quarrymen, masons, stone-carvers, and stone-breakers. If the material be sandstone, the injury is less severe, because the stone can be worked without much force, and the particles have no keenly cutting edges; but granite is sadly disastrous, since the sharp fragments of this stone will cut into the eye as forcibly as chips of metal; and the like may be said of particles of flint. Coke-grit is a modern but not less mischievous cause of injury; railway-guards, and passengers in open third-class pleasure-trains, are much exposed to the attacks of sharp angular particles of coke, blown out by the strong blast of the engine; these particles, whether impacted in the cornea, or driven under the eyelid, of course occasion much inflammation. Formidable injuries are inflicted on the sight of masons, bricklayers, hodmen, plasterers, and lime-burners by particles of lime, especially if the lime be in a caustic state. Miners, firework-makers, rock-blasters, quarrymen, and gunpowder-makers are, from the very nature of their several employments, exposed to imminent peril of the destruction of eyesight by explosion; and particles of powder are also likely to be driven into or against the eye. Millers, chimney-sweepers, mortarmixers, dustmen, and drug-grinders are constantly exposed to the irritating influence of small particles of dust upon the eyes. The fork-grinders of Sheffield, and, to a less degree, the needle-grinders of Redditch, are, in like manner, affected injuriously by steel-dust. In the clothing districts, many of the workers in wool, cotton, and flax are frequently liable to the intrusion of small fibrous particles under the eyelids; and the same may be said of feather-workers and fur-workers. Soda-water bottling is a perilous employment, seeing that the fragments of bottles that have burst, and corks that are forcibly driven out, are frequent sources of lamentable injury to the eyes. Engineers are sometimes placed on the sick-list, not merely by the attacks of small particles of metal on the eyes, but by the injurious influence of blasts of steam. When the finishers or gilders employed by bookbinders were accustomed to heat their embossing-irons by charcoalstoves, the eyes suffered much from the fumes; but this evil has been lessened by a partial use of gasstoves. Book-finishers and gold-beaters are not unfrequently observed to be near-sighted, an effect supposed to be caused by the yellow glare to which they are so constantly exposed.

Notwithstanding the length of this melancholy list, it is satisfactory to learn that by far the larger number of eye injuries are due to causes not necessarily attaching to particular trades, but are susceptible of improvement, if not absolute removal. These causes are numerous, as we shall presently see.

One cause is overwork. Mr White Cooper, surgeon to St Mary's Hospital, said in reply to the queries of the committee: 'Injuries bear but a small proportion to the enormous number of cases of overwork of the eyes, varying in degree from slight derangement to absolute blindness, but all interfering more or less with the due use of the organs of vision.' With the same opportunities of observation, Mr Dixon, surgeon to the London Ophthalmic Hospital, stated that a large proportion of patients who apply at that establishment, on account of what they term weakness of sight, owe the defect to mere over-use of the eyes. I mention over-use rather than any special trade,' he says, 'as the exciting cause; for every day's experience teaches us that needlework, and other occupations requiring close attention to minute objects, may be followed without injury to vision. Tailors suffer much from this over-use; they frequently make long days of work; they are sewing black materials for many hours consecutively; their constrained posture causes congestion about the eyes; and the want of fresh air in their heated workrooms renders them susceptible to "catarrhal ophthalmia" when they go into the open air. |

The same may, to a considerable extent, be said of dressmakers and needlewomen. The Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital includes always among its patients a large number of Spitalfields weavers, whose eyes become injured by long hours of work and insufficient exercise. The copying-clerks employed by lawstationers suffer much in eyesight through the long hours of night-work to which they are frequently subject during the sittings of parliament and of the law-courts. Lacemakers are found to suffer in sight, not only from the long-continued work necessary to furnish them with the means of subsistence, but also from the constrained position in which they bend over their cushions. A like observation applies to the lacerunners employed by the bobbin-net manufacturers at Nottingham. Mr White Cooper states: "The number of persons in this metropolis who suffer from overwork of the eyes is very great. On referring to my records, I find that 1320 such cases came under my notice in nine years, the large majority being tailors, shoemakers, and female workers with the needle. ... I have been repeatedly told by milliners that twelve, fourteen, or sixteen hours a day, was the ordinary duration of their labour, and this often in foul and badly ventilated apartments. Milliners and tailors are especially liable to suffer from extraordinary demands upon their powers of endurance; a large amount of work is required to be completed within a limited time; this involves the loss of sleep and close confinement in an atmosphere loaded with impurities, and heated to an exhausting extent.'

