to make out descriptive lists of the places characterised by foul smells, by common nuisances, and by overcrowded and badly constructed tenements; and that weekly tenements, and the like places, where overcrowding exists in connection with disease, should be distinctly marked in the district maps.

(g). The marks on district maps should be transferred to general maps.

(h). In the metropolis and in other towns where ordnance surveys have been made copies of the ordnance maps on the largest scale be used, and in other cases tracing of town surveys.

(i). In aid of such maps the chief seats of the miasmatic diseases should be accompanied by lists, with observations by the registrars or other union officers, and a statement of the density of the population.

(k). That maps and lists constructed and marked in the manner recommended should be published without delay for the use of all concerned in sanitary inspection.

VIII. That it is desirable that local associations should be formed to visit the places pointed out in the maps and lists, and to organise a system of voluntary house to house visitation, to ascertain the conditions which require removal or mitigation.

NOTE. The following are among the effects which may be reasonably expected from the proposed local associations and examinations, viz., more accurate information as to the extent and nature of defects of the sources of water-supply of many districts, of such injurious defects as sewer-tainted wells, water kept in uncovered butts and tanks over privies or dungheaps, and defects in the ordinary qualities, quantities, and methods of the distribution of the water supplied-as means of house and street cleansing, as well as for personal cleansing, for clothes washing-especially for the poorest classes-as also defects of sinks, drains, and means for removing foul or waste matter, the extent of existing defects of house and street drainage, the extent of cesspools and of house drains, and of sewers of decomposing deposit, which are only extended cesspools.

IX. That special local inquiries be directed to the state of the existing provi sion for receiving and treating cholera cases in union-houses, hospitals, houses of refuge, &c., and as to the means provided for the immediate removal, not only of the dead, but of the sick, from rooms which are at once the living and sleeping rooms of the poorest classes, to places specially provided for the purpose.

X.-That a special fund be raised to defray the expenses of the Committee in printing, correspondence, obtaining and distributing returns, and otherwise and that a susbcription be invited for this purpose.

October 24th, 1865.

BILLS.

In the last Session of Parliament several attempts were made in sanitary legislation; a Bill for facilitating the more useful application of Sewage in Great Britain, and a Bill to amend the laws for the Protection of Rivers and Streams in England. These Bills were brought forward by Lord R. Montagu, but were subsequently withdrawn. Two Bills were brought forward for regulating the trade of Chemists and Druggists; one proposed to apply the system of registration and examination in use under the Pharmacy Act of 1852, the other to establish a new body, consisting of a "Council of the Chemists and Druggists of England," to be under the control of a Commissioner appointed by the Secretary of State. These Bills were also withdrawn.

REPORTS.

A third Report of the Committee on the Utilisation of Sewage was issued this year, containing many new and valuable experiments

in agricultural chemistry, and on cattle-feeding. A Committee also sat to inquire into the most useful and profitable mode of disposing of the Sewage on the north side of the Thames; and although this inquiry refers principally to a Private Bill (the Hope and Napier plan of employing the Sewage in Essex Marshes), it involves matters of great importance, both as regards the Utilisation of Sewage and the principles of Local Taxation.

The following Reports, which have appeared during the year, deserve special mention :-The 7th Report of the Medical Officer of the Privy Council on Public Health; the 20th Report of the Registrar-General of Births, Deaths, and Marriages, and the Supplement to the 25th Report; a most valuable summary of the causes of Death, and the proportions of death-rate to population in all parts of England for the last ten years, and the Report of the Medical, Sanitary, and Statistical Condition of the Army and Navy up to 1863.

UNHEALTHY OCCUPATIONS.

In what Way can the Needless Exposure of Workmen to Danger to Life and Health be best avoided, especially in Collieries, Mines, and Manufactories? By P. H. HOLLAND.

BEING a Medical Inspector under the Government, and a member of the late Mine Commission, it is proper to remark that anything I may say is entirely unofficial. In considering the question, it is necessary to inquire, what are the needless dangers to which the particular workmen in question are peculiarly exposed, and how those dangers can be best guarded against, and how both masters and workmen may be best induced, or, it may be forced, to adopt the precautions necessary for avoiding such danger? By needless danger I do not mean such as could only be avoided by abandoning dangerous occupations, or by precautions so costly as to render such occupations unprofitable, but such only as might be guarded against by reasonable and proper care. It is right that dangerous work in one district should be carried on in as safe a manner as in other districts; and it is only fair that masters who refuse to do what is necessary to preserve their workmen from needless risk, should be made to pay full compensation to all who are injured in consequence. Since I brought the dangers of coal mining before the Association at Bradford, in 1859, much progress has been made, in a great degree caused by the public attention which has been directed to the subject. In 1860, the Amended Colliery Inspection Act imposed expressly upon owners and agents of mines the observance

