines himself to the smallest possible amount of room, in which he can possibly carry on his business—the rest of the house he lets off for offices. In this confined space he lives, without taking any adequate exercise, often lying perdu in a dark inner room, through a peep-hole of which he watches for customers. At night, he inhales an atmosphere polluted by many gas-lights, and when, finally, the shutters are closed, he will often be found sorting and placing away the goods disturbed during the day. Under such circumstances, is it wonderful that he perishes at a more rapid rate than the artisan who labours all day at some noxious trade, and sleeps at night in some wretched lodging? It is well-known that there is scarcely such a thing to be found as a London tradesman of the third generation. The class is entirely kept up by the rosy-faced youths who come up from the country full of hope and health, and then gradually subside into the pallid tradesman of middle life, taking on, as it were, the sad colour and aspect of the great city, just as hares and foxes turn white in northern latitudes, when winter brings about her snow.

There are certain classes of tradesmen who suffer from singular skin diseases consequent upon handling articles of their trade. Thus the miller, whose hands are constantly immersed in his meal, is subject to an irruptive disease of those members, in consequence of the attacks of the meal-mite—a small insect to be found in some kinds of flour. The grocer’s itch, again, is occasioned by handling sugar infected with an animalcule peculiar to it. We have seen sugar which absolutely moved throughout its entire mass in consequence of the immense number of insects present in it, and these readily attack the hand, and produce an irruption similar to that of the ordinary itch. Chimney-sweepers, again, suffer from a more formidable disease—cancer induced by the irritative qualities of the soot upon certain portions of the skin of the body. Neither must we omit from the ranks of unhealthy town occupations the squalid race of clerks, whose monotonous occupation and posture perpetually fixed in the form of a Z, renders them a very unhealthy class of men.

Waiters in hotels and taverns sap their health by surreptitious tippling. A medical friend says, his experience of them is, that with few exceptions, they are all rotten with perpetual imbibition. Footmen do not drink so much, but they are so grossly overfed and under-worked, that they are always suffering from plethora. “Jeames’” aim is to run to calves, but he pays the penalty for his ambition. They are, in fact, in the position of the convicts at Fremantle, Australia, who, during the time that our soldiers were dying for want of food in the Crimea, suffered from what was significantly called the gluttony plague. Excessive over-feeding and under-working was, it appears, the rule at the convict establishment; and, in consequence, no less than 1554 patients were under medical treatment in less than six months, with diseases of the digestive organs, inflammatory affections of the eyes, and cutaneous eruptions. The physic of short allowance and plenty of work soon set matters to rights. It is not often that the lower or middle classes suffer from over-feeding; but drink is the bane of many trades and occupations. The gigantic brewer’s drayman, who seems built as a match for the Flemish team he drives, is but a giant with feet of clay; his jolly looks are a delusion and a snare. The enormous amount of beer and stout he is allowed by his employers—on the principle, we suppose, that you should not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn—so deteriorates his blood, that a scratch prostrates him, and any serious illness is pretty sure to carry him off. The common labourer, who lives under pretty much the same condition, with the exception of the temptation to drink, has an average life of 47½ years, but he is cut off at the early age of 43 years.

If we take another class of persons thrown continually in the way of tippling, we find the result is equally unfavourable. The pot-boy of the metropolis, with whose doughy face and pert leer we are so well acquainted, scarcely lives out half his days. In his case, in addition to continual potations, he is perpetually breathing, until twelve o’clock at night, an atmosphere compounded of drunkards’ breath, stale tobacco, and all the impurities arising from the brilliant gas illumination of a gin-palace; it is not, therefore, surprising to find that his average age is but 41½ years; while the footman may reckon upon helping himself to his master’s venison until he is 44½ years old. The publican is almost as great a sinner as his man in the way of intemperance, and his life in consequence is at least 2½ years shorter than the very limited span of the tradesman.

