'Needlewomen, embroiderers, and lace-makers 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 exqui'site 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 'Housemaids' knec,' 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 his 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, with

Out-door occupation, with

Little Exercise. Great Exercise. Little Exercise. Great Exercise.

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 his 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 diseasecancer 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.

Waiters in hotels and taverns sap their health by surreptitious tippling. A medical friend says, his experience of them is, that with few exceptions, they are all rotten with perpetual imbibition. Footmen do not drink so much, but they are SO grossly over-fed and under worked, that they are always suffering from plethora. Jeames' aim is to run to calves, but he pays the penalty for his ambition. They are, in fact, in the position of the convicts at Fremantle, Australia, who, during the time that our soldiers were dying for want of food in the Crimea, suffered from what was significantly called the gluttony plague. Excessive over-feeding and underworking was, it appears, the rule at the convict establishment, and in consequence no less than 1554 patients were under medical treatment in less than six months, with diseases of the digestive organs, inflammatory affections of the eyes, and cutaneous eruptions. The physic of short allowance and plenty of work soon set matters to rights. It is not often that the lower or middle classes suffer from over-feeding, but drink is the bane of many trades and occupations. The gigantic brewer's drayman, who seems built as a match for the Flemish team he drives, is but a giant with feet of clay; his jolly looks are a delusion and a The enormous amount of beer and stout he is allowed by his employers-on the principle, we suppose, that you should not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn so deteriorates his blood, that a scratch prostrates him, and any serious illness is pretty sure to carry him off. The common labourer, who lives under pretty much the same condition, with the exception of the temptation to drink, has an average life of 47 years, but he is cut off at the early age of 43 years.

snare.

If we take another class of persons thrown continually in the way of tippling, we find the result is equally unfavourable. The pot-boy of the metropolis, with whose doughy face and pert leer we are so well acquainted, scarcely lives out half his days. In his case, in addition to continual potations, he is perpetually breathing, until twelve o'clock at night, an atmosphere compounded of drunkards' breath, stale tobacco, and all the impurities arising from the brilliant gas illumination of a gin palace; it is not, therefore, surprising to find that his average age is but 414 years; while the footman may reckon upon helping himself to his master's venison until he is 44 years old. The publican is almost as great a sinner as his man in the way of intemperance, and his life in consequence is at least 2 years shorter than the very limited span of the tradesman.

Dr. Guy, who has taken considerable pains to ascertain the value of life in the educated classes, has worked out the extraordinary result that, the higher the step in the social