Journal of the Society of Arts.

FRIDAY, JUNE 9, 1854.

EDUCATIONAL EXHIBITION.

The time limited for applications for space having now passed, the Committee are at once proceeding to allot the space to the different Exhibitors, notice of which will be forthwith sent to each.

The applications have been extremely numerous, and there is no reason to doubt but that a very large and valuable collection will be got together, and that St. Martin's Hall will be filled to overflowing. The Society is now organising a series of Lectures, to take place, during the Exhibition, upon the subject of education generally, as well as upon the various articles which will be exhibited. Commissioners have been appointed by different governments on the Continent and in the United States of America, to attend the Exhibition, which will thus take the character of a Great Educational Congress.

The Lords Commissioners of her Majesty's Treasury, have given directions for the admission, duty free, of articles coming from foreign countries and intended for this Exhibition, under such regulations as the Commissioners of Customs may think it advisable to make.

--

The Council of the Society of Arts solicits attention to the intended Educational Exhibition at St. Martin's Hall,

in June next.

To give full development to this undertaking, to procure the co-operation, not only of the great Educational Societies and Institutions at home, but also in the Colonies and the Continental States, and to illustrate it by Lectures, with practical discussions, a considerable outlay must be

incurred.

The Council deems it a duty to secure the funds of the Society from an expenditure which would interfere with its ordinary proceedings, and therefore invites the cooperation of the Members of the Society and of other friends of Education.

The following subscriptions have been already received: £. S. d.

100 0 0

H.R.H. Prince Albert, President
Amount of subscriptions already pub-
lished, including that of H.R.H. 677 18 0

LEGAL POSITION OF INSTITUTES.

Mr. Hutt, one of the Vice-Presidents of the Society, has kindly taken charge of the Bill prepared by the Council respecting the legal position of Institutes, and it was brought into the House of Commons and read a first time on Friday last. The title is "A Bill to afford greater facilities for the establishment of Institutions for the Promotion of Literature, Science, and the Fine Arts, and to provide for their better regulation."

The Bill consists of thirty-nine clauses. It has for its object the enabling persons whether entitled in fee simple or to limited interests only in land, corporations, and public bodies, to convey by way of gift, sale, or otherwise, land not exceeding in quantity an acre, as a site for an institution. Power is also given for the conveyance of the

lands of infants and incapacitated persons for the like purposes, and a simple form of grant is provided in the Bill. Any number of sites may be granted, provided they are for separate Institutions. When the Institution is not incorporated, the Bill provides that the site may be conveyed to any corporation as a trustee in its behalf, or to individual trustees; and in the latter case, the provisions of 13 and 14 Vict., c. 28, are made applicable, by which new conveyances on the appointment of new trustees, are rendered unnecessary. Stamp duty on conveyance by way of gift to be 5s., and the death of the grantee within twelve months shall not invalidate the grant. The Bill then provides for the application of the purchase money in different cases, and certain clauses of the "Lands Clauses Consolidation Act, 1845," are made applicable. Trustees of Institutions to have power to sell or exchange lands or buildings, or to let off the same in portions. Trustees to be indemnified from all charges in respect of the land, and, if made liable, to have power to mortgage or sell the premises to indemnify themselves. The Bill then proceeds to provide that in incorporated Institutions having no special provision as to personal property, and in all other cases where the Institution is not incorporated, the personal property of the Institution shall be vested in the governing body for the time being and in all proceedings, civil and criminal, may be described as the property of the governing body. Institutions may sue and be sued in the name of the corporation, when incorporated, and, when not incorporated, in the name of the public officer. Institutions to have power to make bye-laws and enforce them, with an appeal on the part of any member to the Charity Commissioners against any bye-law. Members to be liable to be sued as strangers. Members guilty of criminal acts to be punishable as strangers. Institutions to have power to extend or abridge their purposes, with an appeal on the part of any member to the Charity Commissioners. Provision is made for the dissolution of Institutions and winding up their affairs.

McDouall, Colonel
Moody, Rev. Clement, M.A.
Robinson, Henry Oliver

Ramsden, Sir John Wil

liam, Bart., M.P. Ruston, Rev. James, M.A. Tripp, James S.

