THE SKETCHER.

Otago Witness, Issue 3495, 8 March 1921, Page 51

THE SKETCHER.

THE PROBLEM OF EFFICIENT INDUSTRY. THE MIND IS THE BEST MOTOR. We used to build pianos. Then we stopped building pianos and began to build men; they have looked after the building of j pianos. — Packard Piano Co., of America. The Problem.—• Dr Charles S. Myers is an M.A„ an M.D., a So.D., and on F.R.S. He is Direotor of the Psychological Laboratory of Cambridge University, and was a member of the Industrial Fatigue Research Board and sometime Consulting Psychologist to the B.E.F. So equipped, he has written a valuable book on “Mind and Work: the Psychological Factors in Industry and Commerce” (University of London Press, Ltd.) His great theme is that the mind is the most important and fundamental determinant of industrial and commercial efficiency, and he investigates how this supreme motor may be given the fit conditions for its best work—to the benefit and well-being of the man or woman whose mind it is. Dr Myers’ suggestion is that not enough aocount has been taken of the mind in the equipment for daily toil, and the task of the Psychological Laboratory at Cambridge, of which he is director, is to resolve the many difficulties pertaining to Mind in Work. What do you make of such incidents as these which Dr Myers quotes? —At the Docks.— “In the London Docks more than 25 per cent, of the accidents are said to occur between 11 a.m. and noon, and j between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. That is [ to say, towards the end of the morning | they are more frequent than at the be- j ginning, and towards the close of the afternoon they again become far more frequent, which agrees with the course which fatigue may be expected to follow.” j “ In a bleaching factory a 20 minutes’ j rest was introduced after each spell of 80 minutes’ work, whereupon a 60 per cent, increase of output was recorded, acoom- ! panied by a 50 per cent, increase of j wages. “A five minutes’ rest period introduced j into every hour’s work, save the last, j enabled a Lancashire firm employing girls to increase the daily output by 6.4 per cent, in one group of girls and bv 10.9 per cent, in the remainder.” “la a tinplate factory the introduction of a six-hour shift increased the hourly output by 8.3 per cent., and the introduction of a four-hour shift increased it by 11.5 per cent, as compared with the hourly output of an .eight-hour shift. In an ironworks the reduction of hours from 53 to 48 per week reduced lost time from 2.46 to 0.46 peT cent, of working hours.” The New Mind at Work. — “In the shops of a certain factory in ! this country S,OCX) of a certain article were j produced weekly. The management decided to open a new shop, in which the j mechanical conditions were practically the same as before excepting that inexperi- i enced operators were engaged who were ; unfettered by tradition, knowing nothing j about the work. “At the end of six months’ nractice j this new shop produced 13,000 of the j articles per week, whereas each of the older shops, with its reduction of output, continued to produce only 5,000.” The Psychological Motor.Dr Myers with such facte as these in his mind investigates in this book the relation of psychology to the well-being and j efficiency of industrial and commercial i workers. And all his argument seems to j prove that you must nob use men and women as mere machines, for if you do you will not get out of them the splendid work they can do, for they have a SuperMachine—the mind—which cannot be harnessed by cash, but works easily and well with a willing will. The Important Thing.— Dr Charles Myers declares that of the four main determinants of industrial and commercial efficiency — —the mechanical, —the physiological, --the psychological, and —the social and economic —the psychological is by far the most important and fundamental. “Intelligence in foreseeing demands and in improving industrial conditions, and a sympathetic understanding of the standpoint of others, are much more ‘productive’ than mere capital or mechanical labour. “The physiological factors involved in purely muscular fatigue are now fast hecomino- negligible compared with the effects of mental and nervous fatigue, monotony, want of interest, suspicion, hostility, etc. The psychological factor must therefore be the main consideration of industry and commerce in the future.” Dr Myers gees on to show its importance In (1)" movement study, (2) fatigue study, (3) selection study, (4) incentives study, and in (5) industrial unrest. Here are some of Dr Myers’ contentions on these matters of human activity “A good deal of preliminary work has been done in the psychological laboratory towards determining what is the most favourable rest pause. It is clear that when all the various opposing factors influencing the work-curve —practice, fatigue sport, incitement, settlement—are taken Into account, there must he a rest pause of a certain length after a given period of work which will he more favourable to subsequent work than a pause of greater or shorter length. Work in the laboratory on this subject is being continued, and is capable of almost endless extension and of Invaluable application to industrial problems.

