The adoption of a death benefit by the International Typographical Union is a direct method by which correct data can be secured of the mortality among printers, the diseases that afflict them, and every factor pertaining to the health and unhealth of those who follow the printing business, and the publishing of the notices of deceased members brings this to the consideration of all thoughtful readers of the JOURNAL.

The issue for May shows an appalling death rate from consumption; eight out of the fifteen suffered from that malady, their ages ranging from twenty-three to fifty-two years; but two could be put down as dying from a strictly acute disease: appendicitis claimed one, typhoid fever the other, heart disease and other chronic troubles the remainder. One of the number the writer was personally acquainted with from his boyhood, as well as with his parents, and as neither of his parents, although well along in years, show any signs of pulmonary trouble, the reasonable deduction is made that the disease in his case was acquired and not hereditary. Doubtless investigation would show that others of the number had a healthy family history.

The above statement, we think, justifies us in saying that the next International convention should, as far as possible, take steps to have such investigations made and regulations enacted as will tend to bring about better hygienic conditions in printing offices. We take the ground that, where a disease is contagious or infectious, it can be restricted. Consumption is now considered to be such; therefore, it is in a measure preventable, not by the harsh measure of isolating one suffering from that trouble, but by cleanliness.

First, composing rooms should be selected for light, air, dryness, roominess and cheerfulness, not as at present for cheapness, which brings with it darkness, filthiness and inconvenience. The first being attained, the next should be perfect cleanliness, which can only be secured by the co-operation of proprietors, foremen and employes. The great disseminator of the disease is the sputum that is thoughtlessly and indiscriminately ejected on the walls, floors and frames of composing rooms. The bacillus of tuberculosis is transmitted in its dry state; hence, the necessity for having cuspidors containing a small quantity of water, and cleansed once a day. It is the exception to go into an office and find that such conveniences have been provided. Often a compromise is made with crocks holding saw-dust, and it is not much trouble to recall the fact that this saw-dust is often a moving mass of worms, hatched from saliva deposited therein, and if it gets dry and dust arises therefrom, more or less of it is inhaled. Under no circumstances should saw-dust be used. Twice a year the walls should be whitewashed, the windows cleaned often, and the floors scrubbed once a week. An important, but sorely neglected measure for physical well-being is a clean and proper closet. The mass of proprietors seem satisfied (although they may be making money) if they provide a stem bowl, which answers as seat and urinal, stuck away in a dark cellar or corner, seldom swept, and never scoured. Often that meager provision is lacking, the nearest saloon being the only friendly port.

The location of composing rooms for air, light and an equable temperature, etc., never seems to enter the heads of

those who engage in publishing. Often vast structures will be erected that will be styled the "Brag" or some other similiar name, and the readers of the sheet will imagine that its employes are well provided for in all that tends to comfort, but if the truth were known the compositors are jammed so close together that they can not move without striking fellow workmen, their breaths so commingling that it is often stifling to be in the room, added to gas jets eating their part of the oxygen, while the proud architect never made any provision for ventilation. Now that typesetting machines are coming into general use, with molten metal, the subject of ventilation becomes more important. Recently we visited the composing room of a morning paper, and we feel safe in saying that the temperature was near one hundred degrees with smoke and fumes from the casting boxes, to which could be added the odors that emanate from perspiring humanity and the usual proportion of other smells, all combining to lower the vitality of the

ease.

human system and make it a nest for disIn this case there was no excuse, as the paper in question is always telling of its prosperity.

Among other ends to strive for is natural light, the rays of which are considered germ destroyers, but where it is not possible, electric light should be introduced in preference to any light from a flame.

However, nothing will be gained but by a determined effort to have such laws and regulations enacted as will attain the end sought, and to see that factory laws, wherever they now exist, are enforced, and a campaign of education begun that will enlist the aid of health officers, medical societies, local, state and national, supplemented by literature that will reach every printer, and educate him to the fact that his pocket and person are involved in the crusade for health. This attained, instead of over one-half falling prey to consumption, the usual number credited to it, one-seventh of all deaths, would not even be reached.