Previous to the reading of the Paper, the Secretary called attention to a model of Mr. C. J. Redpath's Smoke-Consuming Furnace, the idea of which was partly derived from Mr. C. W. Williams's Argand Furnace. The air was introduced through the outer plate of the furnacedoor, which was perforated for the purpose, and it then passed upwards into an air-box above the fire, from which it descended in a heated state into the fire, causing the most perfect combustion of the fuel. Opposite the air-box before alluded to there was a valve, which could be opened and shut at pleasure, to admit air directly to the fire without passing between the plates of the furnace

door. When fresh coal was added to the fire, handicraftsmen surrounding themselves with the defences and a large quantity of air was required, this against pain and death placed in the power of their su periors. These causes it is the business of Political valve was opened; as soon as the charge had Economy, State Hygiene, and the science of Education to become ignited the valve was closed. The cold investigate and teach us how to remedy. But there is air continually impinging on the inner plate of also a class of causes arising out of the nature of various the furnace-door, kept both it and the ash-pit descriptions of bodily exposure and exertion; pain, sickness, and death, accrue from some things necessarily part cool, which was a great consideration on board of the work, without doing which the man could not be steam-vessels. It also prevented the rapid dete-industrious at his trade. Here lies the field for Industrial rioration of the door. The furnace-bars were not more than three-quarters of an inch thick by six inches deep; and were placed half an inch apart; they were grooved on the top, thus making the set corrugated, offering a broken surface to the fuel, and thereby less inclination to clinker. This furnace could be applied to any boiler at a comparatively small cost, and in a short space of time. The expense of fitting it to a 30 h. p.ened by temporary want of food that he was not fit for boiler, including brickwork, furnace-bars, &c., would be about £30. It might be seen in operation at Messrs. Wackerbarth's, the sugar refiners, and also at the Lea Cut Iron Works.

The first Paper read was

INDUSTRIAL PATHOLOGY; OR THE ACCIDENTS
AND DISEASES INCIDENT TO INDUSTRIAL
OCCUPATIONS.

By T. K. CHAMBERS, M.D.

I come to this room to-day for the purpose of introducing a subject, not indeed wholly new to the Society of Arts, but yet probably new to most of the present members. New, too, is the mode adopted of taking it up, namely, the appointment of a special committee, the undertaking of a special exhibition, and the issue of special circulars and reports upon it. I think, therefore, it cannot be devoid of use, and I hope not of interest either, to explain somewhat at length, what Industrial Pathology is, that is, what its aims are in the opinion of those who are taking a part in its promotion; why the Society of Arts should concern themselves with it; and what the Council propose to do in the matter.

Industrial Pathology then-(I do not particularly admire the name, but I did not make it)-Industrial Pathology is the "science of bodily SUFFERINGS connected with the carrying on of handicraft work."

Pathology. The first class of evils depend mainly on the
work not being sufficiently regular or plentiful, or being
under-paid, or some such economical mis-management;
the second is aggravated by abundance; the more a man
has to do the worse he fares, and hence the propriety of
the term "Industrial." I will illustrate this. There are
two coal-whippers at a time of a commercial crisis in the
coal trade; fewer hands are wanted; one gets turned out
of work, and the other is kept on. In six months time
the one out of work is starving, because he was so weak-

employment when he could get it. It is the business of
The other man has worked as hard as possible in the way
the political economist to remedy commercial crises.
you know these fellows are engaged, jumping up a foot or
two and throwing their whole weight on to a rope for ten
or twelve hours a day; it is I believe the most wasteful,
unscientific, and pernicious expenditure of human muscle
that ever was devised. The consequence is that his
heart cannot stand it, the fibres are overstrained with
these continued violent jerks, and the organ becomes
diseased. After a tedious illness, during which he is an
incumbrance and expense to society, the industrious,
Here it is that Industrial
well-paid man dies at forty.
Pathology comes into play. It is the duty of that science
to find out why such and such labour is injurious in a
special manner, and to suggest a remedy. For example,
in the instance quoted above, we may find out that it is
the sudden jerk which is the cause of the injury to the
circulation, and devise some better mechanism than is
at present in use.

Again, painters are liable to colic and palsy from the use of white lead; we may introduce a substance equally convenient, in the shape of white zinc or other substitutes.

