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specialties are braided fusees and wax matches. Their sanitary
arrangements are to my satisfaction. One case of phosphorus
poisoning in 30 years.
"Bryant and May's Works are in Fairfield Road, and are by far the
largest, employing about 1100 hands. All the buildings are on the
ground level, the mixing department being a separate building; there
are three mixing pots closed with pipes, conveying fumes away to
the back of the Old Ford Road. The filling department, where
matches are exploding all day long in the atmosphere, is dim and
laden with these fumes, is, in my opinion, not sufficiently lighted or
ventilated. On one of the days when I visited, though not at all a
dark day, the girls were working by gas-light. The sanitary arrangements
are now satisfactory, the hot water boilers for tea-making and
the drinking water apparatus having been moved to a part of the
building away from the factory and re-arranged. A dentist is also
employed for the periodical and entry examination of teeth.
"We now come to the points in which R. Bell and Co. contrast
with these works; the dipping and mixing are done on the roof
virtually open to the sky; in short, theirs may be called the open air
system. The mixing, the most dangerous process, is done in a closed
pot with an automatic stirring rod, just sufficiently covered to protect
it from the weather.
"The dipping redheads is also done on the roof, open to the sky
no cowls were used, the drying rooms open on the dipping space,
but of course, when in use, and powerful fans going, the doors are
almost hermetically closed, and the fumes are blown clear away from
the building. In this part of the building—in those departments
where danger ordinarily exists—there is hardly any odour; and the
fact that, though employing about 500 hands, and having been in
this factory for some years, they have had no death, and only two
mild cases of phosphorus necrosis, all the while manufacturing largely
matches made with yellow phosphorus, obliges me to modify my