In the early days the greater portion of the matches made came from the poorer sections of London and various other large cities, and of course were made for the greater Dart in cellars and badly ventilated places. This often led to disease called necrosis of the bone, caused by the handling of phosphorus, or by inhaling its fumes. This disease in time became so preva lent among the match-makers that, for fear it would be carried along and spread by the manu factured articles itself, the local governments took a hand in the matter and forced the owners of these (cellars') to provide well-aired, venti lated and well-lighted places for the employees. With the improvement in surroundings also i came mprovements in the methods of manu facture. Until about 1842 the splints or sticks of wood used were whittled out by hand en tirely, but in that year a machine for cutting these splints was invented by Reuben Partridge and this practically revolutionized the trade by reducing the number of employees, producing a much better article in a shorter time and ma terially reducing the cost of manufacture. This will be seen to be true when it is stated that in the year 1856 there were but 40,000,000 matches made in England, while at the present time one factory alone in this country has facilities for making 100,000,000 matches per day.
The general size of the match now made is from one and seven-eighths to two and a half inches in length, the wood used being pine, thoroughly dried. After discarding the knots and cross-grained parts, the blocks of pine are placed in the automatic •seeder of a machine, run through and cut into splints. These splints are cut by knives or dies so arranged that when cut they are separated about a quarter of an inch and then set into cast-iron plates made into an endless chain by link attachments. The speed of this machine may be set accord ing to the needs, from 175 to 250 revolutions per minute and as it cuts 44 matches at each revolution it is very rapid. After the splints have been cut the endless chain attachment carries them from the cutting end of the machine over a block which heats the heads to a tempera ture great enough to melt paraffine. After they have passed over the heating block the chain carries them along to the receptacle containing the paraffine and composition forming the head. The reason why the match is heated before reaching these composition rollers is that the paraffine may not he chilled by coming into contact with a cold substance and also the match takes more readily to the composition when heated. Having passed the composition rollers and received its head, the match is cooled off by blasts of cold dry air for an hour and a half and then pushed off the iron plates or endless chain by a mechanical device into small paper or strawboard boxes. These boxes, containing 65 to 500 matches, are automatically fed into the machine and, after having received their quota of matches, are placed on a rotary of automatic machines, that cut the wood into combs, which are dipped, dried, packed and marketed in that form, for convenient carrying in the pocket. In the number of establishments making matches the effect of the modern ma chinery has made itself apparent also.
The statistics of the industry follows: table, covered and packed into cases. The greater portion of the material used for the composition placed on the head of the match is imported from foreign countries. due prob ably to the fact that the articles may be more cheaply produced in foreign countries owing to the cheapness of labor.
With the advances made in the methods of manufacturing matches, of necessity the ma chinery for making the boxes made a corre sponding advance, and has practically kept astride of the times. The majority of the in ventions made in the strawboard box machinery were made by Mr. E. B. Beecher, of Westville, Conn., while the improvement of the match making machinery is mainly due to McClintock Young, of Frederick, Md., J. P. Wright, of New Haven, Conn.; Charles Palmer, John W. Denmead and Joseph Baughman, of Akron, Ohio. The operation of the machinery for making the paper and strawboard boxes used in the match business is as follows: After having placed a roll of strawboard, cut to the proper width and lined either with oink or white paper, in the machine, the board is scored for the corners; it is then glued by an auto matic device, folded into an endless tube and passed on through the printing presses in that form and are printed on three sides. After being cut into proper sizes, the boxes are passed further along by the machine to a com partment where they receive a coat of sand on the fourth side, thus making a striking or rubbing surface for the ignition of the match. Thus the cover is completed and the box proper is made in substantially the same way, with the exception of the printing and sanding, and the entire box is turned out from the machine at the rate of over 400 per minute.
The immense saving accruing from these im proved devices has steadily reduced the cost of manufacture, and the rapidity with which the entire operation of match-making is conducted has tended to reduce the number of companies operating factories, and also to greatly reduce the number of people employed in the industry.
The effect of the automatic boxmakers on the number of people employed has been won derful. To have constructed the 2,000,000 boxes now made in a single day, 40 years ago, would have taken the combined labor of 1,500 persons, whereas it now takes but 75 people to operate the machines which turn out the same work in a more satisfactory manner. Books or cards of matches are formed by another class The importation is about 10 per cent of the manufacture, adding that much to the United States consumption. The match-making indus try has assumed considerable proportions in Norway, Sweden, Germany, France and the United States; in France the industry being a government monopoly, in the United States being largely controlled by one corporation, the Diamond Match Company, which is credited with over 75 per cent of the production, having four very large factories. It is also an inter esting fact for sociologists that in this industry the wage earners receive less than one-fourth of the value of the goods they produce, first deducting the cost of materials.