Tailors sit all day in a confined atmosphere, with the legs crossed and the spine bowed, so that neither the ribs nor the digestive organs have room to act. The conse quence of course is that the stomach and bowels become disordered, the spine twisted, the gait shambling, and the power of taking the exercise necessary to health obliterMan's Creator ordained that he should eat bread in theated. If an artist wants to represent a starveling, he takes "sweat of his brow," but he did not ordain that he should a tailor as his model; if a plump rosy man were to tell you eat it in suffering, in the rotting of his vitals, the peril he was a journeyman tailor, you would not allow such an ing of his soul, and the welcoming of premature death. evidently inexperienced workman to mend your coat. Though labour is the lot of our species, it is healthy, in- With a life einbittered by indigestion, what wonder that vigorating labour which is natural to them, and not that a tailor takes to opium, gin, and tobacco, the only things which entails misery and pain. that make existence endurable. Now cannot these evils be corrected? The cross-legged position is assumed because in the ordinary sitting posture the heavy cloth could not be held near enough to the eye. The problem is to invent some sort of table which would be equally convenient.

The highest and most natural state of man being the greatest perfection of body and soul, any occupation which tends to shorten his days, to make him a discomfort to himself and his neighbours, is unnatural, and a proof of barbarism and defective civilisation. Every country where such occupations exist is lower than it might be in the social scale, has not yet done its utmost to place man in his proper position as king of the world. As long as he that toils with the hands has a life shorter and more physically painful than he that toils with his brain, the duty of self-improvement is unperformed by a people.

It is not necessary for me to observe that such is the case now in every known nation-that the corporeal labourers are both shorter lived and endure more physical evils than the mental labourers. Statisticians are explicit enough on that point. Now it will be found on enquiry that there are two distinct classes of evils to account for this. In the first class are included poverty, ignorance, political weakness, and other circumstances which prevent

Shoe-makers and boot makers suffer equally from a constrained position, and also from the pressure of the last against the stomach. Heartburn and painful digestion are so common, that a certain pill in the Pharmcacopeia (the Pilula Sagapeni Comp.) is called the coblers' pill. A patient of mine, now in St. Mary's Hospital, has a hollow big enough to put one's fist in, from the pressure inwards of the breast bone by the boot-tree; of course his lungs and heart are diseased by such distortion. Cannot some one devise a new sort of boot-tree, which will not drive its tap roots into people's lungs?

Looking-glass makers and water-gilders are constantly coming into hospitals for mercurial paralysis; and when they go out of the hospital they are not fit for much else

than the workhouse. There are two ways of remedying
this one is to give them some protection against the
poisonous fumes; and the other is to improve and cheapen
rival modes of gilding and silvering, in which mercury is
not used.
Washerwomen constantly suffer from varicose veins and
other mechanical disorders arising from the standing
posture. It is the business of Industrial Pathology to de-
vise a chair in which they could work as at present, or else
to discover some mode of doing the same thing by the
agency of mechanics, which is now done immediately by
the unaided body-to wear out mechanism instead of
muscle, iron instead of energy.

I show you here a rotten jaw-bone, which Mr. Simon was obliged to cut out of a man's head because it was corroded by the noxious fumes evolved in the manufacture of lucifer matches. It is to be hoped that there is some mode of making them without rotting men's jaws, and this mode it is the business of Industrial Pathology to find out.

remedies. Parliament does not profess to be an inventive body, nor, except very indirectly, the cause of invention, but we do, and in this lies our peculiar aptitude for the task we are now undertaking in earnest. Let us see, as an example of government interference, how they have lately dealt with one most crying evil,-the excessive number of accidents in factories; and then think how the Society of Arts might perform the same duty. There was a great cry heard last autumn. In the three years ending October 31, 1853, there were 11,716 persons mutilated by machinery, of whom 106 were killed on the spot, and the rest had only arms, fingers, legs, and so on, cut off. This was more than ten times the number of accidents which happened in factories by other causes. While the number of machinery mutilations was, as stated above, 11,716, the other accidents were 1028. Alarmed at this, the factory inspectors thought it was time to carry out more strictly than had been hitherto done certain provisions in the Factory Act (7th Victoria), which required a perfectly secure boxing or fencing of machinery. They had observed that of these 4000 annual accidents of various degrees of severity, at least 40 of the most severe kind occurred from horizontal shafts above seven feet from the ground, and which custom did not require to be guarded like those within reach of a man under ordinary circumstances. Custom did not require it, though the strict letter of the law did. With the hope, then, of reducing somewhat at least these forty annual accidents, (which, be it remembered, were not the slighter ones alluded to, but generally fatal,) the inspectors sent round a circular, announcing their intention of requiring strict compliance with the enactment, and that all machinery, whatever its height from the floor, should be boxed. They had the opinions of the best engineers that there was no difficulty at all in this being done. Instantly up comes a deputation I trust that by these few familiar illustrations, I have of Members of Parliament, magistrates, and all sorts of made clear what Industrial Pathology is, and how it respectable persons interested in the profits of manudiffers from Hygiene. It does not profess to enquire into factories; they beseige the Home-office, and show the the health of the industrious classes generally, but only "impossibility," that is to say the great outlay of capital into their health so far as it is affected by their special involved in compliance with the law. What was Her occupations. It is desirable that this division of labour Majesty's Minister to do? Of course decide on the eviamong scientific observers and teachers should be fully dence before him, countermand the peremptory circular of understood, in order that the facts collected should be the inspectors, and take upon himself the responsibility of properly arranged, and handed directly to those who will rendering the law still dormant. A second circular was use them aright. Into the respective utility and conse-issued, making various suggestions for the greater security quent dignity of the two sciences I have not enquired: I only wish to point out which it is that the Council feel themselves called upon to take up.

