300 LIFE AND EXPERIENCES CHAP. 



when put in the way of it. Like many attempts to 

 assist Irish labour, however, this movement, though 

 successful for some years, eventually died out for want 

 of a local leader. 



As a Lancashire Member I attended, in 1888, a 

 meeting at the Westminster Palace Hotel of the 

 Lancashire mill-owners and operatives to discuss the 

 question of the use of steam in the cotton-cloth weav- 

 ing sheds. Great complaints had been made by the 

 operatives that their health was injured by the use of 

 steam, which was introduced into the shed for the 

 purpose of enabling heavily sized goods to be woven. 

 At the meeting I asked for information as to whether 

 any method was adopted for the purpose of esti- 

 mating the amount of moisture present, and I 

 learnt, to my astonishment, that this was not the 

 case ; that no limit was placed upon the amount of 

 steam admitted, and that this had naturally given 

 rise to complaints ; that the moisture was frequently 

 excessive, and that the health of the operatives 

 suffered in consequence. 



The remedy for this was easy, and forcibly illus- 

 trated the benefits to be derived from the application 

 of simple scientific principles to industrial affairs. I 

 suggested that it would be perfectly possible to deter- 

 mine by means of hygrometers the amount of mois- 

 ture present in the air of the shed, and therefore to fix 

 a definite limit which should not be exceeded. For 

 this purpose I drew up a table which was afterwards 

 inserted as a schedule to the Act, and is to this 

 day acted upon, showing how the amount of mois- 

 ture must be regulated under seasonal and other 

 changes of temperature, inasmuch as during the hot 

 weather a larger absolute amount of moisture can be 

 brought into the air of the weaving shed than 