Dr. Guy, who has taken considerable pains to ascertain the value of life in the educated classes, has worked out the extraordinary result that, the higher the step in the social hierarchy, the greater the means of self-indulgence, the less the chance of long life. People have so long been accustomed to look upon the possession of wealth as the best guarantee for a flourishing bodily condition, that they will be surprised, perhaps, to hear that in proportion as the wholesome stimulus of labour is withdrawn from any class, in the same proportion the value of its average term of life is shortened. And yet our common experience but tallies with the results of scientific inquiry in this matter. When a man who has lived a long and active life, suddenly retires with the idea that he has earned his ease, and that it is time for him to enjoy himself, ten to one but he has taken the most effectual method of shortening his life; and much as we may smile at the taste of the retired soap-boiler, who always made a point of going down to his old shop on “boiling days,” yet we can see that his instinct directed him rightly, for we can none of us bear idleness, least of all those who have long practised industry.

Regularity, sobriety, and activity of mind and body, are the pabulum on which vital force is fed; while, on the contrary, luxury, licentiousness, and sloth, are the cankers of life. A comparison of the longevity of the different educated classes proves this in a remarkable manner. Let us take, for instance, the three learned professions. If the reader were asked whether the clergyman, the lawyer, or the physician lived longest, most probably he would say the lawyer. Accustomed to venerable age on the judgment-seat, and struck with the fact that our leading law lords have generally been, and still are, noblemen of very advanced age, he would perhaps be justified in giving the palm of longevity to them. Yet, in truth, as a class, they are the shortest-lived. The race is neck and neck, it is true, but they lose by a neck. The clergyman, as we should naturally suppose, enjoys a higher standard of health, and attains a greater age, than any member of the community, excepting poor Hodge, the humblest member of his flock. His average age, taking those persons only into account who have passed their 50th year, is 74·04 years, or rather better than one year longer than the physician, who lives to an average age of 72·95 years. This trifling difference, we should expect, as the latter is subject to many chances of infection, and lives more a town life than the former. If the comparison is made, however, between the highest grades of the two professions, between archbishops and bishops, and baronets who have filled the posts of physicians and surgeons to the sovereign, the latter have the advantage by four years, and in both cases the lawyer lags behind in the race with clergymen and physicians: with the latter in his ordinary rank by a few days only, and with the class of medical baronets, as compared with judges, upwards of four years, how much hard study, alternated with tawny port, has to do with the difference, we should scarcely like to say. The gentry may be reckoned to be about as long-lived as the clergy; well-housed, well-fed, and living an agricultural life with active habits, they have few diseases, and are especially exempt from consumption. Officers of the navy have slightly the advantage of those of the army—say one year of life. From this point, where the social hierarchy takes a leap, and clothes itself in the purple and fine linen of nobility, the lamp of life begins rapidly to burn low. The aristocracy of this country are shorter-lived, by more than one year, than he who works with all the cares and anxieties of the priest, the lawyer, or the physician; and members of royal houses (calculated from the ages of members of continental as well as English royalty) descend the ladder of life so rapidly, that they have three years less of existence than the peer; and, lastly, we come to the “round and top of sovereignty itself.” The potentate who stands on the highest pinnacle of human greatness, surrounded, it would seem, with every condition favourable to comfort and longevity, fenced about from casualties which constantly beset the paths of ordinary mortals—his would appear indeed a charmed life; yet the hard fact will stare us in the face, that the sands of life run far quicker with him than with any other of the educated classes. His years are on an average but 64, or 10 less than the clergy, who probably have to fight the hardest battle in the world—the fight of comparative poverty against appearances. It could be “clearly shown,” says Mr. Neison, in his “Vital Statistics,” “by tracing the various classes of society in which there exists sufficient means of subsistence, by beginning with the most humble, and passing on to the middle and upper classes, that a gradual deterioration in the duration of life takes place; and that just as life, with all its wealth, pomp, and magnificence, would seem to become more valuable and tempting, so are its opportunities and chances of enjoyment lessened. As far as the results of figures admit of judging, this condition would seem to flow directly from the luxurious and pampered style of living among the wealthier classes, whose artificial habits interfere with the nature and degree of those physical exercises which, in a simpler class of society, are accompanied with long life.” Truly, there is a spirit of compensation in this life, if we could only “distil it forth.” The poor countryman of thirty years of age, who takes his frugal repast under a hedge, has a chance of thirteen years’ longer life than the monarch of the same age clothed in purple, and lord, perhaps, of half the habitable world!

