CHEMISTRY AND CIVILIZATION 165 



sent field. The sanitary side of factory-life must, however, be 

 considered, from time to time, since it is indeed important to 

 know whether we are enjoying certain luxuries and comforts 

 at the risk of life and happiness of our fellow-men; we must 

 surely count the cost of human life as seriously as the ex- 

 penditure of fuel and horse power. 



In most chemical industries, even taking into account 

 special risks from poisoning and explosions, hygienic condi- 

 tions are probably above the average factory standard. In 

 Germany and other enlightened countries, intelligent legisla- 

 tion regarding sanitation and employers' liability has won- 

 derfully diminished those "unavoidable accidents" which 

 crowd the American news columns, and has reduced the 

 toll in deaths, sickness and lessened vitality, which unfet- 

 tered industrial competition still exerts in our own country. 

 Excepting in a direct tussle with nature, there should 

 be far fewer really hazardous occupations; certainly, the 

 dangers connected with chemical manufacture are so 

 well known that the proper precautions should be readily 

 available. 



On the other hand, it will hardly be profitable to estimate 

 accurately the question of the influence of chemical manufac- 

 ture in accelerating the much-deplored flow of rural popula- 

 tion to the cities. Doubtless, every factory attracts an addi- 

 tional force of laborers, and the aggregate pay-rolls of chemi- 

 cal factories must contain an enormous number of potential 

 farmers. For instance, it has been said of the beet-sugar 

 factories that they constitute the most natural transition 

 from farm to factory work; a statement which is apt to be con- 

 tradicted by those who have seen farmers' children thronging 

 the cotton-mills and shoe-factories of New England. It will 

 be admitted by those who deplore the townward trend, that 

 chemistry has somewhat atoned for the laborers whom it 



