are suitably and adequately provided for and the several activities pertaining thereto harmoniously conducted. Improvements respecting social and industrial betterment shall, after approval by the president, be carried out through the regular company organization. In camps where arrangements for doctors and hospitals have already been made and are satisfactory such arrangements shall continue. In making any new arrangement for a doctor the employees' representatives in the camps concerned, the president's executive assistant, and a chief medical officer shall select a doctor and enter into an agreement with him, which shall be signed by all four parties. The company shall publish, under the direction of the president's executive assistant, a periodical which shall be a means of communication between the management, the employees, and the public, concerning the policies and activities of the company. The periodical shall be used as a means of coordinating, harmonizing, and furthering the social and industrial betterment work, and of informing employees of the personnel and proceedings of conferences, boards, and committees, in which they are interested. It shall record events pertaining to social and industrial activities, and be a medium for making announcements with reference to the same, and for diffusing information of mutual interest to the company and its employees. The promotion of harmony and goodwill between the company and its employees and the furtherance of the well-being of employees and their families and the communities in which they reside being essential to the successful operation of the company's industries in an enlightened and profitable manner, the expenses necessarily incident to the carrying out of the social and industrial betterment policies herein described, and the plan of representation, joint conferences and joint meetings, herein set forth, including the payment of traveling expenses of employees' representatives when attending joint conferences and annual joint meetings, and their reimbursement for the working time necessarily lost in so doing, shall be borne by the company. But nothing herein shall preclude employees of the company from making such payment to their representatives in consideration of services rendered on their behalf as they them. selves may voluntarily desire and agree to make. MEMORANDUM OF AGREEMENT. RESPECTING EMPLOYMENT AND LIVING AND WORKING CONDITIONS IN THE COAL MINES AND COKE-OVEN PLANTS. It is mutually understood and agreed that in addition to the rights and privileges guaranteed the employees and the company, in the industrial representation plan herewith, the following stipulations respecting employment, living and working conditions shall govern the parties hereto from the date of their signatures hereon until January 1, 1918, and shall continue thereafter subject to revision upon 90 days' notice by either of the parties: The charge to employees for dwellings without bath shall not exceed $2 per room per month. The present uniform charge of 40 cents per electric light per month, with free light on porches, shall not be increased. There shall be no charge for domestic water, except cases where the company is obliged to purchase the same; in such cases the charges shall be substan tially cost to the company. The rates to be charged employees for powder and domestic coal shall be substantially their cost to the company. To encourage employees to cultivate flower and vegetable gardens, the company agrees to fence, free of charge, each house lot owned by it. The company will continue its practice of removing garbage free of charge. As the need becomes manifest, the company will continue its present policy of providing, as rapidly as possible, suitable bathhouses and social centers in the nature of clubhouses, for its employees at the several mining camps. Eight hours shall constitute a day's work for all employees working under ground and in coke ovens. This shall mean eight hours exclusive of the noon hour and the time required to go and come from the mine opening to the place of employment. Nine hours shall constitute a day's work for all outside labor, except firemen and engineers. All employees shall be paid semimonthly by check. No deductions shall be made from earnings except where authorized by employees. No change affecting conditions of employment with respect to wages or hours shall be made without first giving 30 days' notice, as provided by statute. The schedule of wages and the working conditions now in force in the sev eral districts shall continue without reduction, but if, prior to January 1, 1918, a general increase shall be granted in competitive districts in which the company does not conduct operations, a proportional increase shall be made. For this purpose a joint meeting of the miners' representatives and proper officers of the company shall be called within 30 days after the increase in competitive districts is effective to discuss and determine an equitable method for fixing the new scale in the districts affected. PRECAUTIONS NECESSARY TO SAFEGUARD THE HEALTH OF PRINTERS. The New York City department of health, through its division of industrial hygiene, has recently issued a placard prepared to show the precautions for printers necessary to safeguard the health. The placard has been generally distributed