It may be taken for granted that any condition that tends to a disproportionate distribution of the profits of production is economically wrong. A proportionately equitable distribution of profits must mean a just recompense for each force and energy expended in the process of producing a recompense adjusted in proportion to the value of the energy to the finished whole. Failing to do this, the distribution of profits necessarily accrues more to the one factor than to the other, and becomes in fact an unjust distribution. Under such a condition, economic gravity becomes unbalanced, and social

disorder follows. Individual holdings (capital in various forms) grow larger and larger, presently assuming colossal proportions, while poverty sinks lower in the scale. The per capita of wealth on the part of the masses grows smaller, while the real wealth concentrates itself, causing an added injustice to the poor in increased rates of taxation in its various forms, for the increase in price of any article controlled by a centralized power, or monopoly, is in essence a taxation on its consumer. In direct taxation, that is on land or improvements, the inevitable tendency is a rise of rate when taxable

wealth is concentrated, because such wealth loses its full value, for assessable purposes, in that it becomes diffused and disguised in a number of unapproachable channels. This loss of value it occasions for assessable returns results, as stated, in increased rates of taxation, which necessarily falls on the middle and poorer classes.

masses.

This is the foundation of the discontent which prevails today among American The condition and consequence is a far-reaching one, since its corollaries extend on the one hand to the depths of misery and crime, on the other to the apex of luxury and idleness, and again to crime, for these two antipodes of a social state have ever been the chief progenitors of that result. Hunger and misery brought about by a constantly narrowing demand for adequately recompensed toil, and a constantly increasing toll for the necessaries of life; luxury and idleness, the result of a superabundance of wealth-each saps the morality of a social fabric and begets crime, the one from a desperation born of despair, the other from a spirit of immunity and power.

The consequences to the very poor of an unbalanced economic system are of the first importance since it is precisely the class which is least able to stand them. An economic system which levies toll on the producer, who is as well a consumer, infallibly arrays the middle class against the final payee of all forms of toll-the very poor. When taxes rise rents rise, and the holder of property, not always himself rich, suffers no perceptible loss. When monopoly corners the staples of life, the middleman's prices rise in proportion to the monopoly's ukase and the very poor are the chief losers. Wages always tending to the lowest point, the wage-earner is the first to suffer in times of panic and over-production; besides making labor the chief sufferer from the concentration of invested capital, the very fact of capital concentrating itself causing labor also

to concentrate at the same point in numbers sufficient to over-glut the market. This is not chargeable to capital since labor should see its own disadvantage; but as a result proper, it is chargeable to the fact of concentration.

The depredatory instinct of power is not exhibited in individuals only, but in law-making bodies and nations as well. Legislatures and municipal bodies, having the welfare of the people in their keeping, show examples of the instinct when they legislate for the benefit of the few against the many. When this is done power is the impelling cause. Contempt for a people's welfare, as shown by excessive rates of taxation, lack of safeguards to protect the state or municipality's income, grants of privileges or subsidies to corporations or individuals, are no less crimes against the poor because they seemingly rob the poor only in the abstract, for the poor in the end are the payees in higher rates of rent, etc.

The increased profits to the owners of labor-saving devices is another cause of misery to the toiler, notwithstanding that labor-saving devices were felt to be destined to ameliorate the condition of the masses. That they were so meant to act no sane man doubts, and that they will so act, in the fullness of time is a certainty. Just now they emphasize the glut in the market of labor, while adding wealth to their owners. The remedy lies in diverting the increased and unjust profits into the proper channels, and the only means of doing so is by taxation. As all forms of taxation are in the end paid by the poor, and as all taxation wrongfully withheld by wealth are paid by the poor in increased rates, either direct or in increased prices for necessaries of life, the remedy will be adequate in so far as it touches labor-saving devices. By means of a proper tax on their increased producing power their mission of lessening the burden of the masses will be accomplished.

The remedy here suggested embodies

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