How Output is Affected.—■ “It is to be expected that the curve of industrial output must vary considerably with the kind of work done. When the work involves merely strenuous muscular 1 exertion we may expect a rapid and early riser in the work-curve to a maximum, followed by a fairly definite fall during the morning spell, and after dinner a fair recovery, followed by a progressive, well-marked fall throughout the afternoon. “When, on the other hand, the work ie characterised by skill and dexterity, we find a slower more gradual rise to the maximum, followed by a less obvious fall, a less complete recovery after dinner, and a much smaller drop at the close of the afternoon. “When, as in machine work, the output is largely independent of the human factor, the curve of output may be expected to reach a maximum at about the third hour of the morning spell, then to fall slightly, and during the afternoon to maintain so high a level that the output may exceed, or at least equal, the morning’s output. “Clearly we are only on the outskirts of the vast realm of knowledge on this subject wliich awaits discovery. “We now know that, even in the resting state, the human organism shows definite variations in efficiency throughout the day, such variations corresponding apparently to those in the normal curve of output under working conditions, though, of course, the level is at a higher level. Obviously, therefore, it is a thoroughly unscientific principle to set or to expect a constant rate. of output throughout each hour of the working day.” The Mind as a Kingdom.— “My mind to me a kingdom is,” But if we would get the best work out of it we have to take into account its own laws and methods of working. We have to work with them and not against them, ■and only by so doing do we get out of men and women the best of which they are capable. The spirit of man is being proved to be one of the most important factors in industry. The terrible story of the Industrial Revolution which has cursed England in the last 100 years is the tragic story of how we have tried to work against the spirit of man, and to make him a mere tool. The motorist to-day is proud when he owns a self-starting car. Men and women are the finest self-starting machines ever seen in the industrial market, and the wise employer is he who commands their willing service and faithful toil because he considers the conditions under which these immortal machines can best do their daily task. An obvious fact which it has taken

1000 years to learn. ROSSETTI AND HIS BURIED POEMS. The 10th of February, 1862, was a day of tragedy for Dante Gabriel Rossetti. In the evening he had dined happily with his wife and his friend, Swinburne, at a restaurant in Leicester square, after which Mrs Rossetti, who appeared as well as usual, returned home with her husband. Dante Gabriel saw her to bed, and then went out to his class at the Working Men’s College. He returned home some time after 11 and found his wife insensible, and, on the table at her side, a small phial which had contained laudanum. Four doctors were called in, but in , spite of their endeavo-urs she never recovered consciousness, and died about ha.f past 7 in the morning.” —“The Most Supreme, Celestial Passion.” — Twelve too brief years had gone since his eyes first fell on' the beauty of Elizabeth Siddal, milliner’s assistant turned model, as she posed in the studio of his friend, Walter Deverell. . For 12 brief years he had worshipped her as man has seldom worsnipped woman. She had been to him what Beatrice was to Dante, and Vittoria Colonna to Michael Angelo. , He had immortalised her on scores oi canvases, with the proud boast: Let all men note . That in all years (O, Love, thy gift is this) They that would look on her must come to mo. And he had written, for her eyes alone, a “century of sonnets,” enshrining the “most supreme, celestial passion ever .recorded among men.” For less than two of these years he had enjoyed the “too long delayed rapture” of union with her. And now, when his cup of happiness was full to its brim, it was dashed brutally, tragically, from his lips. The MSS. in the Coffin. — On the morning of the funeral he entered the room in which the body of his beloved lay and reverently placed beneath the glory of her hair a small volume into which ho had copied the poems his love of her had inspired. “M" brother, unwitnessed,” Mr W. M. Rossetti says, “deposited the MSS. in the coffin. He" then informed Madox Brown of what he had done, saying, I have often been writing at those poems when Lizzie was ill and suffering, and I might have been attending to her ; and now they shall go.’ Brown disapproved of such a sacrifice to a mere impulse of grief or time after 11 and found his wife insensremonstrate. I replied, ‘Well, the feeling does him honour, and let him do as he like3.’ ” Thus, when Rossetti’s “Beatrice” was laid to rest . in Highgate Cemetery, she took with her to the sanctuary and silence of the grave all the tributes of love her husband’s muse had laid at her feet in life. _ s During the years that followed his' great loss, Rossetti songht a refuge from bis grief in feverish work with his brushes; in collecting china; in his weird menagerie, ranging from wombats and armadillos to chameleons and kangaroos ; and in the comradeship of devoted friends. But such distractions did little to lighten

