[51:A] An account of some deadly trades is given in Mr. R. H. Sherard's book, _The White Slaves of England_.
One of the most deadly of trades seems to have remained unnoticed till it has been brought to light by the new Labour paper, _The Daily Citizen_, in a series of articles by Mr. Keighley Snowden, entitled _The Broken Women_. Never was a title better deserved, since large numbers of girls and young women are employed at Lye and Cradley Heath, in what is commonly named the "Hollow Ware" works. This is the tinning, or galvanising, as it is usually termed, of buckets and other domestic utensils, in which lead is used; and it produces one of the most virulent forms of lead-poisoning. The symptoms are, among other more painful ones, the loss of hair and the loosening and ultimate loss of teeth, culminating either in chronic illness or death, sometimes in a few months or years. Five years ago there was a Home Office inquiry, which, after full examination, reported that the process used was dangerous to life, that no precautions could render it harmless, and that it should be _totally discontinued_.
An order was then issued by the Home Office that after a time-limit (two years) the process should be no longer used; but that order has not been obeyed (except by a few employers) to this day. The deadly nature of this work was accompanied by miserably low wages, as shown by the fact that the women workers have at length struck to obtain a minimum of 10s. a week! Helped by some humane friends, they have at length succeeded in obtaining this miserable wage, and for the present are in a state of comparative happiness! How long it will be before the Government abolishes this deadly process we cannot tell. The following is a brief statement of what these poor women have to suffer, extracted from _The Daily Citizen_ of November 20th, 1912:—
"They had, without power to resist them, suffered repeated and ruthless reductions of wages. They had seen their industry brought down by reckless competition, and the manufacture of shoddy goods, to the point at which men could no longer earn enough to support their families. They had seen their wives and daughters and boys forced by want at home into workshops, where, as official inquiry has shown, health was sucked out of their bodies as though they had been the victims of vampires. They had seen the introduction and growth of the sub-contracting 'stint' system, under which boyhood and girlhood and motherhood were driven as though they had been slaves under the lash, and their earnings cut down to a penny an hour. Meanwhile, they lived in the hovels and holes of a place which can only be fitly described as one of the dirtiest ashpits of a civilisation reckless of dirt where profit is a question."