three and a half per cent had been occasioned
by factory machinery." Three and a half
per cent ! The argument is of a substantial
character.

There is a kind of fencing for the prevention
of accident with which inhabitants of
towns are all very familiar—the fencing of
areas with iron railing. Let us suppose that
this were not now an established system, but
an innovation proposed by some pseudo-
philanthropists. Is it not manifest that the
house-owning interest would have as good a
case of grievance to make out, as that which
is put forward by the factory owners who are
asked to fence their dangerous machinery ?
Areas being unfenced—in London, let us say
—all people who are prudent would avoid
walking too close to the edge of them : the
danger would be patent, the means of avoidance
obvious ; it would be a man's own fault
if he allowed himself to tumble into an
area. Nevertheless, accidents would occur ;
probably in something less than the percentage
usual in factories. We will suppose
that the per centage of accidents would be
nearly the same ; that would give ten or
twelve thousand great and small disasters
annually, from contusions up to broken heads
and ribs and limbs, with a hundred or a
hundred and twenty persons killed. The
pseudo-philanthropist would of course cry to
a prejudiced public, Here is a great yearly
waste of life and limb, preventible by the
most simple expedient of binding every
house-owner by law to put a fence about his
area ! House-owners might then get up
deputations, form aggregate meetings, and hold
forth upon the platform, generally to this
effect : That the proposed law would put
them to a great expense without just cause ;
that the deaths by tumbling into areas, went
into the whole population so as to give a
product representing only one in about seventeen
thousand ; that the persons in London
suffering from accident of any kind through
unopened areas, amounted only to one in
one hundred and seventy-five ; that the
accidents commonly took place in spite of warning
and through obvious imprudence ; that
children foolishly played on the edge of deep
areas, knowing that they had no right to be
there ; and that in spite of all warning, the
said children would tumble in. By what
principle of justice, then, should the owner of
the area be made responsible for, and put to
expenses by, their disobedience and folly ?
That a great many more deaths had been
caused by mismanagement in the Crimea, and
that there were more accidents in coal-mines
than in London areas ; that the government
had therefore no right to protect life at
home ; and that the London house-owners
were a persecuted interest. Besides, it could
be urged, that if the fencing were established
it would lead to dangers of the most alarming
kind. It would not of course put a stop to
accidents, because children would fix their
heads between the railings and impale
themselves in endeavouring to climb over the
spikes, which would at the same time offer
serious obstacle to escape from the house in
case of fire. But, what is infinitely worse,
they would unquestionably lead to a great
English revolution, which would be a
conflagration far more to be dreaded than the
fire of Manchester, producible by fencing
horizontal-shafts. For, let any one only
consider what might be the consequence of
lining the streets of our large towns with
heavy weapons—pointed iron spikes—of the
most formidable character. Little more than
six years have elapsed since special constables
were sworn, and revolutionists were feared, in
London. Everyone knows, too, how high the
excitement often rises at a general election.
Let the time come, when in case of any such
turmoil the disputants, not left to their mere
fists and sticks, are tempted by the sight of
stands of arms lining the streets, and what
will be the consequence ? The iron railings
will be torn up and distributed among the
populace ; torrents of blood will flow : the
military will be necessarily summoned ; and
the most furious combats will begin. Barricades
will be thrown up, and the passions of
the populace, stimulated to the utmost, will
finally hurl the British empire over the
brink of an abyss. Surely it is a lesser evil
that a little boy should tumble down an
area ! Which sentiment the aggregate meeting
of house-owners would receive with
cheers and laughter ; and it would then
wisely resolve itself into a national association,
of house-owners for the maintenance of open
areas.

We turn from the wisdom of the platform
to the wisdom of the press, which renders
homage to the platform. A Manchester
newspaper has "practical evidence demonstrating
that secure fencing might vary the character
of the accidents occurring, and nothing more.
Of the two thousand accidents in the last
factory inspectors' report, we find that exactly
thirty-nine proved fatal ; but of these no less
than eighteen, or nearly one-half, are described
by the inspectors as accidents not arising from
machinery. The fatal accidents from machinery
were as one in two hundred of the whole
number ; while the fatal accidents not arising
from machinery were as many as one in every
five."

The reports of the factory inspectors are
half-yearly. They separate, in every case, the
accidents arising from machinery from the
accidents which arise in other ways : placing
them in distinct tables. From our comment
and calculation we, as a matter of course, in
the article to which this newspaper refers,
excluded wholly those accidents not arising
from machinery, which are triumphantly
produced as an answer to our case. Many of
them being preventible, some of them might
have gone by way of addition to a sum of
wretchedness already great enough ; but, we