THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 1906.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8295, 26 November 1906, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 1906.

The editor of Pearson's points out iu the last number of his inagnzine fc.'.aC >tbc toll takeu by Peace in lives and injuries is much greater than that exacted by War. Taking !;he latest year for which figures are available, 1904, he shows that while 40,000 would cover the casualties iu the Boer War, nearly 33,000 men and women were killed or injured in that one year in the factories of Great Britain, while the total of casualties among the work-people reached the enormous total of 117,672. Further, there is good reason to believe that many accidents occur which are not reported. Load poisoning makes working in the potteries one of the most dangerous of trades, for in 1904 there were 106 cases of death and sickness among 6,000 workers. Quite remarkable ia the tendency some occupations have towards consumption. For every 100 agriculturists that die from the disease, between 200 and 250 bookbinders and 453 potters succumb to it. British railways are much more dangerous to employees; than they are to passengers. A passenger's risk cf mishap on British railways is about one in 200,000,000 but a railways shunter's is one in 439. This humble servant is enforced to take greater risk than the guard or the engine-driver, and it is calculated that tf he serves bis aompauy from the age of twenty to forty, the balance of probability is that he will not leave the service unscathed. The latest figures give the casualties in mines as 6,224, but prior to the recent passing of the Notice of Accidents Bill only a small proportion of non-fatal accidents were reported. The Under-Secretary for the Home Office stated in Parliament that if every acoideat involr-

in« tbe laying up of a miner for a week were reported it would mpan about 100,000 reports a year, and a Lauoashhe Labour member ex pressed the beiiet that every year thortj was one accident among every five persons employed in the mines. Ail vehicles are shown to be dangerous—the common oart being the most, and tbe perambulator the least deadly. The apparently innocent "pram" was responsible for thirteen deaths in 1901. Who the victims were is not said, but presumably most of them were babies. The motor-oar is not tbe Juggernaut some people think, for it bill 3d only flfty-six people. Tbe editor thinks that employers and employees and Government are all to blame for the high casualty lists, the employers for not making the nouditioas of labour as perfect as possible, tlio employees for uot being so claan, temperate and caruful as they uaigbt be, and the Ciovornrnent for not employing an adequate staff of inspectors.'

Id its campaign against municipal extravagance the Daily Mail mentions some interesting oases of the ultra-solicitude of municipalities for the cleanliness of ratepayers. Camber we 11 has luxurious Turkish and Russian vapour tmtns. A drinking fountain in marble, with gold mosaic, stands in the swimming bath. As the bather passes to the Turkish bath he walks up Sicilian marble steps, holding hundreds of verte antioo, by light which comes through expensive lead lights. The frigidariutn etichants him with its walla uf bioilian marble, and its floors of biaok and white marble; the water with which he qusnohes bis thirst comes out of marble i statuary. In short ''he revels during the whole of his stay in Orien'.al maguifloence and luxury which cannot be eclipsed in West Ead private establishments." It is, of course, very admirable that cleanliness should be encouraged in this way, but unfortunately the encouragement adds 2%d in the £ to the Camber well rates. A ratepayer living in a £4O bouse pays 9s 2d a year for these baths alone, and if he wants to use these luxuries has to pay for admission. The baths cost £114,874 to build, ana £IO,OOO a year to maintain, and many of those who use { ;hem ave reaidents of other boroughs. "Every man," said an official of the looal Reform Party, "who washe3 himself at the Old Kent Road baths, coals ua ratepayers abouG 3,^d —provided he does not use more than one towel. No one has yet worked out how much it costs us to give a man a Turkish or Russian vapour bath at the magnificent place in the Old Kent Road, which cost £58,000 to build. There ia no demand for these foieign luxuries in CamberweU. All that the average ratepayer here knows about a Russian or Turkish bath is that he has to pay for it. and that a good, old-fashioned English bath would probably prove as effective and much cheaper." St. Pancras loseß £IO,OOO annually on its bathß, and yet the Progressives wero recently agitating for free swimming in stractors, free soap, free towels, free costumes, and free electric hairourlers! Out of a population of 232,000. some 30,000 use the baths. In Southwark one inabitant in ten uses the muuioioal baths, and eacn dip costs the ratepayers Outside of London there are equally glaring caaei of extravagance. Bradford provides for its citizens Vichy douoe batfaa, light baths and el'"cirlo, bathfl, as well as Turkish and Russian bath.?, and /Manchester's municipal baths and washbouses entail a yearly loss of £25,000. It is easy to understand from revelations like these why it was that the Moderates swept the polls at tbo recent mauioipal elections.