THE END.

Footnotes:

[1] This cophee-house in Sweeting’s Rents is not alluded to by Mr. Cunningham in his Handbook of London. He mentions the first as established in 1657, in St. Michael’s Alley, Cornhill, and the second (no date mentioned) as set up at the Rainbow in Fleet Street. We think we must make way for this new discovery between the two.

[2] A furniture broker made his fortune by an advertisement headed “Advice to Persons about to Marry.” Our witty friend Punch followed up this prelude with the single word Don’t, as the substitute for the lists of four-posted beds.

[3] In an article upon the teas of commerce, which appeared in the Quarterly Journal of the Chemical Society for July, 1851.

[4] Assam tea is the only exception to this rule, but very little of it is imported.

[5] That sold by Messrs. Dakin, of St. Paul’s Churchyard.

[6] It will be scarcely necessary to say that the great London brewers have never laid themselves open to the suspicion of having adulterated their liquor.

[7] An act has lately been passed which will, we trust, check in some degree the grosser food-frauds on the public.

[8] Since gone to make bears’ grease.

[9] The great merit of this inference may be judged from the circumstance that several eminent naturalists, out of an honest regard for the reputation of Professor Owen, endeavoured to prevent the publication of the paper in which, with the sure sagacity of scientific genius, he confidently announced the fact.

[10] The history of the migrations of the rat is involved in doubt, and none of the accounts can be relied on. Goldsmith had been assured that the Norway rat, as it is called, though it was quite unknown in that country when it established itself in England, came to us from the coast of Ireland, whither it had been carried in the ships that traded in provisions to Gibraltar.

[11] When the atmospheric railway to Epsom was at work, the rats came for the grease which was used to make the endless leather valve, which ran on the top of the suction-pipe, air-tight. Some of them entered the tube, from which they were sucked with every passing train; nevertheless, day by day, others were immolated in the same manner.

[12] A native in India, observing one day a rat run across the floor, stooped to look after it. While in this position he suddenly felt something tugging him back by his hair, and on putting up his hand found a large cobra struggling to free his teeth from his locks. The reptile had also observed the rat, and had dropped from the roof, when the peon suddenly interposed his person between the hunter and his prey. The snake and the rat escaped; but the magistrate of the district having ordered the house to be pulled down the next day, the cobra was found with the rat half digested in his stomach.

[13] A single dead rat beneath a floor will render a room uninhabitable. A financier, of European celebrity, found his drawing-room intolerable. He supposed that the drains were out of order, and went to a great expense to remedy the evil. The annoyance continued, and a ratcatcher guessed the cause of the mischief. On pulling up the boards, a dead rat was discovered near the bell-wire. The bell had been rung as he was passing, and the crank had caught and strangled him.

[14] In a comfortable little apartment, which looked quite domestic in comparison with the workhouse wards of ordinary lunatic asylums, we saw, on our last visit, a young musician playing on a violoncello to an admiring audience. Touches of similar enjoyment continually meet the visitor, lighting up the moral atmosphere of the building with a cheerfulness totally at variance with his preconceived notions of this notorious madhouse.

[15] Steps are being taken, we believe, to effect this necessary change; but unless Parliament puts its pressure upon the Home-Office, we shall expect to see the arrangement completed when the Nelson Column is finished, and not before.

[16] The walls of one of the wards of Colney Hatch are decorated throughout with well-executed bas-relief pictures from Greek subjects by a patient. We are informed that the lunatics who are transferred here from the undecorated wards, enter the apartment with expressions of delight, and are particularly careful to preserve the objects of their pleasure in good condition. In some metropolitan asylums the inmates have adorned their prison-house with pieces of sculpture and pictures; and the Germans are fond of indulging the love of colour by filling some of the windows with stained glass. In France, abundance of flowers are placed about the establishment, as being eminent sources of delight. In these particulars we have not a little to learn from our continental brethren.

