Men and boys working in a fork-grinding factory in Sheffield. Wood engraving by M. Jackson after J. Palmer, 1866.

"The steel manufactures of Sheffield. In the numbers of this journal for Jan. 6 and Jan. 20 we gave some illustrations, from sketches by our own artist, of the interior of the workshops at Sheffield, in which certain operations of the steel manufacture are performed. The defective sanitary arrangements in most of these establishments, and the deleterious character of some parts of the work itself, were fully exposed by the last report of the Children's Employment Commission; and again, more recently, by the statements of Dr. J. C. Hall, the senior physician to the Sheffield Public Hospital and Dispensary, read before the National Social Science Association at their Sheffield meeting. We have already referred to Dr. Hall's paper, and have extracted some passages, describing the "hull," or workshop, of the razor-grinder, which was the subject of one of our engravings. The processes of fork-grinding and table-knife grinding are shown in two of the present Illustrations; and we shall borrow Dr. Hall's account of them: " … Fork-grinders work on a dry stone, and their calling is perhaps more destructive than any of the grinding trades. The present number of men employed is about 150. Personal inquiries at the various wheels induce me to conclude the present condition of these men is no better than when a fork-grinder told me, some years ago, 'I shall be thirty-six next month, and you know that is getting an old man at our trade;' and when I found the average age of the men only twenty-eight. Individual instances may be found of forkgrinders much older than this man; but it is, nevertheless, an undoubted fact that many fork-grinders miserably perish before the age of thirty. … so we see that these unfortunate men are exposed to influences which rob them of twenty-five years of existence - to that extent deprive their wives and families of the benefit of their labour, and fill the union poor houses with widows and fatherless children. There is no more melancholy object than a fork.grinder, looking prematurely old and dying from the dust inhaled in his trade; no object more deserving of our pity, as we see him often crawling to his hull to labour, when altogether unfitted by the grinders' disease for his calling: 'his poverty and not his will consents.' In this condition, a day or two in a week, he grinds for a few hours; inhales additional dust; and, in order to obtain bread, increases the disease which already is rapidly destroying him."—Illustrated London news, loc. cit.