Another cause is excess of light. In large tailoring and dressmaking establishments, where many persons work in one room, much irritation of the eyesight arises from that superabundance of light which gas can be made to afford. Watchmakers and engravers are subject to premature exhaustion of the visual powers; for they are not only necessitated to throw a strong artificial light on their work during the long winter evenings, but they even concentrate the rays by magnifiers. Sailors often suffer from excess of sunlight, as do likewise harvesters and haymakers. Blacksmiths, cooks, and engineers are among those whose eyesight is troubled by excess of furnace-light. Mr France, lecturer on ophthalmic surgery at Guy's Hospital, adverts to a curious kind of superabundant light which would not have occurred to many besides oculists. 'If the Society of Arts,' he says, 'would exert its influence with the public to abolish the present custom of decorating shop-fronts with broad plates of brass, they would effect an important oculosanitary improvement: these brazen mirrors, when in summer weather the sunshine is perfectly reflected from them, are in truth a very serious evil to the vision of passers-by.'

A third cause is deficiency of light. Those tailors and sempstresses who work in large establishments, are, as has been said above, liable to irritation of the eye from excess of gaslight; but those who work at home too often suffer from deficiency of light; their windows are darkened by contiguous buildings, while a small cheap candle affords insufficient light in the evening. There appears to be a custom among dressmakers of making up their white and coloured materials during the day, and reserving black work for the evening, on the ground that white or delicate fabrics are apt to become soiled by the smoke of artificial light. The reason assigned may or may not be a sound one; but the practical effect is that of fatiguing the eye by evening-work upon a substance which, by the very circumstance of its being black, reflects little light to the eye. Nothing can tell more conclusively on this point than a few words used by Mr White Cooper: I have invariably found that a general_mourning increased the number of applicants for relief at the ophthalmic institutions to which I am attached’—

owing to the blank, dreary, wearing and wearying obscurity of the light from black work. Fine work has some such effect as dark work upon the sight; for the eye aches in the endeavour to appreciate each minute spot on the work to be done. Engravers frequently suffer from this cause. The closers,' statchers,' and 'stabbers' of boots and shoes are in like manner troubled in eyesight by the closeness of the stitches to be made.

A fourth cause is badly applied light. The light by which a worker pursues his avocations may be neither too great nor too small in actual amount; yet there may be a want of tact in its adjustment sufficient to irritate and injure the eye. Wherever a draught of air gives a flickering motion to a flame, the eye becomes thereby irritated and inflamed; and in some printing-offices where the compositors are employed during long night-hours, this evil is said to be much felt. The colour of the light is often a subject of injury. Mr Cousins, one of those from whom the committee sought information, said: 'Needle women, embroiderers, and lacemakers should work in rooms hung with green, and having green blinds and curtains to the windows. When in North China, I became convinced of the very great advantage with which this rule has been adopted by the exquisite embroiderers of that part. Their books of patterns are frequently called Books of the Lady of the Green Window.' He further remarks: Needlewomen would find great advantage in changing the colour of their work as frequently as possible; the rationale of this is found in the law, that variation of stimulus is necessary to preserve the tone and health of any organ of sense, and that prolonged application of the same stimulus exhausts it.' The ill effect experienced through remaining many hours in a room lighted by several jets of gas, is probably due quite as largely to the exhalation of the gas as to the brightness of the light. Much unnecessary suffering, too, is borne by persons who work with a light at too low a level; in full many a case, ease would be found to result from an adjustment of the light at a higher level, such as to allow, as in nature, the brow and lashes to shelter the pupil and iris, and to prevent the impact of direct rays upon the optic nerve.

There are multitudes of minor causes of injury to sight, arising, in great part, from the recklessness of workmen while engaged at their employments. Mr Devlin, a bootmaker, who has written much and excellently both on the social and on the technical characteristics of his trade, drew the attention of the committee to the fact, that shoe and boot makers often ruin their sight by smoking short pipes while bending over their work. The bowl of the pipe, hour after hour, is sending out its fumes within a few inches of the down-turned eyes. A shoemaker,' he narrates, a voracious smoker, having been compelled to apply, through the failure of his sight, to the celebrated oculist, Dr (Mr?) Alexander, this gentleman, immediately he held the head of the wretched sufferer before his observation, exclaimed: "Why, you have brought this all upon yourself! You are your own eye-destroyer! That short pipe which you stick in your lips is doing it all! Throw that bad and filthy thing aside. There can be no remedy for you until you drop this vile propensity. Why, man, you are burning your very eyeballs out of their sockets!" So he told him, and then and afterwards he did what he could for his patient; but all unavailingly as regarded a complete restoration of sight; and now, in his visual benightedness, he is compelled to sell matches in the streets of London.'