[17] These particulars respecting the pauper lunatic colony of Gheel are taken from an article by Dr. Webster in Dr. Winslow’s Journal of Psychological Medicine. This review, which originated with and from the first has been under the able editorship of Dr. Forbes Winslow, has given an immense impulse to the study of psychology. It has enlarged the views of the physician of the insane, and, by extending his horizon, has given him a far better knowledge of the special department to which he formerly confined his studies. It is as impossible to understand the workings of a morbid mind without possessing a knowledge of its ordinary action as it is to interpret the sounds of a diseased lung without being first acquainted with those of a healthy one. The great service which Dr. Forbes Winslow has rendered by unravelling the phenomena of mind in its normal as well as in its disordered state, entitles him to a very high meed of praise, and has deservedly ranked him among the first medico-psychologists of the present day.

[18] In the subjoined passage, which is extracted from an official communication to the Commissioners in Lunacy, and published in one of their parliamentary reports, Dr. Forbes Winslow explains the principles which should guide the physician in the moral treatment of the insane when placed under legal control and supervision:—“In the management of the insane, and in the conduct of asylums, both public and private, the principle of treatment should consist in a full and liberal recognition of the importance of extending to the insane the maximum amount of liberty and indulgence compatible with their safety, security, and recovery; at the same time, subjecting them to the minimum degree of mechanical and moral restraint, isolation, seclusion, and surveillance, consistent with their actual morbid state of mind at the time. It is also necessary to bear in mind as an essential principle of curative treatment, the importance of bringing the insane confined in asylums, as much as possible, within the sphere of social, kindly, and domestic influences. In many cases, isolation, seclusion, and an absolute immunity from all kinds of stimuli, physical and mental, are, during the acute and recent stages of insanity, indispensably necessary to recovery; but in certain forms of melancholia, monomania, and in some chronic morbid states of mind, no mode of moral treatment is productive of such great curative results as that now referred to. I need not observe that this system of treatment cannot be adopted except in those establishments where there is an active, experienced, and intelligent resident medical officer, who fully appreciates the great value of such homely family influences upon the minds of the insane. In our moral treatment, do we not occasionally exhibit an excess of caution, and exercise, with the best and kindest intentions, an undue amount of moral restraint and vigilance? I think we may sometimes err in being a little too distrustful of the insane. Whilst urging the necessity, in certain forms of morbid mind, of great and constant watchfulness, particularly in cases of suicidal monomania, and recent and acute attacks, I would suggest, to those having the management of asylums, the necessity, with the view to the adoption of a curative process of treatment, of placing more confidence in those entrusted to their care, and of allowing the patients a greater amount of freedom, indulgence, and liberty than they at present enjoy in many of our public and private asylums. In many phases of insanity in which confinement is indispensable, the patient’s word may fully be relied upon; and under certain well-defined restrictions, he should be permitted to feel that confidence is reposed in him, and that he is trusted, and not altogether (although in confinement) deprived of his free and independent agency. I feel quite assured that a judicious liberality of this kind will be generally followed by the happiest curative results, and greatly conduce to the comfort and happiness of the patient. Patients should be permitted occasionally to attend divine worship out of the asylum, when circumstances do not contra-indicate this practice; they should be allowed also to walk out of the confines of the asylum, to attend places of amusement, visit scientific exhibitions; and the resident medical officer should make himself their friend and companion; thus inspiring them with confidence in his skill and kindly intentions, and reconciling them to the degree of moral restraint to which they may be unavoidably subjected.”

[19] In Belgium, where many of the pauper lunatics are located in religious houses and are attended upon by the frÈres and soeurs of these establishments, it is not uncommon to find the patients at certain times of the day totally deserted and left to their own devices—the attendants being engaged in their religious duties!

[20] It may be as well to state that the Poor-Law Commissioners also worked out the problem with very similar conclusions in 1851, and that the investigations made by the Swedish Government into the condition of the insane in Norway in 1835 further corroborate the statement that insanity prevails to a greater extent in rural than in urban districts.

