s, especially, perhaps,
of the many young ladies who are now practising the very pleasing
art of modelling fruits, flowers, &c., in wax, at all suspect the
great danger in which they are placed from the poisonous nature of
the colouring matter of the wax which they handle so unsuspectingly.
The white wax, for instance, contains white lead; the green, copper;
the yellow, chrome yellow and vermilion--strong poisons all; while
many other kinds of wax are equally poisonous, and, therefore
dangerous. There are very many persons who are aware of the intense
sufferings, for very many years past, of Mr. W. Bally, phrenologist
and modeller in wax, in which latter branch he has laboured for 24
or 25 years, three of them as teacher of the art, at the Manchester
Mechanics' Institution. Mr. Bally has been at times completely
paralysed, and is now and has long been very nearly so, especially
in the hands and arms; and he has also been afflicted with extensive
ulceration of the throat, and has almost totally lost his voice.
Both himself and his medical adviser, after a long attention to his
symptoms, are satisfied that the primary cause of his affliction is
the extent to which the subtle poisons in the wax with which he has
worked have been absorbed into his system through the pores of his
hands, while the disease has been generally strengthened, and one
part of it accounted for, by the occasional application of his
fingers to his lips while at work. Mr. Bally says, that he has known
several cases in which young ladies have been attacked with partial
paralysis of the hands and arms, after having devoted some time to
the practice of modelling; but at the time he had no suspicion of
the cause. As all the requisite colours can be obtained from
vegetable matter, and as the use of mineral colouring seems to lead
to such deplorable results, the subject should be carefully
investigated by those working with coloured wax."--_Manchester
Examiner._

It is not my intention to contradict an assertion so boldly set forth. I
have no doubt the editor of the _Manchester Examiner_ had some grounds
for the article; but I think it right to state _that_ which I can
prove--namely, that the wax _artistically manufactured by me_ is so
perfectly harmless, that for the last fourteen years I have had it in my
hands, upon an average from twelv