Indian hygiene and demography.

  • International Congress of Hygiene and Demography
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Indian hygiene and demography. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    Factory Labour in the Indian Spinning and Weaving Mills. BY K. N. Bahadhurji, M.D. Loud. [Note.—Kepriuted from the proceedings of the Demographic Division.] From a health point of view, factory labour in the Indian mills may be conveniently considered nnder the following heads:— 1. Hours of Work. The Indian mills work from snnrise to sunset : the longest days give 12^ to 13 hours of work, and the shortest 11 to 11|. The average of the 12 months is 12 hours 6 minntes and 10 seconds. The obvions advantage of working with sunlight is that the Indian operative is protected from the impurities in the mill atmosphere which are generated by the burning of gas in cold countries. Should the English system of 6 to 6 be adopted, gas light will have to be used during some months in the year, and there will be unnecessary fording of the Indian ojjeratives’ mill atmosphere by law. The Indian operative, moreover, can time himself better by the sun than by the clock, and can avoid going to his mill too early or too late. However, it would be to the advantage of the operatives in some of the mills in which the masters unfortunately cannot distinguish dusk from dark to have the closing hours, i.e., the hours of sunset during the different seasons of the year, defined by law, as recommended by the Medical Committee of 1884. The women who form only a small portion (25 %) of the ojreratives (in England they fcfrm the bulk—75 —of the operatives) and are employed only on machinery driven by the hand with less power than is required to work a hand grind-mill, besides enjoying other sjjecial advantages, have special short hours of work, and nominally these are from 7 to 5.30. But they may come in any time between 7 and 9, and leave earlier than 5.30, as they please. In this, as in many other respects, the women working in the Indian mills are much better off than not only their sisters in the English mills, blit also others of their own class in India who work outside the mills harder, for longer hours, and for less wages, as testified to by the mill hands themselves. {Vide F. C. Report, 1884, p. 143.) 2. The Restriction under which Work is exacted and the General Freedom allowed to the Operatives. There are no very strict restrictions. The Indian operative, who is paid by piece-work, is allowed to come in half an hour after time of starting work, as informed by the operatives themselves—the popular notion of sunrise varying within the limits of half an hour. He keeps a lien on his place by putting in substitutes. He can leave early in