[21] If the spectator, while leaning over the rail of the wharf and watching “Oyster Street,” as the costermongers call the line of oyster-boats moored side by side, has ever been at a loss to understand why it is that in the very height of the market, when the decks are crowded with purchasers, the sailors are seen hanging about the boats, or seated upon the bulwarks, taking their morning pipes, whilst the duty of measuring and carrying the oysters is being performed by the “Fellowships” belonging to the corporation of London, he will now know the reason. Steam will, however, surely abolish many of these city abuses, and rail-borne oysters will lend their powerful aid to rail-borne coal in abolishing regulations which are not in accordance with the emancipated spirit of the age.

[22] Since this was written, the new market in Copenhagen Fields has been opened, and a totally different state of things now obtained.

[23] This return contains some small proportion of game, the quantity of which is not stated.

[24] There is, we confess, some little discrepancy between this estimate of the country-killed meat at Newgate, and the known quantity brought in by railway, as most assuredly 161,200 oxen, 509,600 sheep, and 62,400 calves and pigs, far outweigh the 36,487 tons of meat brought by the different lines, even “sinking” the offal. But so assured is Mr. Giblett, and the Smithfield Commissioners with him, that he is under the mark, that we give credit to his estimate, and take it for granted that much country-killed meat must come to market by other conveyance than the railway.

[25] Since the above was written, these fine buildings have been taken possession of by Sir William Armstrong, where, under the veil of secrecy, his extraordinary ordnance is now constructed to the entire exclusion of the old style of cannon.

[26] The French manufacturer who executed the order addressed a letter to one of the Emperor’s chamberlains, from which we take the following extract:—“It is, I believe, the first time that England, who was hitherto regarded as able to supply the most unforeseen wants of her army, should find herself obliged to have recourse to French industry. I had it too much at heart to sustain the reputation of my country in the eyes of our rivals to leave anything undone towards the execution of an order which was intrusted to me, and I have had the satisfaction of receiving from the English Government the most flattering compliments. With a view to perpetuate the memory of that operation, which is almost an event in industry, I have ordered a medal to be engraved by M. Louis Merley, who gained the great prize at Rome, and who is one of the artists of whom France is proud. I desire earnestly to obtain the favour of presenting this medal to his Majesty the Emperor, as also the model of the rifles fabricated for England; and I pray your Excellency to be good enough to solicit for me an audience of his Majesty.” The audience was granted, and the medal and the model of the fire-arm presented in due form.

[27] The merchants are provided annually with a sample of Waltham Abbey powder to guide them in their manufacture.

[28] We may more truly liken the system to the warming apparatus of a hot-house. The hot waters of the Gulf, conducted across the Atlantic, are the forcing power which stimulates the vegetation of Cornwall, whence the London market is supplied with its early vegetables.

[29] The effect of this Act, which passed in 1839, was most marked. In the three years previous, the average annual loss of timber ships was 56½, and the loss of life 300. In the three years subsequent to its coming into operation the loss of ships fell to 23½, and the loss of life to 106.

[30] Whilst the civil workman is called in to do the work of the soldier at home, strangely enough we send out the soldier to do the work of the emigrant abroad. A force of Royal Engineers some time since left these shores for the purpose of discharging this office in British Columbia.

[31] Mr. Jeffreys informs us that he saw during the mutiny a recruiting sergeant’s placard in which there was an engraving of a British trooper cutting down a Sepoy and taking from him a bag of treasure.

[32] This idea of a sanitary officer for armies in the field originated with Mr. J. Ranald Martin, who has long advocated the measure in his correspondence with the medical journals, and with the East India Government. To this gentleman we also owe the suggestion of a health officer in civil life.

[33] Code of letter signals in the needle telegraph commonly used in England. Two needles are generally employed, in order to facilitate the transmission of signals:—

Let a denote a deflection of the left-hand needle to the left, a´ to the right; b a deflection of the right-hand needle to the left, b´ to the right. Then here is the code:

Thus F is indicated by two successive deflections of the left-hand needle to the right; R by a simultaneous deflection of both needles to the left. Where both needles are required they may be and are deflected simultaneously; where one only is used its deflections must of necessity be successive. The sign + means “I do not understand;” the letter E “I do understand.”

