(Editor's Note: This original article appeared in the August 30, 1913 issue of The Literary Digest, author unknown.)

The fumeless match is becoming more common than of yore, and the time may come when it will occupy the field teethe exclusion of all others. Time was when to strike a match meant vitiating the air for rods around, setting every one coughing and wheezing. The following facts, from The Lancet (London, July 12, 1913), apply presumably to Great Britain, but they are fairly applicable to our own country also:

"A few years ago something like eighteen million gross of boxes were consumed per annum, 63 per cent of which were the 'strike-anywhere' match and 37 percent the safety-match. About twelve years ago the percentage of safety-matches consumed was only 18 per cent, the consumption of the 'strike-anywhere' match being 82n per cent. More recently the safety-match is being shown to overtake the 'strike-anywhere' match with advantages, we think, to the public. The modern match is a great advance on the match of a decade or so ago. Yellow phosphorus has been banished from its composition -- a fact which has conferred benefits not only on the operatives engaged in the manufacture of matches, but on the consumer also. The combustion of phosphorus in the air, of course, adds to it an undesirable constituent. The modern 'strike-anywhere' match contains phosphorus in the form of sesquisulphide, which does no harm to the factory-hand, but which, all the same, gives off irritating and poisonous fumes when struck -- namely, the oxides of phosphorus and sulfur. The safety-match frequently gives off sulfur dioxid in irritating quantity, but no phosphorus. The phosphorus in this case is on the rubber on the box in the shape of red amorphous phosphorus, which is not poisonous, and as little of it actually burns on the friction of the match very little oxid of phosphorus is formed. Some of the matches contain the poisonous lead oxid or chromates as oxidizers, while in others potassium chlorate and manganese dioxid are employed for the same purpose. In spite of the enormous number of matches used, the fumes they give off on combustion cannot be considered a serious source of mischief. But these fumes do unquestionably pollute the air, more especially when they are used frequently, as in a railway-carriage or smoking-saloon. We may be thankful, however, that both the old yellow, or 'live' phosphorus match and the sulfur-tipped lucifer are extinct, inasmuch as their effect in vitiating the air was appreciable."