Palmer, Bartholomew Close, as a Compositor. I there found a
Practice, I had never seen before, of drying a Case of Types (which
are wet in Distribution) by placing it sloping before the Fire. I
found this had the additional Advantage, when the Types were not only
dry'd but heated, of being comfortable to the Hands working over them
in cold weather. I therefore sometimes heated my Case when the Types
did not want drying. But an old Workman, observing it, advis'd me
not to do so, telling me I might lose the Use of my Hands by it, as
two of our Companions had nearly done, one of whom that us'd to earn
his Guinea a Week, could not then make more than ten Shillings, and
the other, who had the Dangles, but seven and sixpence. This, with a
kind of obscure Pain, that I had sometimes felt, as it were in the
Bones of my Hand when working over the Types made very hot, induced
me to omit the Practice. But talking afterwards with Mr. James, a
Letter-founder in the same Close, and asking him if his People, who
work'd over the little Furnaces of melted Metal, were not subject to
that Disorder; he made light of any danger from the effluvia, but
ascribed it to Particles of the Metal swallow'd with their Food by
slovenly Workmen, who went to their Meals after handling the Metal,
without well washing their Fingers, so that some of the metalline
Particles were taken off by their Bread and eaten with it.
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