Negligence Quotes (1)
After some experiments made one day at my house upon the phosphorus, a little piece of it being left negligently upon the table in my chamber, the maid making the bed took it up in the bedclothes she had put on the table, not seeing the little piece. The person who lay afterwards in the bed, waking at night and feeling more than ordinary heat, perceived that the coverlet was on fire.
quoted in The 13th Element: The Sordid Tale of Murder, Fire, and Phosphorus, by John Emsley, Cambridge University Press (2000)
See also: | Phosphorus (5)