=Shoddy, Silk, and Lace.=--The manufacture of shoddy is attended by the production of an amount of dust that is injurious to the operatives’ health, and the effluvium given off from the rags is another excessively trying feature of this trade. Those who are engaged in it almost invariably have to pass through the ordeal of what is known as “shoddy fever,” a disagreeable though not dangerous illness, the symptoms of which usually last for at least a week, and disappear as the worker grows accustomed to the presence of the dust. Silk weaving is on the whole the healthiest of the textile trades, though here we find a process, which is resorted to also in some departments of the cotton trade and largely in lace-making, which is most prejudicial to health; it is known as “gassing.” This process consists in passing the threads very rapidly through gas jets, the object being to burn away any slight irregularities. Medical evidence shews strongly the evils which befall the operatives who have to spend their time in an atmosphere highly charged with the products of gas combustion, full of fluff and exceedingly hot. The operatives in the lace trade, which is carried on mostly at Nottingham, suffer in an especial degree from “gassing.” There is not sufficient space at my disposal to go into the numerous family of trades in which the worker is liable to suffer from dust given off; but amongst them are carpet-making, hair-dressing, the flock trade, and those departments of the upholstery trade in which fluffy material is used. Unfortunately the drawback noticed by Dr. Arlidge of the lack of precise medical evidence in the cotton trade exists also in these industries.