Curiosities of Civilization Part 29

[47] Mr. Walker, the superintendent of the A Division, we believe, selected the works in these libraries. The love of books evinced by this gentleman sufficiently proves that literary tastes are not incompatible with the energetic performance of police duties.

[48] The partiality for the cook ascribed to the policeman is, we are a.s.sured, a slander upon the force. The commissariat at home is too good to justify any suspicion of this ign.o.ble sort of cupboard love.

[49] We have extracted this anecdote from the very interesting work published by Captain Chesterton, ent.i.tled "Revelations of Prison Life."

[50] Since the above was written, the attention of Government has been drawn to the condition of our mines, and a commission of inquiry will speedily, we hear, be appointed.

[51] W. T. c.o.x, Esq., in _British Medical Journal_.

[52] A just appreciation of the value of life is, perhaps, of more importance to Friendly Societies than to Insurance Offices, inasmuch, as the range of sickness in the working cla.s.ses is much more extensive than in the upper and middle walks of life. Mr. Hardwick, in his manual on enrolled Friendly Societies, has pointed out the fact that the vast majority of these societies are based upon calculations which must in the end terminate in their bankruptcy: and among the causes which tend to this disastrous result he mentions the total disregard evinced in these clubs to a proper estimate of the states of health in different occupations and localities. It must be clear that the potter, whose average amount of illness between the ages of 20 and 70 is more than 333 weeks, obtains a very unfair advantage over clerks or schoolmasters who may happen to be in the same club with him, and whose average of sickness during the same period is only 48 weeks. The dyer, again, who, under the present system of management of Friendly Societies, may be admitted to a club on the same terms as a wheelwright, claims for 293 weeks of sickness against the wheelwright's 64. The healthy country artisan is thus made to pay for the unhealthy town mechanic. If we take the case, again, of the miner or the Sheffield grinder, and huddle him, without inquiry, into the same Friendly Society as the agricultural labourer, it must be clear that the latter must pay for the more than average sickness of his fellows. Until the relative value of life and of sickness among the working cla.s.ses is thoroughly understood and acted upon, as regards the payments of members, it is clear that the healthy trades must be sacrificed to the unhealthy ones.

[53] An ingenious Frenchman, of the name of Bernot, has just invented a file-cutting machine which will, we trust, come generally into use, and do away with the paralysis arising from the present handicraft. It is said that the workmanship of the machine is more even than the hand-work: the files cut in the morning by the artisan being superior to those cut in the afternoon, in consequence of his muscles becoming tired.