Undesirable Proposals.

305

troubled with a toothache were obliged to send a messenger and witness on horseback eight or ten miles to the nearest town, in order to procure a little laudanum or chloroform to relieve his pain. In addition to the regulations we have described, the promoters of the bill propose others which we conceive to be not in all respects so desirable. They wish that after a certain date no person should be allowed to set up a druggist's shop and compound prescriptions, or sell certain poisons, without having undergone at least one examination. The list of poisons given is as follows:

They wish also that the minor examination should comprehend Latin, the knowledge of proportion of doses, materia medica, pharmacy, chemistry, combinations in medicine, and the atomic theory and medical botany; that the major examination should go a good deal further (we need not consider that at present); that the druggists who pass the minor be inscribed as 'registered,' those who pass both to be described as 'registered pharmaceutical chemists; and that the examinations be conducted by examiners appointed by and from among members of the Pharmaceutical Society, who shall have power to exact certain fees (at present these fees are fixed at ten guineas, five guineas for each examination), the money to be added to the funds of the society; that druggists at present in business be allowed so to continue conditionally on paying a fee of ten shillings by way of registration fee; and that outsiders be forbidden under severe penalties to sell poisons or make up prescriptions if written in Latin; but, if written in English, they are by some whimsical distinction termed recipes, and the rule would not apply. Against all this it may be fairly urged that as it seems to be admitted that carelessness, not ignorance, lies at the root of three accidents out of four, these casualties would be better prevented by regulations increasing the responsibility, and augmenting the formalities in the sale of poisons, than by a system of compulsory examination.

That to create a monopoly in any particular trade, and place that monopoly under the absolute control of a certain society, giving to this authority to exact fees, fix the standard

for

for examinations, appoint examiners, in fact, to make a large income levied on the trade, would be granting vast powers, and reserving very small means of preventing the abuse of them. There is also the weak point, before alluded to, which presents itself forcibly in the constitution of the society. At present, according to one witness (vide ans. 826), out of the 2,000 men who are members, only about 600 have passed the examinations. And as the number of other druggists who would by the proposed scheme enter without examination is very large, the result would be that, whereas now thirty per cent. are examined men, that proportion would be reduced to ten per cent., and we should have the vast majority of unexamined men legislating for the terms on which others should be allowed to enter in future. Of course the natural wish of the Pharmaceutical Society is to raise the status of their profession, and to protect their own interests; and stringent examinations and high fees would undoubtedly operate in that direction, but in all questions of this kind the convenience of the public must be provided for. With regard to medical men generally, and physicians particularly, it is to their interest and convenience that there should be a properly distributed supply of druggists, sufficiently well educated to select and compound drugs accurately, and clever enough to understand their crabbed handwriting and queer hieroglyphics, but not one straw's breadth beyond that point. Bearing this in mind, we are not surprised to find that, whereas Mr. John Mackay thinks the caveat emptor principle insufficient to work with, Dr. Quain considers it ample for practical purposes, and hints that the minor examination should be kept low (ans. 425), that there ought to be great facilities for passing it, and direct control from the Secretary of State as to the character of examinations and the amount of fees, and that great judgment would be necessary as regards rural districts and outlying villages. (Vide ans. 480.) It will strike many persons that the standard of the minor examination and the fee exacted are both absurdly and unnecessarily high, if they are to be made compulsory, and are well calculated to make the ordinary certified druggist anxious to reimburse himself by extending his practice as the poor man's doctor.

How difficult it would be to prevent this may be gathered by the following extract from the report :

"A man goes into any chemist's shop and tells him, I have got a headache; will you give me a dose for it. Will you allow him to give me a dose ?'-' Certainly.' Supposing I went on Monday? If you went every day for the same disease I think the chemist should be prevented from treating you.'

Supposing I went on Tuesday with the same headache?'-'If you did I would

not interfere.'

'And

What are the Boys About?

307

'And if I went on Wednesday, would you then prohibit me?'-'Yes, I should say the chemist was acting systematically as a practitioner.'

Three days act systematically?'-'We shall say so.'

"Two do not?'-That would be a medium.'-Vide page 37.

Even if by any ingenuity this sort of illegitimate practice could be always and everywhere prevented, there remains a point the importance of which has, we venture to think, been overlooked. The Pharmaceutical Society charges a fee of five guineas for the minor examination only, but the Apothecaries' Company for six guineas grants, after examination, (of course a much stricter one,) a diploma for country practice, which confers a right of visiting patients at their own homes, prescribing medicines, as well as keeping a shop and selling drugs. Many would say, 'It is much better worth my while, if I must pass an examination and pay a fee, to take up the last instead of the first.' And so a small army of apothecaries might be raised up, who, relying on their shop as well as their practice, could undersell both surgeon and certified druggist.

There are many other interesting questions raised on the report, but as neither of the bills is likely to pass in its present form, there is time for the medical profession and the society to try to come, if they can, to some unanimous understanding, and prepare a judicious and liberal measure which shall, nevertheless, be a substantial reform on the existing law.

ART.III.-WHAT ARE THE BOYS ABOUT?

