*pulmonary disturbances must exist, and that more intensive as well as extensive study would surely reveal them." Respirators were worn by none of the employees in the industry. It was reported that they had been tried by the workers and discarded as a nuisance.

The one hat factory included in the investigation employed more than 400 people, among whom 81 physical examinations were made. All but 12 of those examined were males.

The evidence of mercurial poisoning among those examined was reported as not striking. Anemia was found in 12 of the males, gingivitis was found marked in 3 and slight in 4 of those examined; tremors of the hands, tongue, and face were marked in 7, moderate in 7, and slight in 11 others. The report conludes: "At least seven individuals, found exclusively in the blowing and forming departments. were probably suffering from mercurial poisoning."

The author, in summarizing his conclusions of the investigation, says:

Few of the working people exposed to mercurialized fur are informed of the special hazard of their occupation, nor is there evidence that they are properly guarded from the dangers of such exposure in their workroom environment by the installation of ventilating and protective devices. The provision of facilities for proper washing and for taking lunch in safe surroundings is usually either primitive or entirely lacking. The rooms in which carroted skins are dried are usually very hot, and bearing in mind the frequent opening of drying chambers in which mercury is volatilized, as well as the lack of ventilation and light in some of the carroting rooms, it is seen that a number of unsafe practices, which could readily be corrected, are permitted to exist in this industry.

The ignorance and recklessness of workers is, perhaps, best exemplified by an instance which was brought to our attention by a superintendent. A workingman, whose function it was to place trays of carroted fur in the drying room before the latter was sealed and heated, when tired would lock himself in the drying room, to escape detection, and take a brief nap. This was not a rare accurrence.

The din in the cutting and blowing rooms-producing partial and complete deafness in a number of instances could undoubtedly be diminished or its effects mitigated by "silencing" devices.

The marked alcoholic tendency, not always admitted but undoubtedly present, combines with mercury to hasten degenerative and toxic effects.

Experts in the construction of exhaust and suction devices have given assurance in private conferences that methods for the removal of dust and hairs liberated in the processes of carding, unhairing, plucking, blowing, etc., are applicable and not difficult of installation. To allow the thick dust found in this trade is, therefore, unpardonable. And yet these factories have been frequently inspected, we were told, and the managers were assured that conditions were reasonably satisfactory-at least they have not been cleaned up.

RECOMMENDATIONS.

The recommendations whose adoption would seem likely to help in eliminating the faulty conditions in which furriers, fur dressers, and dyers work are:

1. Adequate devices to remove hair, dust, gases, fumes, and vapors should be provided in each shop. Beating should be done in a separate compartment provided with adequate suction devices.

2. Clean and adequate protective clothing should be provided all employees.

3. Sweeping should be done after hours, or else by use of a vacuum device.

4. Lunch-room provision should be adequate and hygienic.

5. The common drinking cup should be forbidden.

6. Provision for hanging street clothes in well-ventilated and lighted parts of the factory building should be made.

7. Spitting should be forbidden.

8. Proper lighting should be required in all parts of the factory building.

9. Dyers should be provided with rubber gloves, kept in good repair.

10. The floors should be constructed of such material and so cared for in dyeing establishments as to prevent excessive accumulation of moisture.

11. Dressers should arrange to have the drums and the cages to which dust, sand, and sawdust-laden fur is transferred near each other to minimize the liberation of these dusts into the atmosphere. 12. Sweeping with the vacuum system should be frequently done in dressing establishments.

The recommendations which suggest themselves as most valuable in connection with the hatters' fur and felt hat manufacture are as follows:

1. Adequate devices to remove hair, dust, gases, fumes, and vapors should be placed in each department.

2. The employees should be provided with clean and adequate protective clothing and, in the carroting room, with rubber gloves, kept in constant repair and sufficiently long to protect all parts of the arm not covered by clothing.

3. Employees should be repeatedly warned of hazards and of special location of the most hazardous spots. Properly worded signs should be placed to specify the dangers at the points where they exist. 4. In addition to running hot water, accessibly placed, and freely supplied, there should be soap, brushes, and towels for individual employees.

5. Sweeping should be done after working hours, or else by the vacuum method.

6. Workers exposed to mercury should be supplied with individual toothbrushes and instructed in the necessity of cleaning their teeth before meals.

7. Special lunch rooms, completely separated from communication with all places in which mercury vapors or fur dust exists, should be provided. Eating or drinking in workroom should be forbidden, and the mouth should be washed before drinking, during or directly after work.

8. No common drinking cup should be allowed.

9. Special "silencers" or cotton should be worn in the ears, in rooms where noise is great; wherever feasible silencing devices should be enforced in connection with the machinery.

10. Separate lockers for work clothes and for street clothes should be provided.

11. Spitting should be forbidden.

12. Chairs should be provided for workers who otherwise have to squat on floors; no work should be done on floors; tables should be provided to make possible work in proper posture.

13. Proper lighting should be insisted upon.

14. Minors should be forbidden employment in departments where they are exposed to mercurialized fur.

15. All employees who come in contact with mercury should have dental care on entering employment, and periodically thereafter.

