control of public opinion and to legislative inspection. It is in the large shops that you find the large brains at the counting-desk men who can understand sanitary needs, and are not hampered by the petty necessity of domestic economy which weighs down the solitary workman. It is the large establishments that take the trouble to answer questions upon sanitary matters addressed to them by the State authorities.

CHAPTER VI.

DURATION OF LIFE IN VARIOUS OCCUPATIONS.

As

S everybody would like to know that he has a prospect of long life, everybody has a certain curiosity in regard to the statements of science concerning the effect of his own work on the duration of life. There are a good many facts going the rounds, and if taken with allowances for the circumstances, these facts are valuable. But there is so great a contradiction between the statements of different authors, that the most meagre statements are, perhaps, the safest.

From Hirt's tables I select a typical trade or two to represent each period of life, dividing life into periods of five years. My selection is, of course, arbitrary.

Among the operatives who die on the average before the age of 40 years, I find porcelain-turners, stone-cutters, and female mirror-makers.

Under 45, goldsmiths, lead and quicksilver miners. Under 50, cabinet-makers and operatives in cottonmills - not very wholesome, and not particularly hurtful occupations.

Under 55, to my surprise, come some trades which I should have put much lower. Needle-polishers are

said to average 50, file-cutters 54, engravers 54.6, and so forth. It is possible that a good many classes fall in here simply because it is rather a medium age at which to die, independently of other circumstances.

Under 60 years (also a good medium age, on the favorable side,) we find blacksmiths, butchers and carpenters, machinists and turners, the watchmaker who measures our life for us, and the grave-digger who takes our measure for the last time.

Under 65, it is interesting to find set down the classes of tanners, dyers, gas-men, catgut makers, and bone-boilers-trades which may remind us that long life is not to be attained by shirking disagreeable or offensive tasks.

Above 65, only three trades are mentioned.

In England, the rates of mortality among different classes have been estimated by Dr. Farr, who states that the shortest lives are found among earthenwaremakers, tailors, needle-makers, makers of files and saws, veterinary surgeons and farriers, railway employés, coachmen and cabmen, commercial clerks, butchers, publicans, innkeepers. A good deal of this mortality is due to habits of excessive drinking and exposure to the weather.

Physicians and surgeons, chemists and druggists, mercers and drapers, hair-dressers, barbers, wig-makers, and hatters, miners, and some others, have a high, but not an excessively high, rate of mortality. Carvers and gilders suffer less than they did; and manu

facturers of wool, silk, and cotton no longer experience an exceptionally high mortality, owing to the zealous efforts made by Lord Shaftesbury and his enlightened colleagues in promoting sanitary legislation.

Among the healthy classes may be named carpenters, wheelwrights, and workers in wood generally; shoemakers, grocers, publishers, and booksellers.

Among the healthiest and longest-lived are the agricultural classes, game-keepers, barristers, and the clerical profession. But solicitors and Catholic priests in middle and later life form exceptions.

Metal workers, in the aggregate, do not experience the average rate of mortality under 45, but after this age the case is reversed; miners have a still higher rate, and both classes have a much higher rate than agricultural laborers.

From the "Massachusetts Registration Reports" I will quote the following statement of the average age at death of nine general classes of men, the average of all classes and occupations being 50.94 years:

NOTE.

THE following works on gymnastics may be named as useful:

Manual of Gymnastic Exercises, arranged on Hygienic Principles and adapted to music. By E. H. BARLOW. Amherst, Mass., 1866.

Manual of Gymnastic Exercises for Schools and Families. By SAMUEL W. MASON. Boston, 1863.

Handbook of the Movement Cure for Prevention of Spinal Deformities. By M. ROTH.

How to Get Strong, and How to Keep so. By WILLIAM BLAIKIE.

Training in Theory and Practice. By ARCHIBALD MACLAREN.

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