the burden of his sorrow. His heart was buried with his lost love j be longed for the day when “my spirit shall go hence to behold the glory of Its lady—that blessed Beatrice.” And in his passionate yearning he sought long and vainly to get into touch with her by means of spiritualism. Seven Years.— Thus seven tortnred years passed, while the poems his life-passion had inspired lay in the Highgate Cemetery in his dead lady’s keeping. Nor during all these years would he listen to the appeals ana entreaties of his friends to recover them, to the enrichment of the world’s literature. “Various friends,” he wrote to his brother William, on October 13, 1869, “have long hinted from time to time at the possibility of recovering my lost MSS. ; and when I was in Scotland last year Scott particularly referred to it. Some months ago Howell, of bis own accord, entered on the matter, and offered to take all the execution of it on himself. This for some time I still hung back from accepting; but eventually I yielded, and the thing was done, after an order had been obtained from the Home Secretary, on Wednesday or Thursday last.” The Exhumation.— Thus it was that one October night in 1869 a few of Rossetti’s friends made their way through the darkness to Highgate Cemetery, while he himself remained at home, alone with his thoughts and memories. In awed silence, broken only by occasional whispers and the sound of digging, they stood near the grave in a group, now lit up, now in shadow, as the flames of a fire flared or fell. When at last the coffin was raised and opened, “Beatrice’s” body, it is said, was revealed as beautiful in death as in life, her face peacefully pillowed on the small volume which she had guarded so long and faithfully. It was removed with infinite tenderness from its sanctuary between her cheek and her still glorious hair; and Elizabeth Rossetti was reverently laid once more to her rest. “All in the coffin was found quite perfect,” Rossetti wrote a week later to his brother. A few months later—in the spring of 1870 —the* poems thus dramatically recovered from the grave were given to the world, and Elizabeth Rossetti became immortalised as “the heroine of the greatest sonnet-sequence in our language, gave only that of Shakespeare.” A NEW GUINEA MAGISTRATE’S THRILLING TALES* Captain C. A. W. Monckton has “lived.” Incidents in his book, “Some Experiences of a New Guinea Resident Magistrate” (John Lane), read like incidents in Island.” Robert Louis Stevenson would have been amused by these stories. Captain Monckton fought in the war, but before 1914 his life had been crowded with thrilling adventures and many very narrow escapes with his life. The days when he was in New Guinea were wild days, and some of them bloodthirsty days. Like the late Mr Roosevelt, the . author (says John o’ London’s Weekly), does not believe in whitewash, and he does not attempt to whitewash his own actions or flatter his superior officers. In reading this book, so full of the rtuff of drama and told with vivid dramatic touches, I could not help admiring the strength and resource of this English official in his struggles in dealing with savage races. Ho is the type that has made the Englishman the supreme colonist. “N ichol as th e Gr e ek. ’ ’— In the very first chapter he tells some bloodthirsty stories of a-n amazing desperado known throughout the South Sea-s as “Nicholas the Greek” :—- “A vessel had been cut out in one of the New Guinea or Louisade Islands—which it was I have forgotten—and the crew massacred. When this became known, a man-of-war or Government ship was sent to punish the murderers, and in especial to secure a native chief who was primarily responsible. The punitive ship came across Nicholas and engaged him as pilot and interpreter, he being offered £IOO when the man wanted was secured. Nicholas safely piloted his charge to some remote island, where The inhabitants, doubtless having guilty consciences, promptly fled for the hills, where it was impossible for ordinary Europeans to follow them. He then offered to go alone to try and locate them, and, armed with a ship’s cutlass and revolver, disappeared on his quest. Some days elapsed, then in the night a small canoe appeared alongside the ship, from which emerged Nicholas, bearing in his hand a bundle. Marching up to the officer commanding, he undid it, and rolled at the officer’s feet a gory human head, remarking, ‘Here is your man ; T couldn’t bring the lot of him : I’ll thank you for that £loo.’ Tire Avenging Ghost.— “Another story was that Nicholas on one occasion was attacked and frightfully slashed about by his native crew, and then thrown overboard, he shamming dead. Sinking in the water, he managed to cet under the keel, along which he crawled like a crawfish until he came to the Tudder, upon which he roosted under the counter until night fell and his crew slept. Then he climbed on board, secured a tomahawk, and either killed or drove overboard the whole crew, they thinking he was an avenging ghost. This done. badlv wounded and unassisted, he worked his vessel to a neighbouring island, where, being sickened and disgusted with men, he shipped and trained a crew of native women, with whom he sailed for many :• years: in fact, until the day came when Rir W. MacGregor appeared upon the scene and passed the Native Labour Ordinance, which, amongst other things, prohibited the carrying of women on vessels. Nicholas and Peter the Pilot.— “Of Nioholas abso is told the story that once, in the bad old pre-protectorate days,

