deprived of her eye and her husband, by the breaking of a thread of cotton yarn.
With respect to the number of accidents by machinery, it is difficult to speak with certainty. In looking over the Reports of the Manchester Royal Infirmary for 1839, I find entered on the books, 3496 cases of accidents for that year. Of these, 2760 were out-patients, and the rest in-patients. In the same institution, in 1840, there were 3749, of which 3018 were out-patients.
It is not to be understood that all these were mill accidents; but a great many of them are recorded as such, and with respect to others, we are left in the dark. In these two years there were fifty-seven cases of amputation of legs, arms, hands and feet, in this institution.
From the Records of the Leeds General Infirmary for 1840, it appears there were received into that institution 261 cases of mill accidents, of these eleven eases required amputation.
Thus it appears that in 1840 there were on the average about five accidents a week, showing a very large amount of human misfortune, resulting from the want of precautionary measures with regard to the machinery at which the people are employed. How much greater the actual amount is, cannot be ascertained; for it must be remembered that this is a return from only one public institution, where there are several open for the reception of like accidents, independently of the private houses to which many of the sufferers apply!
Mr. Charles Trimmer, assistant inspector of factories, speaking of accidents, says, "I have taken some pains in collecting, for the last three years, from the books of the Stockport Infirmary, the number of factory accidents. The number of accidents from March, 1837, to March, 1838, in Stockport, was 120; from 1838 to 1839, 134; from March, 1839, to 1840, 86; out of which 36 were
