whose works were examined, hang up in their
workrooms regulations amply precautionary, and
have attached baths to their establishments;
but it is found difficult to make the workpeople
take proper care of themselves, and when the
effects of lead poison become even seriously
manifest in any one, it is sometimes difficult to
get persons so affected to desist from the well-paid
employment that is injuring them. The
manufacturers of red lead suffer little, there is
less need to touch it, it does not fly about in a
fine powder, and it can be packed without stamping
down. Sugar of lead is not made in this
country. From a third to a ninth part is white
lead in the glaze of potters, which is made as a
thickish cream, into which the ware is dipped
with a skill that requires experience, so that the
dippers remain at their work for years, up to
the elbows in lead glaze for eight hours a day.
The number of dippers is small, and they suffer
little by this direct contact of the skin with the
poison, though some show the blue line on the
edge of the gums, which shows that the lead has
found its way into the blood.

Now that painted walls are less common than
they used to be, and painters, like other
men, are cleanlier than their forefathers,
lead-poisoning is much less common in their trade
than formerly. In establishments employing
fifty hands there have been only one or two
cases of lead colic in twenty years, and there has
been no case of the palsy of the hand, known as
drop-hand. The change is partly ascribed to the
use of an outer suit of washable material, worn
only in working hours, and washed every week,
in place of Ihe old usage of wearing a suit of
clothes till it was coated with paint, and
frequently not changing it after work was done.
Among plumbers also, the trade has lost its old
unhealthy character, lead colic is rare, and
drop-hand very rare indeed. To the use of machinery
in some processes, and still more to the greater
cleanliness of the men, this change for the better
is attributed. Printers, type-founders,
shot-makers, enamellers of cards and clock-faces,
floorcloth manufacturers, and glass-makers, use
lead, but without suffering therefrom any serious
consequences.

Of the workers in mercury or quicksilver, the
few who are employed in what is called
water-gilding, suffer inevitably from the fumes
intentionally produced to expel the mercury from an
amalgam of mercury and gold laid on the object
that is to be gilt in this manner. The mercury
is discharged in vapour by holding the article
that is to be gilt over a charcoal fire, and
afterwards burnishing. A glass sash descending to
the arms is placed between the workman's face
and his work when the article to be worked upon
is not so large as to make its effective use
impossible.

The five or six men employed at a time in this
process, do not, for health's sake, work in it for
more than two or three days a week, and the
process is being gradually superseded by electroplate.
In silvering mirrors a sheet of tinfoil is
laid on the stone silvering table, a large quantity
of mercury is poured upon it, and the sheet
of glass is then slid over the surface of the tin-foil,
so that an even layer of quicksilver lies
everywhere between the tin, with which it forms
an amalgam, and the glass. The excess of
quicksilver runs off the table into vessels set to
receive it, and is strained for further use. A
scum on the surface, and a greyish powder on
the table, show that there is considerable oxidation,
and it is the oxide of the metal floating as
dust in the air of the room, or eaten with the
food from unwashed fingers, which causes what
mercurial poisoning comes of this process. It
is not much now, for here also the better
management of workrooms, and an improved
sense of the use of air and water, have made an
end of the old unhealthiness. Where the
processes are carried on, as they also are in the
confined homes of poor workers, the disease
induced must be more common. The nitrate, or
occasionally, perhaps, some other preparation of
mercury, is used by the furriers in dressing skins,
and there have been even fatal cases of mercurial
poisoning as a consequence of this, but here also
disease is said to be not frequently produced.

Of printers, the mortality is high, mainly
for want of space and ventilation in the printing
offices, which frequently are old houses ill
suited for the work, for want also of the washing
of floors and stairs practised in private
houses, and of the lime-washing of walls twice a
year; for the common want also of good drainage,
and a complete separation of the water-closets
from the workrooms; for want of a wholesomely
regulated system of overwork and nightwork,
and for want of wholesome arrangement for the
taking of their meals by the compositors.
Consumption is twice as common among London
printers as it is among the general male population
of London, and the mortality of London
printers, between the ages of thirty-five and
forty-five, is considerably more than double that
of the male agricultural population; while a
great deal of this mortality, and of the great
mass of sickness and debility to which it is an
index, could be prevented if some proper and
reasonable regulations were enforced.

THE BLUE MOUNTAIN EXILE.

FROM his hut he strays forth, to gaze on the night,
  The old starry story, with mists round the dome;
And, below, 'tis a squalid and desolate sight;
  A hideous monotony—mud-gleams and gloom.

Beyond, sleeps the forest, all dark; and, between,
  Gold-diggings, deserted, like huge graveyards yawn
(The Last Day long pass'd from poor earth's work'd-out scene),
  From whose gaps both the soul and the body are gone.

Back-gazing, he broods on his lonely retreat;
  The blue-curtain'd lattice gleams faint o'er the swamp
No living thing waits there his footstep to greet,
  He will find a void cell, and his time-waning lamp.