OBJECTIVE.
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tion reports of Massachusetts for the last nine years also show, that, in the large manufacturing towns, the death-rate from diseases presumably incident to such employ exceeds that of other towns of similar population. We have, therefore, the testimony of our own and foreign observations, to the existence of results which we have come to recognize as associated with special causes, more especially overwork coupled with innutrition and non-sanitary surroundings.
Notwithstanding the great improvements which the past few years have made in cotton- machinery, and the processes of labor in cotton-factories, the following comprehensive statement of a German writer * still too » correctly depicts the effects of labor in the dust, etc., of such factories.
“ Soon after entrance into the workshop, the workman perceives it (the dust) in a most unpleasant way. In those who are unaccustomed to it, it causes continual tickling in the throat, which incites
* Dr. Ludwig von Hirt : Krankliirten der Arbeiter, Breslau, 1871.