16. Examinations periodically by private physicians, or at the occupational clinic of the department of health, should be required to detect early signs of mercurialism, and to give timely help to check it. 17. Warning should be given against the dangers of the use of alcoholics in combination with exposure to mercury.

EFFECT OF THE MINIMUM WAGE DECREE ON THE BRUSH INDUSTRY IN MASSACHUSETTS.

Based upon a study of the wages paid to women employed in the brush industry in Massachusetts made by the Massachusetts Minimum Wage Commission after its minimum-wage decree had been in force in the industry for more than a year, the commission reached the conclusion that "The decree has been complied with in practically every instance. The increases in wages have been large throughout the industry and at the same time the capital invested in the industry and the value of the product have materially increased. The employment of women and minors has not given way to the employment of men, nor has the minimum wage tended to become the maximum.”

The brush industry was the first industry in Massachusetts in which a legal wage was established, the commission's decree coming into effect on August 15, 1914. The rate established was 15 cents an hour for any experienced female employee, with a rate for learners and apprentices of 65 per cent of this minimum and a period of apprenticeship limited to one year. The rates applied to all minor employees as well as to women.

In order to ascertain the effect of the rates upon the industry, as well as to record violations, the commission made two inspections of the brush factories, one in November and December, 1914, and a second in June and July, 1915. Nineteen of the 29 brush factories in operation in the State during the period covered were employing women at the time of one or both of the inspections. At the time of the first inspection the pay rolls of five firms showed noncompliance

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with the decree, 18 women being in receipt of less than the prescribed rates. Two firms failed to keep records adequate to show whether or not they were complying with the decree. As a result of this investigation the commission published in a Boston newspaper a notice giving the names of the firms which had accepted the decree of the commission and were known to be paying not less than the legal minimum rate. The names of the firms paying rates below the legal minimum and of those failing to keep adequate records were not published.

The commission's investigation in June and July, 1915, showed only three firms refusing to pay the legal rates and only five women, or 1 per cent of the number for whom wage records were taken. receiving rates below the legal minimum. The number and proportion of violations of the decree have, therefore, decreased since the earlier investigation and the publication of the names of the employers who had been complying with the law. All of the establishments failing to pay the legal minimum rate were small factories, employing less than 15 women. No employer had asked for a judicial review of the order of the commission on the ground that payment of the legal rates would prevent his doing business at a reasonable profit.

The following table shows the earnings in 1913 as compared with the earnings under the operation of the decree in 1915. The percentage of women workers who earned less than $6 in the week selected for comparison was 61.4 in 1913 and only 19.8 in 1915. The percentage earning over $9 increased from 10.2 to 19.4, showing that wages have tended to increase even above the minimum, or, in other words, that the minimum does not tend to become the maximum.

NUMBER AND PER CENT OF WOMEN EARNING SPECIFIED AMOUNTS WEEKLY, 1913
AND 1915.

Employers who were interviewed by the commission differed greatly in their statements as to the effect of the minimum-wage decree. Strong protest was made against the prison-made brushes. One firm claimed that on a cheaper grade of brushes the minimumwage requirements were only a secondary consideration, the prison competition being of the first importance. Another firm claimed, on the other hand, that the minimum-wage requirements had been a great detriment to its business, causing it to refuse large orders and to discharge many of its low-paid women employees.

1

Other employers complained of the failure of the European bristle supply as a cause of reduction in business. Certain manufacturers stated that no effects had been felt from the operation of the minimum-wage law; others mentioned dullness of business, but ascribed it to other causes. One employer spoke of the necessity of discharging certain employees who were not able to earn the specified rates, and the discontinuance of a particular line of work. The employer referred to was, however, employing the same number of women in his factory as before the decree went into effect. Another employer, who stated the difficulty to be the problem of finding girls skilled enough to earn the high rates, was employing more women in his factory than before the rates went into effect.

The Massachusetts commission in attempting to ascertain the effect of the establishment of the minimum-wage rates in the industry presents comparisons of capital invested, value of product, etc., in the industry in 1913 and 1914, before and after the application of the minimum-wage decree. The figures presented are as follows:

STATISTICS OF THE BRUSH INDUSTRY IN MASSACHUSETTS BEFORE THE MINIMUMWAGE DECREE, 1913, AND AFTER THE DECREE WENT INTO EFFECT IN 1914.

1 Statistics of Manufactures (Massachusetts) for the year 1913, p. 3.
* Advance data furnished by the Massachusetts bureau of statistics.

The commission could not make a comparison of the numbers of men, women, and minors employed in all the establishments both before and after the minimum wage went into effect owing to defective information for some of the establishments. For 16 of the 19 factories inspected the pay roll showed that the total number of women had increased from 332 to 334, the total number of minors had increased from 36 to 51, and the total number of men had decreased from 472 to 417. Commenting on these figures, the commission says: "It is obvious, therefore, that for this industry the establishment of minimum wages has not had the effect at times prophesied for it, namely, of throwing many women and minors out of work and encouraging instead the employment of men and the few skilled women. It is, of course, possible that if there were available the numbers employed by the firm which refused information concerning men the conclusions in this respect would be changed."

The decrease in the total number of employees in these 16 establishments the commission regards as due to the depressed condition of business throughout the State, the unemployment situation.