Flax tow.
Rag bagging.
Leather waste.
Tarpaulin. Etc., etc.
Rags.—Linen and cotton rags are imported into Great Britain from almost all the countries of Europe, and even from the distant states of South America, British South Africa, and Australasia. The greater proportion, however, come from Germany. The rags collected in England chiefly pass through the hands of wholesale merchants established in London, Liverpool, Manchester, and Bristol, and these are sorted to a certain extent before they are sent to the paper-mills. By this rough sorting, which does not include either cleansing or disinfecting, certain kinds of rags which would be useless to the paper-maker are separated and sold as manure. Woollen rags are not usually mixed with cotton rags, but are generally kept apart to be converted into "shoddy." The importance of disinfecting rags before they pass through the hands of the workpeople employed at the paper-mills cannot be over-estimated, and it is the duty of every Government to see that this is effectually carried out, not only at such times when cholera and other epidemics are known to be rife in certain countries from which rags may be imported, but at all times, since there is no greater source of danger to the health of communities than in the diffusion of old linen and cotton garments, or pieces, which are largely contributed by the dwellers in the slums of crowded cities.
Respecting the disinfecting of rags, Davis[11] thus explains the precautions taken in the United States to guard against the dangers of infection from rags coming from foreign or other sources. "When cholera, or other infectious or contagious diseases exist in foreign countries, or in portions of the United States, the health officers in charge of the various quarantines in this country require that rags from countries and districts in which such diseases are prevalent shall be thoroughly disinfected before they are allowed to pass their stations. Rags shipped to London, Hull, Liverpool, Italian, or other ports, and re-shipped from such ports to the United States, are usually subjected to the same rule as if shipped direct from the ports of the country in which such diseases prevail. It is usually requisite that the disinfection shall be made at the storehouse in the port of shipment, by boiling the rags several hours under a proper degree of pressure, or in a tightly-closed vessel, or disinfected with sulphurous acid, which is evolved by burning at least two pounds of roll sulphur to every ten cubic feet of room space, the apartment being kept closed for several hours after the rags are thus treated. Disinfection by boiling the rags is usually considered to be the best method. In the case of rags imported from India, Egypt, Spain, and other foreign countries where cholera is liable to become epidemic, it is especially desirable that some efficient, rapid, and thorough process of disinfecting should be devised. In order to meet the quarantine requirements, it must be thorough and certain in its action, and in order that the lives of the workmen and of others in the vicinity may not be endangered by the liberating of active disease-germs, or exposure of decaying and deleterious matters, and that the delay, trouble, and exposure of unbaling and rebaling may be avoided, it must be capable of use upon the rags while in the bale, and of doing its work rapidly when so used."
Disinfecting Machine.—To facilitate the disinfecting of rags while in the bale, Messrs. Parker and Blackman devised a machine, for which they obtained a patent in 1884, from which the following abstract is taken.
Formerly rags and other fibrous materials were disinfected by being subjected to germ-destroying gases or liquids in enclosed chambers, but in order to render the disinfecting process effectual, it was found necessary to treat the material in a loose or separated state, no successful method having been adopted for disinfecting the materials while in the bale. "This unbaling and loosening or spreading of the undisinfected material is absolutely unsafe and dangerous to the workmen, or to those in the vicinity, because of the consequent setting free of the disease germs, and the exposing of any decaying or deleterious matters which may be held in the material while it is compressed in the bale. The unbaling and necessary rebaling of the material for transportation also involves much trouble and expense and loss of time. Large and cumbrous apparatus is also necessary to treat large quantities of material loosened or opened out as heretofore."
Fig. 1.