44 WORKMEN AND PUBLIC HEALTH. 



insanitary conditions which demand a remedy as much as did those 

 for the removal of which the Factory Acts were originally passed. 

 It is, however, neither consistent with our traditions nor 

 experience to believe that measures of the desired kind will be 

 vouchsafed without some decided expression of public opinion, 

 perhaps pressure, or, it may even be a lengthened process of State 

 education. To the class most interested, I would venture to say, 

 remember that union is strength, and that you cannot unite for 

 the attainment of a more desirable or legitimate object than the 

 protecting of your health and the surrounding of it with every 

 possible safeguard. I am glad to observe signs that the workmen 

 of this country are about to assume their proper position in 

 relation to sanitary questions affecting them ; and, perhaps, I may 

 be allowed to quote an instance which I deem worthyiof example. 

 The Trades' Union Congress, at their meeting held in Dublin in 

 September 1880, passed the following resolution: "That the 

 Parliamentary Committee be requested to continue their exertions 

 on behalf of those engaged in wool-sorting, with the object of 

 attaining for them protection against blood-poisoning caused by 

 the use of imported wool-hair infected with a malignant and 

 dangerous disease, and to which wool-sorters are liable in pursuing 

 their occupations." While addressing you on the effects of animal 

 dust, associated with a specific poison, you will doubtless remem- 

 ber that I specially directed your attention to this disease. 

 Whether we regard the terms in which this resolution is couched, 

 or the dignified attitude of the Congress in passing it, it will, I 

 am sure, commend itself to your respect, and I feel justified in 

 congratulating the Congress on a step which marks a new depar- 

 ture in their relation to such questions. 



In an address delivered to the British Association last autumn 

 by a well-known English professor,* the working-classes are 

 advised that, if they would reach a higher social platform, they 

 must summon resolution to raise themselves above what is depres- 

 sing in their immediate surroundings. Let me say frankly that in 

 reference to the whole class whose occupations form the subject 

 of this lecture, I regard the exhortation as simply impractic- 

 * Professor Leone Levi. 