of some important precautions which were before merely directed generally. The difference in efficiency between directing precautions to be observed by anybody, and imposing the responsibility of their observance upon certain individuals distinctly, has been most remarkable. Part of the effect is, no doubt, due to the law rendering any one who neglects a precaution, which it is his express duty to observe, liable for such pecuniary damages as result from his illegal neglect; and perhaps there is no better mode of insuring the greatest possible safety to the men than by enforcing payment by their masters for all losses occasioned by their neglect of means of safety. Imperfectly as this civil responsibility of the owners and agents of collieries is now enforced, their liability to it, or at least the distinct enactment of 1860, that certain precautions should be observed by them, has been immediately followed by a very large reduction in the deaths from those accidents against which the owners and agents have been directed to observe precautions; while there had been a much smaller reduction of those against which precautions are simply directed to be observed. Thus, during the eight years 1851-8, when about 217,000 men and boys were employed in coal mines, there were 1,002 a-year killed, on the average, by accident; while during the four years, after the Act of 1860 came into operation, though the number of colliers has increased to at least 280,000 (and probably more), the deaths from accident are actually less, and relatively very much less, namely, 957 a-year; and if the deaths at Hartley Colliery be excluded-as perhaps they ought to be, as the accident which caused them was so very extraordinary-the average will be only 906 a-year, or 96 fewer, though the colliers are at least 63,000 more. When, however, the different classes of accidents causing death are examined, the effect produced by the amended law of 1860 becomes much more striking. The precautions directed to be observed by the owners and agents of coal mines are chiefly directed to prevent explosions and accidents in the shafts; those to prevent falls of roof and coal and miscellaneous accidents are generally directed to be observed by the men. During the eight years before and the four years immediately following the amended law, the proportion of deaths, to 100,000 men and boys employed, from each great class of accidents was on the average per annum as follows:

Thus, while deaths from explosion have been reduced by half, and those from shaft accidents by nearly half their former proportion, those from fall of roof and of coal, which kill three times as many as are destroyed by explosion (the danger which almost exclusively attracts public attention), remain nearly as numerous as they were. If the responsibility of guarding against falls of roof or coal were imposed upon all owners and agents of coal mines, there can be no doubt that the frequency of these accidents, by which eight lives are, on the average, lost every week, would also be reduced probably by half possibly by more than half, their present fearful number.

In the districts where men are employed for the special duty of guarding against such falls, accidents are very much less frequent than where the propping or spragging is done by the pitmen themselves. This is precisely what might be expected, for men employed to perform a particular important duty are likely to be selected from amongst those who perform it best, and they will certainly acquire greater skill and knowledge for the proper performance of that particular duty; and, what is perhaps still more important, they will have no inducement to neglect this work, as the pitmen have. These being paid in proportion to the coal they get, and not for time occupied in propping, &c., are thereby tempted to neglect it as much as they dare, while they will permit vo neglect by others which endangers themselves. If the law imposed upon the owners and agents the duty of taking precautions against fall of roof in all pits, which duty has been voluntarily undertaken in the best managed mines, there would not be, as there are now, above four hundred lives ayear, eight a-week, lost by falls of roof and coal. More than half of those deaths, and a much greater number of severe accidents not fatal, might be prevented, and would be prevented, by such an extension of the Act of 1860. It will be difficult to prove that this great and needless cause of danger should be allowed to continue, simply because certain coal owners prefer not to undertake a duty which clearly ought to be imposed upon them, and which the best managers of coal mines do, with great advantages to themselves as well as to their men, voluntarily undertake.

The excessive danger of coal mining is notorious, but many are not aware that metal mining is much more destructive of life. Coal miners who lose their lives are evidently killed, while metal miners appear to die naturally, though they are just as certainly killed by their employment as if they were burnt, or crushed, or dashed to pieces. They are destroyed by excessive lung disease, which, shortening the average duration of their lives by nearly nine years, shortens the period of productive labour by at least one-third, makes many wives widows, and numerous children early orphans. Though the excess of deaths amongst miners when young is not great, when they get above 40 it is enormous, as is shown by the following table of the annual death-rate of males in Cornwall amongst 1,000 living, of all ages above 15, from all causes :-

That this enormous excess of fatal lung disease amongst miners is caused by their employment is evident, for it is confined to those who work underground. It is not caused by the climate of Cornwall for that is unusually mild and equable, and other Cornishmen, not miners, are less than usually liable to such diseases; nor is it due to hereditary predisposition, for their children are remarkably healthy, and the other members of miner's families do not suffer from it, nor do the miners themselves until they have worked for some years underground. The same facts prove that it is not caused by any peculiarity in their mode of life at home or of their dwellings, or of food, or clothing, all of which are similar to those of their families (who do not suffer) and somewhat better than most of the other labouring classes can obtain. Neither is it caused by excessive duration of work, which is shorter than the average. Lastly, those miners only suffer considerably from excessive lung disease, who work either in badly ventilated mines, or who have to climb ladders from great depths, or who breathe much gritty dust or powder smoke, or candle fume, or who are exposed to wet or cold, when overheated by climbing, or by working in hot or close air.

When a number of causes of disease are acting together in the same direction, as in this case, it is difficult to prove which is the most injurious. My own belief is, that bad ventilation with its consequences, the breathing of hot, close, and foul air, the confinement of powder, smoke, and candle fume, and especially the increased liability to catch cold after working in close, and therefore hot and