The Bridgeport evening farmer. [volume] (Bridgeport, Conn.) 1866-1917, 1913-01-06

| (EXcluslVe Service The survey Press
Bureau.)
This fall I had the opportunity af-
ter the close of the Congress of
Hygiene in Washington, of visiting
states and seeing therein something
of the labor conditions and industrial
life of the people. Although visited
! a considerable variety Of factories the
number seen was too small to enable
me to make comparison between
American and British manufacturing
plants.
| Despite the larger number of labor
saving devices in use in America and
in England, there are in both coun-
! tries still some Industries, e.. g., the
| iron and steel, in which work is too
hard and the hours too long. Work
ing a twelve hour shift week after
week and months after month fire.
quently is beyond the limits of human
strength At several of the blast
furnaces in the north of England
the hours have been reduced from
twelve to eight with the result that
| the amount of iron produced is great
er than in staffordshire, where the
twelve hours still prevail. Not only
| in the north of England is production
greater but the men receive higher
wages, although working fewer hours.
| It is a well-known fact that in the
United States few American born
workmen undertake hard, disagree
left largely to the foreigners from
eastern Europe. From what I have
seen and heard of foreign 1aborers in
the states, feel that must advance
a plea on their behalf. They are
frequently given extremely dangerous
work without being instructed as to
the risks they run. A little more
humane treatme emit of these foreigners
and more sympathy extended to them
would do much to tighten the burden
of their toll and make life more
agreea bic. The large numb Der of
/ foreigners employed in the factories is
one of the causes of accidents.
Apart from accidents in no indus
try is instruction more called for than
in the manufacture of white lead. In
factories where white lead is made
factory regulations. such as those in
Great Britain, do not appear general
ly to be in force. There is no COM
pulsory periodical medical exanlina>-
ton of the workers and yet in some
of tn ewhite lead factories employers
have of their own accord required
their work people to be medically
! examined just as in England. Where
health can become so readily impair
ed and life endangered as in the man
ufacture of white lead, it should not
be left altogether to employers to
draw up regulations for the work
people.
From my visits to white lead fac
tories in the states and to different
hospitals, also from my conversations
with medical practitioners appointed
to particular factories, did not find
works of America than in England.
But until America has in all the
states adopted compulsory notifica-
ton of industrial diseases no accurate
estimate of occupationa1 plum bisn is
possible.
How to get rid of the harmful in
f1uence of the fumes which rise dur
ing transporting is as difficult a
problem in the United States as it is
in the old country. Brass pouring is
a cause of considerable bodily dis
comfort in those who follow the en-
ployment The men suffer from what
is called 'brass-founders ague.' The
malady has no conn "ct1on with ma
laria. It only resent les that class of
disease in so far as it also has three
stages hot and perspiring.
Fortunately the illness does not last
long. But the headache and the fever
tell upon the man since they are left
weakened and nervous for a day or
two afterwards and the malady may
recur twice or thrice in the course of
a summer.
There is an enormous loss of brass
in the fumes which escape into the
shop and the open atmosphere. Tons
of metal may thus be lost annually
in large brass works SO that it would
lishments to devise means for the col
lection of the fumes and the recovery
of the metal
AS regards protection of life by fire
escapes and fire drills, the United
States is undoubtedly in advance of
Great Britain. 1t is to be hoped that
present in force in New Jersey and
some of the other states will become
more general.
One sees in the limits of the con-
stitution of the United States some
of the difficulties which lie in the
way of industrial legislation and yet
health of the working classes and
through it the physique of future
generations. transcends in import
employer and employed. There ee"a are
many large questions in regard to
which state rights should be sunk.
J1.I- III
kinds of trades permissible to women
and young persons, hours of work not
only for women and children but for
men as well. protection of machinery
regulations for dangerous trade there
should be little and no difference of
opinion in one state or another
Two things particularly struck me
in my visits to American factories
One is the fewer old worlzmen seen
therein compared with England
state of things not to be wondered at
since the principle aim of factory en-
terprise is to get the utmost out of
the human machine, and the other is
labor. 1t is, admit, extremely pleas
ing in going through a factory to see |
hundreds of young women, aged from
seventeen to twenty-five and upwards, |
clean and neatly dressed when the
nature of the work permits of it, and
one cannot but in a sense join in the
pride which a manufacturer feels in |
showing d casual visitor through his |
factory in such an array of woman |
hood; but apart from the circurn-
stances that the women, are earning |
their livelihood and in some instances
tighten the call upon the family ex-
cheQuer, is there no oversight to the |
question which calls for thoughtful |
consideration?
The American nation will have lost |
considerably by having utilized in the |
production of mere material wealth.
the best years of great part of its |
available womanhood when it is so |
much in needs Of sons and daught ers |
under in fI1al
traditions of all that has made the
United States powerful, progressive
and enduring.
W. R. Fox, 1875 w. Washington ST.
NobleSville, Ind, says: after suffer-
ing many months with kidney trouble
oil