[34] It may interest our readers to reproduce the first published notice we can find of Professor Wheatstone’s experiments relating to the electric telegraph, and which appeared anterior to his connection with Mr. Cooke:—“During the month of June last year (1836), in a course of lectures delivered at King’s College, London, Professor Wheatstone repeated his experiments on the velocity of electricity which were published in the Philosophical Transactions for 1834, but with an insulated circuit of copper wire, the length of which was now increased to nearly four miles; the thickness of the wire was 1-16th of an inch. When machine electricity was employed, an electrometer placed on any point of the circuit diverged, and, wherever the continuity of the circuit was broken, bright sparks were visible. With a voltaic battery, or with a magneto-electric machine, water was decomposed, the needle of the galvanometer was deflected, &c., in the middle of the circuit. But, which has a more direct reference to the subject of our esteemed correspondent’s communication from Munich, Professor Wheatstone gave a sketch of the means by which he proposes to convert his apparatus into an electrical telegraph, which, by the aid of a few finger stops, will instantaneously, and distinctly, convey communications between the most distant points. These experiments are, we understand, still in progress, and the apparatus, as it is at present constructed, is capable of conveying thirty simple signals, which, combined in various manners, will be fully sufficient for the purposes of telegraphic communication.”—From the Magazine of Popular Science (Parker, Strand) for March 1, 1837.

[35]

[36] In justice to the Company, which is very properly jealous of the particulars of its messages transpiring, we beg to state that we acquired the above fact from a person totally disconnected with the Electric Telegraph Office.

[37] Mr. Reuter now performs this duty both for home and foreign news.

[38] The use of the metal or earth-plate will be understood from the following statement of Steinheil:—“Owing to the low conducting power of water or the ground, compared with metals, it is necessary that at the two places where the metal conductor is in connection with the soil, the former should present very large surfaces of contact. Assuming that water conducts two million times worse than copper, a surface of water proportional to this must be brought into contact with the water. If the section of a copper wire is 0·5 of a square line, it will require a copper plate of 61 square feet surface in order to conduct the galvanic current through the ground, as the wire in question would conduct it.”

[39] It may be as well to state that nearly all the continental telegraphs have formed themselves into a confederacy, called the Austro-Germanic Union, which includes the lines of Austria, Prussia, Saxony, Bavaria, Hanover, WÜrtemberg, the Netherlands, Denmark, and the Grand Duchy of Baden. The Union regulates the tariff and all questions relative to the working of the allied lines.

[40] See “Tariff of the Rates charged for general Dispatches on the Pittsburgh and Louisville Telegraph, Jones’s Electric Telegraph, New York,” p. 105.

[41] The West of England Fire-Office, which retains the command of its own engines.

[42]

[43] Repeated reference to this valuable work has more than confirmed the opinion we originally expressed of it. There are few books of greater utility than what is in fact a “History of London, Past and Present.”

[44] The roof of the pile of buildings composing Somerset-House is also continuous, thereby greatly increasing the risk of the entire building, if one portion of it were to catch.

[45] In Nottingham, where they have gypsum in the neighbourhood, as they have in Paris, they form their floors and partitions in the same solid manner, and the consequence is, that a building is rarely burned down in that town.

[46] The following are the stations of the fire-escapes:—

Western District.—1. Edgeware Road, near Cambridge Terrace; 2. Baker Street, corner of King Street; 3. Great Portland Street, by the chapel; 4. New Road, corner of Albany Street; 5. New Road, Euston Square, in front of St. Pancras Church; 6. Camden Town, in front of “The Southampton Arms;” 7. Battle-bridge, King’s Cross; 8. Guildford Street, Foundling Hospital; 9. Bedford Row, south end; 10. Hart Street, Bloomsbury, by St. George’s Church; 11. Tottenham Court Road, by the chapel; 12. Oxford Street, corner of Dean Street, Soho; 13. Oxford Street, corner of Marylebone Lane; 14. Oxford Street west, corner of Connaught Place; 15. South Audley Street, by the chapel; 16. Brompton, near Knightsbridge Green; 17. Eaton Square, by St. Peter’s Church; 18. Westminster, No. 1, Broad Sanctuary; 19. Westminster, No. 2, Horseferry Road; 20. West Strand, Trafalgar Square, by St. Martin’s Church; 21. Strand, by St. Clement’s Church.

