atmosphere of English cotton mills is extremely detrimental to health.
In flax and tow mills, the same results follow from much the same causes, viz: the breathing of the fine particles of flax and dust held in suspension in the atmosphere of these mills. There is one portion of fine flax mills which is exempt from these pernicious ingredients; but the female laborers in these rooms have to be constantly with their hands in hot water, surrounded by steam, which makes these rooms equally, or perhaps more unhealthy than the others. This is in consequence of each thread of fine linen yarn having to pass through hot water, in the act of spinning. This makes the fibres of flax move more freely among each other, and enables the manufacturer to produce much finer thread than he could possibly do without the artificial heat applied in this way.
The woolen and worsted mills are free from all the peculiarities of the foregoing branches of trade. In woolen mills, it is true, there is an effluvia arising from the oil, which is profusely used, in addition to the natural animal grease, or yolk of the wool; and likewise from the dye, in which, in some branches, the wool is prepared before its processes commence in the mill. But the worsted, which consists of the longest fibres of the fleece, must first be worked perfectly clean, and rendered as free as possible from the natural animal grease, and other impurities. This I think a material point of distinction in favor of the healthiness of the worsted trade.
The short fibres which are disengaged, and fly off as waste in the various processes of the woolen and worsted manufacture, are not of the like injurious nature as cotton "flyings," as they are too heavy to be held in suspension in the atmosphere, and accordingly, instead of floating in it, they fall to the ground.
Of the silk manufacture, I should think, from the nature
