Overwork in Telegraph Offices.

Evening Star, Issue 7337, 8 October 1887, Page 1 (Supplement)

Overwork in Telegraph Offices.

Of the various public services the railway and the telegraph departments are two in which employes have probably to do harder and more continuous work than in any other. While eash of them is contrived to meet the demands of sudden emergency, and to make use of all available time by day or night, it cannot be said that the working staff of either receives that consideration which is fairly due to it. The effects of this neglect have at times been painfully apparent in accidents and narrow escapes recorded on the line, and these, we may hope, have taught some lessons in organisation which were much needed, and are even now still better known in theory than observed in practice. The case of telegraph clerks is different. The risks arising out of over-pressure do not usually concern the employers so much as the employed. They are such as tell severely on the health of individuals through the nervous and muscular strain of concentrated effort during a period of twelve hours. We do not forget that youth is, with many, a time of great constitutional elasticity. At that age a shock or a crisis may come and go and leave no lasting mark, and likewise high degrees of labor tension may be undorgone and rallied from. At the same time one is forced to admit that much of the working material which passes into the telegraphic and every other service by competitive examination is by origin and habit physically unfit to sustain such effort. A shorter working time or greater division of duties appears therefore to be indicated, if we are to shield from needless hurt those whom wo select on the present system. —• Lancet.'