to all union printing shops in New York City by the printers' organizations. The placard is here reproduced in full: PRECAUTIONS FOR PRINTERS. Hoods must be placed over linotype metal pots and have pipes connecting. Remember, pig lead used in linotyping is softer than lead of type. Handle it as little as possible. Drop pig lead carefully into melting pot. Splashings of molten lead dry later and become lead dust. Do not shake crucible in order to blend molten lead better. It will blend f itself. Plungers on linotype machines should never be cleaned in the workroom. Clea them in boxes in the open air. Avoid inhaling the dust. Graphite used for lubricating is not poisonous, but all dust is irritating to Pe lungs. Avoid lead dust as much as possible when trimming and mitering, or whey sawing. Remove lead dust from type cases in the open air, or by means of a vacuns cleaner. Never put type into the mouth, or moisten fingers to get better hold of type. Benzine and lye are skin irritants. Use them with care. Insist upon having good ventilation in the office or factory, and insist that floors should not be swept during working hours. Suggest to your employer that walls and ceilings of workroom, if not of smooth, washable surface, should be limewashed once a year; that close-fitting floors which can be cleaned by moist methods are desirable; and that type cases should fit closely on the floor or have legs high enough to brush under. Eat a good breakfast before beginning work. Food in the stomach, especially milk, helps to prevent lead poisoning. Do not eat food, or use tobacco, while at work unless your hands are first carefully washed, because of the danger of getting lead into the mouth. Do not use a "common" drinking cup; such a cup may be employed by a tuberculous or otherwise infected person. Wash hands thoroughly with warm water and soap. Have your own towel and soap. Rinse the mouth and clean the finger nails before eating. Don't spit on the floor. Use cuspidors and see that they are cleaned daily. Do not wear working clothes too long without change. Hang street clothes where they will not be exposed to the dust of the workroom. Gas and electric lights should be shaded to prevent a glare. The eyes should be examined from time to time by a competent physician. Avoid ruining your sight by giving early attention to eyestrain. Headaches, blurred vision, red and inflamed eyes, dancing spots before the eyes, twitching of the eyelids, are some of the first signs of eyestrain. Insufficient light may impair the general health. Bathe frequently, and brush the teeth each night. Avoid alcohol. It increases the danger of lead poisoning. Have a good bowel movement each day. Exercise in the fresh air as much as possible. Be examined by a doctor occasionally to protect yourself against the effects of your trade. HYGIENE OF THE FUR, HATTERS' FUR, AND FELT-HAT INDUSTRIES IN NEW YORK CITY.1 A report showing the results of a study by the division of industrial hygiene of the New York City department of health has recently been published in its monthly bulletin. The study covers 113 shops and factories in New York City in which fur garments, caps, gloves, and felt hats are manufactured or prepared for manufacture. It also includes the results of the physical examination of 889 persons employed in these three industries. The employees who were the subjects of physical examination were taken from a total of nearly 4,100 in the factories investigated and represented the classes engaged in each process in the industries. The total number of persons engaged in the fur and allied trades in New York City is given at about 16,000. 1 A clinical and sanitary study of the fur and hatters' fur trade, by Louis I. Harris, M. D., chief, division of industrial hygiene, in the monthly bulletin of the department of health of the city of New York. October, 1915. The report describes briefly the processes employed in the industries studied. Attention is called to the important distinction between the work of those employed in the manufacture of fur garments, gloves, and caps and of those who prepare hatters' fur. In the former industry the raw fur is first shaved so as to remove the dried and hardened fat adhering to it. This is known as "fleshing fur." The skin is then treated with sawdust, salt, and water to make it soft and pliable and to remove the natural grease. This process is spoken of as "dressing fur." The fur is subsequently dyed with various vegetable and chemical dyes, principal among which are ursol colors (aniline products), logwood, tumeric, pyrolignite of iron, Sicilian sumac, nutgall, chlorate of potash, verdigris, chrome salts, and peroxide of hydrogen. The dyed fur is now ready to be made up into garments. It is wet, cut, stretched, and nailed to conform to various designs sketched on tables, and allowed to remain so for a number of hours, the various pieces being then sewed together by machine and finished by hand as in the case of cloth garments. To remove dust and loose hairs the fur is frequently beaten by hand in the workrooms, or, less often, in a closed compartment. Where the beating is done by hand, two long bamboo sticks are employed, with which the employee keeps up a constant tattoo on the fur garments. In the preparation of hatters' fur, preliminary to the making of felt