casualties in the Factory The Annual Report of the Chief
Inspector of Factories discloses an ugly toll of accidents in the factories and workshops. Last year 18,260 persons were injured and 688 killed. It cannot be believed that casualties on that scale are unavoidable. Mr. Rhys Davies con- tended in the House of Commons that there were too few factory inspectors and that the two-shift system mast be reviewed, while Sir Francis Fremantle was of opinion that more attention ought to be paid to the Work of certified factory surgeons. No doubt there is room for improvement in the efficiency and the quantity of the various safety appliances, but what is wanted as well is more systematic education among the workers in the urgent necessity of using them. As work becomes more mechanical the sensibility of the worker may well become more dulled to danger. In the monotony of his work he tends to forget its risks, and liability to accident is doubled thereby. The references to women in factories are of particular interest. Women, it is claimed, are more adaptable and feel monotony less, since they can keep half their minds on other interests; factory work has, on the whole, a beneficial effect on them, though under it they age quickly, which sounds a little paradoxical. But the reassuring verdict of the writer of this section of the report is that the net effect of industrial life on the woman is "good, and getting better."
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