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time is hard to detect, and there is every reason to believe it
it extremely common.
Moreover, the hours of labour are irregular; comparatively
little is done on Mondays and Saturdays, while long
hours are worked on the remaining week-days, and night work
is common.
Working at an exhausting occupation, in a hot damp
atmosphere charged with saline impurities, days of long hours
alternating with days of comparative idleness, the laundress is
especially exposed to the temptation of drink and often
succumbs.
Alcoholism is prevalent amongst laundry workers, and
in some districts the " beer lunch " is an established custom
of the trade.
Under such conditions of work it might be expected that
laundry workers would have a high mortality figure and that
they would be especially subject to consumption, and there can
be little doubt that such is the case. Unfortunately, however,
it is very difficult to obtain reliable statistics on female
occupational mortality, owing to the method which is usually
employed in registering female deaths. A man's occupation
is always stated on the death register, but in the case of a
woman it is customary to state the occupation of the husband
or father. Hence the method employed in calculating male
occupational mortality is not, except perhaps in certain
districts, available for females.
Miss Deane, one of H.M. Lady Inspectors of Factories,
in investigating the prevalence of consumption amongst
laundresses some years ago, adopted the method of comparing
the percentage of phthisis cases to total cases admitted to the
Infirmaries of the Wandsworth and Clapham and Isleworth
Unions during the years 1898 and 1899, in the case of
laundresses and of women other than laundresses
respectively. Adopting this method I was able, by
the kindness of Dr. J. B. Neal, the Medical Superintendent,
of the Wandsworth and Clapham Union Infirmary, to examine
the case books of the Infirmary from January, 1894, to June,