so many charges were brought against him by missionaries and merchantmen that a man-of-war was sent to arrest him, whereever found, and bring him to trial. He, through a friendly trader, got wind of the fact that he was being sought for, and accordingly laid his plans far the bamboozlement of his would-be captors. Summoning his crew, he informed them that his father was dead, and that as he had his father’s name of Nicholas, his name must now be ‘Peter,’ as the custom of his tribe was, even os that of some New Guinea peoples—viz., not to mention the name of the dead, lest harm befall. Then he sailed in search of the pursuing warehip, and, eventually finding her, went on beard l and volunteered his services as pilot, which were gladly accepted. To all of his haunts he then guided the ship, but in all the reply of the natives was the same, when questioned as to his whereabouts : ‘We know not Nicholas, be is gone. Peter your pilot cornea in his place. Nicholas is dead, and ’tis wrong to mention the name of the dead.’ It was eaid of him that on no part of his body could a man’s hand be placed without touching the scar of some old wound— a story I can fully believe.” German Harry.— “German Hairy” was a “venomous little scorpion,” but “a generous-hearted little man,” who once met a hulking brute of a Dane, a terrible wife-ibeater. German Harry was reading a newspaper report of the Dane’s assault on his wife. Says the author:— “As Harry, the Dane, and I were sitting in the goldfield store, Harry read the account, and then, gazing at the Dane, said something in German, of which »‘Schweinhund’ was the only word I understood. A gloss of rum promptly smashed on Harry’s teeth, followed by a bellow of rage and the thrower’s rush. Harry in a single instant became a lunatic, and flying like a wild cat at the other’s face, kicking, biting, and clawing, bore the big man to the ground, from where, in a few seconds, agonised yells of ‘He is eating me !’ told us the Dane was in dire trouble. Harry was dragged away by main force, and we found half of” his victim’s nose bitten off, while a bloodshot and protruding eye showed how nearly his thumb had got its work in. The wife-beater went off a mass of funk and misery. German Harry said ‘he only wanted to frighten him.’ ” - She Died.—

A European carpenter was married to a native woman, who died suddenly. “ ‘I sent to every store,’ said the widower, ‘and I bought chlorodyne and pain-killer, fever mixture and pink pills, cough mixtures and Mother Seigel’s syrup ; I bought every sort of medicine they had got, and I gave her some of each, hoping tha't one would fix her up. There are the bottles, you can see I’ve done my best. I then’ sent for Bob Whitten to ask him if he knew of anything else, and _ while Bob was here she died. Is there going to be an inquest, and shall I bring the body up to your house?’ ” Desperate Remedies.— Captain Monckton had a desperate task in trying to persuade the natives in one district not to drink the water from the pools they had been in the habit of going to, and not to bury their dead in their houses. The mortality was very heavy. The natives sorcerers were largely responsible. Monckton tied all manner of dodges without avail, and at last hit upon the idea of colouring the pools with permanganate of potash. Convinced that the water was poisoned, the natives stopped drinking it, and the sickness ceased. But suddenly there was a fresh outbreak. Bays the author . ~ , , “At my wits’-end, I again assembled g|e chiefs and village constables. ‘What foolery .are you up to now ?’ I asked. ