Of all the ingenious attempts to get rid of the tinder-box, the oxymuriate matches were the most successful. From them our present lucifers are lineally descended. The oxymuriate matches were composed of chlorate of potash and sugar coating a strip of wood. The match was dipped into a bottle containing a piece of asbestos soaked in oil of vitriol. The bottle and a number of these matches, with tipped ends downwards, were put into a neat little case, and this was called the “phosphorus box.” On their first introduction, these boxes sold as high as 15s. each; they gradually fell to 10s., then 5s., but never went below half-a-crown. But they were not altogether successful. The oil of vitriol lost its force after a while, owing to the readiness with which it absorbed moisture from the air, and then the matches smouldered instead of bursting into flame. The next advance was the lucifer-match, with phosphorus and sulphur combined at the end. But this was dangerous, and frightful accidents attended the manufacture. I spent some winters at Pau, in the south of France, and near our house were the cottages of poor people who worked at match-making. The pans of melted phosphorus into which the heads of the matches were dipped would explode suddenly, and scatter their flaming contents over the match-girls. My mother, as an angel of goodness, was wont to visit and minister to many and many a poor little burnt girl, who had thus been set fire to. But the phosphorus match-making had another objection to it, besides the accidents produced in the melting of phosphorus. It brought on a frightful disease in the jaw. The bone was attacked, and rotted away. In the “Dublin Quarterly Journal of Medical Science” for 1852, the nature of the disease is thus described:--“An affection ensues which is so insidious in its nature that it is at first supposed to be common toothache, and a most serious disease of the jaw is produced before the patient is aware of his condition. The disease gradually creeps on until the sufferer becomes a miserable and loathsome object, spending the best period of his life in the wards of a public hospital. Many patients have died of the disease; many unable to open their jaws have lingered with carious and necrosed bones; others have suffered dreadful mutilations from surgical operations, considering themselves happy to escape with the loss of the greater portion of the lower jaw. In the Museum of the Manchester Infirmary is the lower jaw of a young woman who is now at work. Her face is much disfigured by the loss of her chin, and, on looking into her mouth, the root of the tongue is seen connected with her under lip, the space formerly occupied by the jaw being obliterated by the contraction of the cheek.” Thus, in the advance of civilisation, great agonies have been gone through. Our present conveniences have been purchased at the cost of throes and tears in the past. We should not forget that civilisation has had its martyrs.