hats, rabbit, cony, nutria, muskrat, and hare skins are employed. The skins, which have been stripped from the animals by the trappers, very much as a glove is removed from the hand, are cut open by minors or by unskilled adult laborers. The fur is combed and brushed by hand with stiff brushes to remove accumulated dirt. Some of the skins are brushed by machines furnished with suction devices. They are dampened and the long hairs are clipped or plucked, by hand, if cony skins, or by machinery, if hare skins. The plucking machines have suction devices, but when plucking is done by hand the workers stand in a mass of hair that sometimes forms a carpet many inches deep. The hand pluckers place the skin upon which they work on an inclined leg stump firmly fastened to the floor. A loop of clothesline is thrown over the skin; the lower end of this loop, reaching to within an inch of the floor, serves as a stirrup for the left foot of the worker who, by exerting traction on the loop, holds the skin firmly against the stump, assisting in this with pressure of his left hand. This posture allows the toes of the left foot, which is in the stirrup, barely to touch the floor, and causes the worker to lean forward and press his abdomen against the upper pole of the stump, the better to maintain his balance. In one shop over 50 men were so employed for a 58-hour period weekly. Despite this posture, scoliosis, flat-foot, or other orthopedic deformity, and abdominal myositis, or other pathological sequela, were not observed. (It may be stated, however, that these workers are a nomad tribe, entering and leaving their employment in a steady stream, thus often escaping the consequences of their particular kind of work.) The plucker wears a thick piece of rubber hose stuck on the thumb of his right hand so that the rabbit hair will not slip from under the knife which he grasps within the remaining fingers. The plucking process is dwelt on at length because it creates an atmosphere that is, perhaps, the most unhygienic and hazardous in a trade altogether so offensive that some others, usually so regarded, are aristocratic occupations in comparison. The fur which remains on the pelt after the long hair has been clipped or plucked is placed on a table and scrubbed with nitrate of mercury solution, which causes the lamina of each of the fur fibers to flare out very much like barbed wire and increases the curling tendency of the fur. In this way the fibers are prepared to become snarled and tangled and to form felt. This application of mercury is known as "carroting." The carroted fur is placed on trays in ovens or in drying rooms, and when the mercurial solution has been volatilized, is cut by machinery which shaves the hair from the pelt and deposits it as a small mass on a metal plate, from which girls sitting near the machines sort out long hairs and clumps of fur of inferior quality. The pelt, or true skin, is used to make glue. The din and clatter of the cutting machines is so loud that only a stronglunged individual can make himself heard by one standing close to him. The masses of picked fur are put up into 5-pound packages and sold to the hatter, to be made into felt hats. All small pieces and tags of fur are put through a sorting machine, which separates the fur tags from the dirt, the latter leaving the machines as continuous and very thick pads, which are collected into bins. The long hairs are used for pillows, etc. If the beating of finished fur garments in general workrooms, as already described, has impressed the observer as being a harmful process-which, indeed, it is-it appears a pleasant and almost sanitary occupation in comparison with the processes in almost every department of the hatters' fur trade. The hazards in this trade in the order of importance are, notably, mercury poisoning, dust, and (in the drying rooms only) excessive heat. In the making of a felt hat generally raw fur fibers and carroted fibers are mixed in the proportion of i to 2; the raw fur is of fine quality and forms the surface of the felt hat, imparting to the body of the hat a softer feel and appearance. The fur is cleansed repeatedly and picked and teased apart by machinery which is provided with a blowing contrivance, so that fur of varying quality is dropped by gravity into distinct piles, pieces of pelt, loose hair, and dirt being separated at the same time. By a pneumatic arrangement just enough fur fibers are assembled around a perforated copper cone to form one hat. A wet cloth is then wrapped about the cone and the two immersed in hot water for a minute. A man known as a hardener removes imperfections, fills in gaps with fur fibers, places the coneshaped fur in a woolen cloth, and hardens the mass. Next the hat is sized-i. e., gradually shrunk from a 30 or 35 inch cone by sprinkling it with hot water. The hat is repeatedly folded in a burlap cloth and rolled, but not creased, until the fur has formed a cone-shaped body of firm and close texture, the hat being immersed in very hot water to assist in the process. Projecting hairs are then shaved off with a razorlike knife. The hat is again sized to shrink the pores laid open by shaving. To quote an authority: "Sizing and second sizing are very hot tasks, and the workman protects the palms of his hands with shields of leather or wood." The body of the hat is then stiffened with |