110 _ KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 
employing over two thousand milliners, and the manufacture of straw hats engages 
several thousand women in weaving the braid, sewing, and bleaching. The arti- 
ficial-flower trade employs about four thousand women, many of them French, 
and it is as lucrative to adept hands as any other. The manufacture of hoop- 
skirts is said to engage over ten thousand women, who spool the cotton, weave 
the tape and cover the steel; and the cap trade gives employment to many more 
thousands, whose earnings vary from three to five dollars a week. The weaving 
of hair cloth is also done by women, the packing of confectionery, and the mak- 
ing of shoe ‘‘ uppers.” 
Some of these occupations, and others to which we have not referred, are 
dangerous to the operatives, not merely from the long hours of toil, the insufficient 
food, and the lack of proper ventilation in the workshops, but from the nature of 
the materials and the manner of fabrication. The artificial-flower makers, the 
gold-leaf workers, the button-gilders, the cigar makers, and the lucifer-match 
makers also suffer from the nature of their occupation. 
In large manufactories of artificial flowers the ventilation is usually sufficient, 
and precautions are taken to prevent the inhalation of poisonous colors. But 
nearly all the brilliant leaves are made in the artisans’ own home, a back room 
or an attic devoted to all the purposes of existence, and:the arsenic that produces 
the spring-like vividness of color is diffused in the atmosphere and absorbed by 
the system. The fabric from which the leaves are cut is colored in the piece, 
Paris green, cold water, and starch or gum-arabic being used for the purpose. 
This liquid is spread by the fingers over lengths of fine calico or muslin, which 
are afterward beaten or kneaded by hand until they have an even tint. They are 
then spread out in frames to dry, and are next cut and shaded, the final process 
being their immersion in warm wax, and the removal of any loose color upon 
them. The detached particles float in the air, and are inevitably inhaled by the 
workers, whose handkerchiefs are speckled with dots of green blown out through 
the nose.” Another operation, technically known as ‘‘ grass-work,’’ consists in the 
fastening of small glass beads or ‘‘ dew-drop”’ to the artificial blades, which dis- 
lodges portions of the color, and leads to its inhalation. The consequences are 
variable. When the persons employed are cleanly in their habits, and keep their 
windows open, an occasional headache or an attack of dyspepsia is the most they 
suffer; but in other cases, all the symptoms of arsenical poisoning and revealed in 
eruptions of the skin, nausea, colic, and general debility. 
In gilding metal buttons, mercury and nitric acid are used, producing their 
characteristic diseases; and in making lucifer-matches the work-women sometimes 
contract the terrible disease which is technically described as necrosis of the max- 
illary bones, many cases of which have been treated at Bellevue Hospital. In 
the preparation of gold-leaf the substance is so fragile and bouyant that the doors 
and windows are necessarily kept closed, and the air of the work-rooms becomes 
very impure. But the women who suffer most from the character of their oc- 
cupation are the cigar-makers, who, mingling with men, boys, and children, toil 
