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:—

Age.EXPECTATION OF LIFE IN
In-door occupation, withOut-door occupation, with
Little Exercise.Great Exercise.Little Exercise.Great Exercise.
2041·882242·013337·801743·4166
3035·117034·502230·143536·5832
4027·911327·800423·035729·1284
5020·502221·180517·275421·9732
6014·043015·141311·016915·5635
708·649010·44074·56079·3313

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.