Now, in collecting all this sad calamity of eye misfortunes, the Society of Arts, of course, had something more in view than to excite commiseration. The primary objects have been, to ascertain the value of all existing

means of prevention, and to suggest others for future adoption. These means must necessarily depend on the nature of the employment. All artisans who are exposed to eye injury from chips, splinters, dust, grit, or fluff, would do well to look about them for eye-protectors. 'Goggles,' or spectacles of wire-gauze, might often be used with advantage by such persons; and, indeed, stone-breakers in Germany are said to use such. The grinders at Messrs Rodgers' cutlery-works at Sheffield wear, many of them, very large spectacles of plain flint-glass. Dr Gibb expressed to the committee the following opinion on the great 'beard' question: I am quite certain that many, in fact a large number of artisans, who are exposed to the influence of dust, grit, chips, splinters, &c., from the nature of their occupation, suffer more in proportion to the absence of beards and whiskers, than those who possess those appendages. This is a fact which is becoming established every day. I have followed this observation out to some extent in practice, in the treatment of diseased eyes from dust, &c., with shaven faces, where there appeared, at the same time, to be a weakness in the organ of vision from the latter cause. On the growth of the beard, when the affection of the eyes was cured, the weakness disappeared, and many whose eyes were before diseased through the nature of their occupations, after obtaining beard and whiskers, were to a great extent exempt from a return of their eye affections. This may be attributable to two causes: the first, the protection afforded to the face by the hair, the strengthening and tonic influence imparted in consequence to the nerves of the face and eyes, and the general improvement of the health from the comfort experienced in wearing the beard; the second, the arrest of the particles of dust and grit by the hair of the beard and whiskers, thereby relieving the eyes. Without at all going into the question as to the propriety of wearing the beard and whiskers, I mention these facts as likely to prove useful, in reply to some of the questions in the special memorandum; but I will observe, in conclusion, that there is a great deal of sympathy between the beard and the eyes, and an abundance of evidence could be brought forward to prove it.'

Many workmen are exposed to the sudden entrance of small particles between the eyeball and the upper lid: a careful laving or bathing of the eye seems the best cure here; and Mr White Cooper has devised an ingenious little contrivance for this purpose, to be fitted up in workshops. In the numerous cases where the light which falls upon the workman's eye or upon his work is either too great or badly arranged, many preventives have been partially adopted, and others suggested-such as due caution against overworking the eye at one time; frequent changes, if possible, in the size and colour of the substances worked upon; avoidance of black work, if practicable, by artificial light; the employment of slightly tinted blue glassshades, or judiciously arranged paper-shades, in front of gas-jets; a substitution of daylight for nightlight in all employments, so far as the usages of modern society and the necessities of the workers will permit; the avoidance of red or warm colours, and the substitution of green or blue, in avocations wherein the eyesight is much employed; the use of a reflector over a gaslight, to throw down the illumination on the work, and shield it from the eyes of the workman, &c. Mr White Cooper, when speaking of eye-shades, observes: "The ordinary shades have had the objection of heating the forehead and eyes, by not allowing the escape of vapour from them. An optician has, at my suggestion, made a shade working on hinges, which does away with the objection by allowing of ventilation; and it can also be adjusted at any angle most convenient to the wearer.'

As to injuries to the eyesight resulting from excessive

honest trader, don't you see? carrying on a traffic in horses, though I shall be able to prove that for the six hide-bound old screws he took out, he must have paid more in Buenos Ayres than he could possibly sell them for on the African coast. Besides these nags, the Yankee had a cargo of hardware, guns, nails, tools, metal rods-the proper things to barter with the natives—and he was to bring back produce, so he says.

'Well, he sailed. I kept a bright look-out, and never lost sight of his topmasts during the voyage.

'His course was evidently towards the Bight of Benin; but when he got within eighty miles of the Guinea Coast, the old fox doubled, and ran down in the night towards Cameroons. The brig sails fast, as slavers always do; but the Lynx is the tightest, trimmest little boat on a wind, in the whole'

"There, there, Horne; I know all that.'

