2-995-976 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The tinder-box with its et ceteras, 1860. 'The brimstone-matches, the tinder-box, and the flint and steel...are now amongst the matters of the past, and so completely have the lucifers superseded them that the fire-producing apparatus which was, and had been for centuries, so common in every dwelling throughout the land, are almost as rare as the schoolboy's "Hornbook"...Great as are the advantages which have arisen from the introduction of lucifer-matches, it is not altogether without some evils. In the large manufactories in which they are made the children and other workers are often afflicted with a disease which eats away the bones in a fearful manner; and, doubtless, many of the unaccountable fires which occur in both town and country may be attributed to the spontaneous combustion or careless use of the lucifers. The example engraved is from a Sketch made in a village not far from the venerable Stonehenge, on Salisbury Plain - a primitive part of England, where various old customs still continue to be observed, and where, we are told, some few persons still continue the use of the flint-and-steel tinder-box. We also believe that some of the old captains of the Tyne colliers would not consider it "lucky" to have a "lucifer" on board'. From "Illustrated London News", 1860.