I the

Ntheir first and second reports, the Commissioners appointed and young persons in trades and manufactures not already regulated by law, dealt chiefly with the condition of the working female population. Their third report treated exclusively of metal manufactures, and had reference, therefore, chiefly to the employment of males. By that report we were taken into South Staffordshire, Worcestershire, Yorkshire, Durham, Northumberland, Scotland, and North and South Wales; into the blast furnaces where iron is melted, and into rolling mills and forges in which the pig iron is converted into plates, rails, rods, bars, wire, and so forth. On the evidence they collected, the Commissioners recommended that the iron furnaces and the rolling mills and forges should be placed under the regulations of the Factory Act, with a view of

abolishing

abolishing night work for the young, and of securing the half-time system of hours of work and education for all under thirteen years of age. Moreover, they recommended the abolition of Sunday work, and the forbidding of the employment of females on the pit banks and on the coke-hearths; but, with regard to meal-times, they would except the boy puddlers from the operations of the Factory Act.

In their fourth report, which has only recently been printed, the Commissioners have included sundry final pickings of evidence in regard to similar metal works in Yorkshire and Derbyshire, and to the copper works of South Wales; but without having found reason to vary the conclusions they had previously arrived at. Besides blast furnaces and rolling mills, the Commissioners dealt in their third report with miscellaneous manufactures in the Birmingham, Wolverhampton, and Lancashire districts. They enter in their fourth blue-book upon the Sheffield district; and gather up, in addition, the results of inquiries over a wide surface of sundry manufactures, not covered by their previous investigations. Examining this fourth report, we discover that it is founded on inquiries conducted by Mr. J. E. White, Mr. F. D. Longe, and Mr. H. W. Lord. Mr. White's investigations refer to the metal manufacturers of the Sheffield district; the tobacco manufacturers; the manufacturers of bobbins, and the glass makers. Mr. Longe reports as to the iron shipbuilding yards and engineers' works, the letter foundries of London, the copper works in South Wales, the handloom carpet trade in the West Riding, the tobacco manufacture in Glasgow, London, and Leeds, the umbrella and parasol handle makers of Gloucestershire, and sundry paper mills. Within Mr. Lord's researches are included heald knitters, the tobacco manufacturers in Lancashire, some of the india-rubber workers, artificial flower and ostrich feather manufacturers, tailors, boot makers, hatters, glovers, paper makers, and the glass makers of Lancashire. With regard to all these we have here a copious presentment of information; and although now and again it affords glimpses of hardships and miseries inflicted upon girls, the report as a whole has to do with the employment of males. And everywhere the tale. seems to be the same;-children put to work long before they are fit for it, shut up in ignorance in order that they may add a few shillings a week to the family income, robbed of their health, blanched, stunted, deformed, and exposed to all sorts of influences intellectually suffocative and morally mephitic. Here and there we meet with employers of nobler mind, who do their best to ameliorate the lot of their young workpeople; and where the worst conditions prevail, the fault rests often

rather

rather on the shoulders of journeymen or parents than of the capitalist himself; but the melancholy fact remains that the child's intellect is sealed up, its heart wrung, and its inheritance of this world forestalled and wrested from it, less by the necessities of its rank, than by the vices of its parents, the cruelty of fellow-workpeople, or the thoughtlessness or greed of the employer. It is comforting, however, to be assured, and the reports of the Commissioners give us the assurance, that in the case of these, as of so many other children happier than they in having had the earlier attention of the Legislature, rescue to a large extent is within the power of the lawgiver; that much may be done by judicious enactments to secure fair play for the young toilers of the land; and that their health, their education, and their morality to boot, may all be promoted by Act of Parliament.

In casting the eye over this fourth report, to learn more particularly what the boys are doing, we find that lads between ten and fourteen years of age are employed in large numbers in foundries in Leeds, Bradford, Huddersfield, and elsewhere in the West Riding of Yorkshire, making machinery used in the worsted, woollen, flax, and other spinning and weaving trades. They run errands; they mind self-acting machines; they drill holes in iron or wood, or they fill' combs with teeth. The older boys file and fit, turn cast or wrought iron, mind machinery, or assist in casting. On the whole, the work in itself is not unhealthy; but overtime is common in almost all the manufactories.

The regular hours of work are eleven and a half to thirteen per diem; including half an hour each for breakfast and dinner. The regular hours,' long as they are, are irregular in point of frequency in the observing of them; overtime is the rule. The Commissioners report that 'the habit of working overtime is by no means necessary as regards the young;' and they agree with Mr. Wardle, an employer at Hunslet, that by a law preventing the employment after six o'clock of all youths under eighteen, employers would probably not suffer, and it would be a good thing for the lads. Provision for compulsorily fencing dangerous machinery is also desirable.

A vast number of boys, as young as nine, bnt generally between ten and fourteen years of age, are found waiting, in couples, on each set of rivetters in the iron shipbuilding yards and engineers' works on the Clyde, at Stockton, near Greenwich, in London, and wherever plate iron constructions are in progress. They are often uneducated and badly cared for. The boys heat the rivets in a portable furnace, and carry the red-hot rivets to the rivetters; work sometimes dangerous,

but