'Well,' resumed Horne, 'I was coming up with him, hand over hand, so round he went; and running round some sandy keys, made for the Calabar River. I gave chase, and he then steered for the Bonny. This would never do; a squall, a fog, even a dark night, and he would escape me, and carry his cargo of ebony safe to America. So I ran down, fired a gun and sent a boat to fetch the skipper. He met me with a provoking grin, and said, as he squirted tobaccojuice over my clean white decks: "Well, cap'en, you've got me, and I hope you like me. You've captured me, I guess; but to get the brig condemned is another and a 'nation different story." And so it is, Ned, and I'm afraid I've only burned my fingers by my precious caption. The mixed court won't condemn her on bare suspicion. The crew are as close as wax, and the Yankees keep watch on the Spanish sailors, so no one can split if he wanted to.'

'And if you don't get her condemned, Horne?' said I. 'If I don't, I'm a ruined man, that's all,' he returned with a quiver in his lip very unusual to him. I'm a poor man, as you know; and if my prospects are blighted, what is to become of my wife and my poor boys? It was for their sake I was so anxious for more prize-money, and I thought this ship would have paid for James's three years at Cambridge, and left a handsome nest-egg in the bank too. But if the brig's declared an honest trader, I must pay compensation for seizing her, and detaining her illegally, and dockyard-men, labourers for the search, fees, wages, and what not, until I'm a beggar. Worse, too; I shall be in the "black books" of the Admiralty, and perhaps never get another ship, and then' And the honest fellow stopped, for his heart was too full to allow him to say more. Day after day the slaver lay in Table Bay, and nothing came to light. No seaman peached-no shackles were found. The Yankee skipper grinned triumphantly when he met us on the pier. You would have thought him the captor, and poor dejected Horne the prisoner, to have seen them both.

The mixed court could not come to a decision. There were the water-casks, the salt pork, and so on, but no shackle-bolts and leg-irons. Why don't you search the hold?' said I daily to poor Horne.

'I dare not,' was the answer; for there is a heavy cargo; and what with the wages of dockyard-men, and compensation to the owners for breaking bulk, the search would cost me a hundred pounds.'

saying a word to Horne, I slipped out of court, ran to the pier, and was pulled on board the brig. I soon secured an ally in the midshipman who commanded the prize-crew, and we made a most irregular onslaught on the contents of the brig's hold. Strange to say, we found the shackles! they had been wrapped in tow, and headed up in casks apparently full of saltmeat; so that, but for an accident, we might have searched till doomsday in vain. But the discovery was useless after all; for when I returned in triumph, I found Horne radiant with joy, and the Yankee crestfallen and utterly subdued. Unable to agree, the Brazilian and English judges had agreed to toss up, heads or tails of a dollar, for condemned or acquitted. Heads came up, and thus, most justly, though by sheer accident, the vessel was condemned.

COOKERY AND COOKS. WE have long been of opinion that not only your poet and your gardener must be 'to the manner born'-overshadowed from the cradle by the flowers of Parnassus or the green-house-but that those very important house-genii, cooks, are likewise so by right of birth-gift. To be really a cook, as to be really a poet, one must possess qualities accorded to but few. Quick sense of aromatic odours, equal delicacy of taste in its primary sense, fertility of invention and expedient, powers of combination, must belong to the cook in no ordinary degree. The badness of mere professors of this important art, the skill with which they spoil the good gifts of Providence, are no more arguments against this theory than the detestable infliction of sham poetry is against the heaven-born genius of the poet; nay, it is rather an argument in its favour, the rareness of the gift proving its excellence.

The truth is practically acknowledged by the remuneration of the gift when possessed. One of the late Sybarites of the regent's days gave, we know from certain authority, L.400 a year to her cook; and L.100 a year are the ordinary wages of one who would probably designate himself as an artiste.

And like other followers of art, your true cook has an idiosyncrasy of his own: a self-consciousness, a jealousy of non-appreciation, a delight in discovering new combinations of old materials-what else is left to either cook or poet?-and an exultation in casting a glamour over the senses of his duller neighbours by the witchery of his art-an art, too, let us whisper, of much greater importance than we coarse Anglo-Saxons have comprehended till lately, when a great cook became one of the supporters of an army, and made manifest the fact that, as man is an eating animal, he may not with impunity disre gard one of the laws of his being.

In ancient times, when man had not learned the evils of indigestion-judging by his length of days and the paucity of physicians-cooking was held in high honour, and practised by noble and princely persons. It is the hands of the queenly Saralı that prepare flesh of the calf and baked cakes for the food of angels. Rebecca's delicate cookery deceived even the practised taste of Isaac, and was the instrument misemployed to bring a prophetic blessing on a peculiar people.