70 



told the doctor at the clinic that if they 

 remained at home for two days they 

 generally regained some of their abil- 

 ity to hear. If Dante could have vis- 

 ited a cutting room he might have 

 described another torment in his infer- 

 no. In looking over a roomful of young 

 girls whose deft fingers never falter in 

 sorting out the fur one is astonished that 

 they can retain their composure in that 

 unspeakable bedlam. And one wonders, 

 after all, if any felt hat is w^orth years 

 of deafness. 



But, deafness is not the only danger, 

 for every one who handles the fur after 

 it has been carroted faces the menace of 

 mercurial poison. Three hundred and 

 fifty employees of the hatters' fur trade 

 were examined through the Occupation- 

 al Clinic. Of these fourteen per cent. 

 were indisputably suffering from mer- 

 curialism. Many have violent tremors 

 of the hands, face and tongue. Unfor- 

 tunately most of the workers fail to 

 realize the danger of their occupation, 

 and it is exceedingly difficult to get them 

 to observe the first principles of self- 

 protection against the hazards of the 

 trade. In some instances it was found 

 that the employer had to lock the carrot- 

 ing rooms and the drying rooms at noon 

 time to prevent the employees from eat- 

 ing their lunches there. 



The constant breathing of dust and 

 fur-laden atmosphere affects the nose, 

 throat and lungs of the workers. This 

 could be obviated by sweeping after 

 hours or by the employment of a vacuum 

 device. But no matter how much may 

 be accomplished through cleaning up the 

 factories and installing safety devices 

 the condition of the workers cannot be 

 very greatly improved until they them- 

 selves are made to understand the pecvi- 

 liarly dangerous character of their work. 



The use of mercury in the hatters' fur 

 trade causes much suffering among the 

 workers but it is something which must 

 be tolerated until such time as someone 

 invents a felting process which is as good 

 and as cheap as that dependent on mer- 

 cury. Only mercury can roughen up and 

 flare out the laminae of the fur fibres 

 which causes the fur to snarl readily 

 and to form felt satisfactorily. 



Popular Science Monthly 



Street Corner Directories That 

 Tell You Everything 



WHEN you are in Los Angeles, 

 Calif., and Seattle, Wash., 

 and you want to know the location 

 of office buildings, etc., you have only 

 to go to the nearest street corner 

 to find a directory on the side of the 

 building giving the location of busi- 

 ness houses, office buildings, and a list 

 of street cars which pass the corners 

 within three blocks from that point, 

 and their routes and destinations. 



The street cor- 

 ner directories 

 of Los Angeles 

 know almost as 

 much as a 

 policeman. The 

 buildings with- 

 in a radius of 

 two blocks, the 

 car lines that 

 pass the comer, 

 and where they 

 go, are all set 

 forth graphi- 

 cally 



These directories are changed or 

 added to every month. They are large 

 cards covered with glass and in a 

 metal frame. 



Over one hundred of them have al- 

 ready been placed and the list is being 

 added to rapidly. This system re- 

 lieves the traffic policemen stationed at 

 the intersections of the streets', leav- 

 ing him free to attend to the regula- 

 tion of the automobiles. 



