Page:How contagion and infection are spread, through the sweating system in the tailoring trade.djvu/12

6 there is scarcely a home of a working man with children that disease and sickness do not sometimes enter, such as measles, whooping cough, scarlatina, many kinds of infectious fevers, and in some cases that deadly malady the smallpox; therefore it is as necessary we should be as careful to provide against the spread of disease as we are that it shall not be generated by foul atmosphere or adulterated food. It becomes a subject of self-protection that we should know where our clothes are made; and in the present age it devolves upon the tradesman to find healthy, clean, and well-ventilated workshops for his workpeople. The security of the public demands that such should be the case; and we find that recently, cases have come to light in connection with the tailoring trade that prove there is danger imminent and terrible in turning the home of the worker into his workshop. The Lancet, Sanitary Record, Globe, Truth, Despatch, and many other newspapers of authority, have repeatedly shown up cases where this system seriously affects our well-being; but it will be seen from the following facts that not only does this system affect those engaged in it, but the general public also, as it creates a medium whereby contagious diseases are conveyed to them. Hence the imperative necessity that a clause should be inserted in some Act of Parliament which bears upon this question providing for the inspection of all such places. In support of such a proposition we submit the following facts:—

Dr. Farr, in a letter to the Registrar-General for England, which appeared in the Daily Telegraph of 14th October, 1872, says:—"The subtle death germs are spread in a thousand ways. It is, when all is said and done, safer upon the whole to play with the deadly cobra than to touch a rag from the body of a scarlatina patient."

Dr. Littlejohn, of Edinburgh, while on oath as a witness in a case before the Court of Session, in December, 1872, stated that "He considered the sweating system as very likely to spread contagion as woollen garments retained the germs of infection much longer than any other cloth material. He had no hesitation in saying that this system was dangerous to the community."

Dr. O'Leary, of Dublin, M.P. for Drogheda, in a lecture delivered by him in the Mechanics' Institute of that city, on 11th October, 1872, denounced the system known as sweating among tailors as one productive of disease, immorality, and death. By its agency smallpox had, during the recent epidemic, gained access to the homes of the wealthy. He stated that in these sweating houses children infected with smallpox had been actually wrapped in the clothes that were a few hours afterwards sent home to gentlemen.

The Lancet's Special Sanitary Commissioner, in his report of the 29th January, 1876, alludes to the danger of the spread of epidemic disease by journeymen tailors, needlewomen, &c. He says, "The greater part of the making up of clothes is done at the homes of the workpeople, and not only are these homes often abominably unclean and unhealthy, but work