Few persons who walk much in the streets can avoid often meeting a bleeding groaning mass carried by on a stretcher, having just fallen from some ill-made scaffolding. It is the business of Industrial Pathology to enquire, whether it is an essential part of the nature of our countrymen to fall from scaffolding, or whether the construction of it might be so altered as to prevent the accidents. For the encouragement of those who are possessed with the latter idea, it may be cursorily mentioned that in China they have for several thousand years used a light bamboo scaffolding, covering the entire building like a network, and certainly preventing the falls which so often happen in Europe. Our ideas seem to have travelled wholly in the direction of making it stronger, heavier, and | more unmanageable.

I now come to the reason why our Society should particularly give time and attention to the subject. It may be said that the investigation and cure of disease is not their province, nor universal philanthropy their aim. True, the raising man in the scale of creation, by advancing his arts and manufactures, is our vocation, and a great and glorious one it is; but as he that treats his friends to a banquet is responsible that no poisonous matters are in the dishes, so are we responsible for the boon we are conferring on England in increasing her material powers, to see that there is no evil contained in it, no death in the pot of sweet dainties. It would be a scurvy gift to our country to adorn her with more luxurious raiment, while the threads that compose it are the fibres, and the dye that makes it glow, is the blood of her children.

But is there nobody to take this matter off our hands? Is there no man, or set of men, who, while we are pushing on industry, will see that we do no harm? Really, there is not; it is nobody's business but ours, and nobody has the power of doing it so well and so effectually. I do not deny that government may, if rightly directed, afford most useful help in this truly great work of perfecting our country, in the same way as they aided us by the countenance given to the Great Exhibition of 1851. But their province and ours are quite distinct, and they could not take our place any more than we could take theirs without injuring the cause. It is for our rulers to require that certain evils be put a stop to; it is for us to suggest

Sug

of the machinery, such as putting up hooks to catch
lapping straps, employing only adults in dangerous places,
&c., and the test of the effectiveness of these provisions is
to be the number of accidents which occur during the
current year. But in the mean time not the slightest at-
tempt is made to alter the machinery employed.
gestions are brought forward to guard the workmen in
some degree from its dangerous proximity, but the making
the monster itself less fearful is never thought of. This is the
object that the Society of Arts would aim at; we would en-
courage the invention of less injurious machines and modes
of manufacture; we would make them public, and enable
the executive to say, "No, gentlemen, our orders are not
incapable of execution; the way to carry them out is
shown at the Society of Arts." It is our business to lead
it is the business of government to drive-to drive
those who, longer than human patience can bear it, refuse
to be led. But the leading must go first, else the driving
will be tryanny. We must serve out the straw before
we require the tale of the bricks. Whether it will ever
be wise of parliament to forbid many of the noxious modes
of handicraft work which I have mentioned, I do not
know-but I am sure it would not be wise till the possi
bility of less injurious modes of attaining the same object
can be shown.

This

I come now to the third question which may be asked concerning Industrial Pathology, viz., how does the Council propose to be of use in this matter? has been in a great measure answered by a circular which has lately been issued, and which was printed in the Journal a few weeks ago. They propose in the first place