Eastern District.—22. New Bridge Street, by the Obelisk; 23. Holborn Hill, corner of Hatton Garden; 24. Aldersgate Street, opposite Carthusian Street; 25. Clerkenwell, St. John Street, opposite Corporation Row; 26. Islington, No. 1, on the Green; 27. Islington, No. 2, Compton Terrace, Highbury End; 28. Old Street, St. Luke’s, corner of Bath Street; 29. Shoreditch, in front of the church; 30. Bishopsgate Street, near Widegate Street; 31. Whitechapel, High Street, in front of the church; 32. Aldgate, corner of Leadenhall Street and Fenchurch Street; 33. The Royal Exchange, by the Wellington Statue; 34. Cheapside, by the Western Obelisk; 35. Southwark, in front of St. George’s Church; 36. Newington, Obelisk, facing “The Elephant and Castle;” 37. Kennington Cross; 38. Lambeth, by the Female Orphan Asylum; 39. Blackfriars Road, corner of Great Charlotte Street; 40. Finsbury Circus, corner of West Street; 41. St. Mary-at-Hill, corner of Rood Lane; 42. Conduit Street, corner of Great George Street.

[47] Mr. Walker, the superintendent of the A Division, we believe, selected the works in these libraries. The love of books evinced by this gentleman sufficiently proves that literary tastes are not incompatible with the energetic performance of police duties.

[48] The partiality for the cook ascribed to the policeman is, we are assured, a slander upon the force. The commissariat at home is too good to justify any suspicion of this ignoble sort of cupboard love.

[49] We have extracted this anecdote from the very interesting work published by Captain Chesterton, entitled “Revelations of Prison Life.”

[50] Since the above was written, the attention of Government has been drawn to the condition of our mines, and a commission of inquiry will speedily, we hear, be appointed.

[51] W. T. Cox, Esq., in British Medical Journal.

[52] A just appreciation of the value of life is, perhaps, of more importance to Friendly Societies than to Insurance Offices, inasmuch, as the range of sickness in the working classes is much more extensive than in the upper and middle walks of life. Mr. Hardwick, in his manual on enrolled Friendly Societies, has pointed out the fact that the vast majority of these societies are based upon calculations which must in the end terminate in their bankruptcy: and among the causes which tend to this disastrous result he mentions the total disregard evinced in these clubs to a proper estimate of the states of health in different occupations and localities. It must be clear that the potter, whose average amount of illness between the ages of 20 and 70 is more than 333 weeks, obtains a very unfair advantage over clerks or schoolmasters who may happen to be in the same club with him, and whose average of sickness during the same period is only 48 weeks. The dyer, again, who, under the present system of management of Friendly Societies, may be admitted to a club on the same terms as a wheelwright, claims for 293 weeks of sickness against the wheelwright’s 64. The healthy country artisan is thus made to pay for the unhealthy town mechanic. If we take the case, again, of the miner or the Sheffield grinder, and huddle him, without inquiry, into the same Friendly Society as the agricultural labourer, it must be clear that the latter must pay for the more than average sickness of his fellows. Until the relative value of life and of sickness among the working classes is thoroughly understood and acted upon, as regards the payments of members, it is clear that the healthy trades must be sacrificed to the unhealthy ones.

[53] An ingenious Frenchman, of the name of Bernot, has just invented a file-cutting machine which will, we trust, come generally into use, and do away with the paralysis arising from the present handicraft. It is said that the workmanship of the machine is more even than the hand-work: the files cut in the morning by the artisan being superior to those cut in the afternoon, in consequence of his muscles becoming tired.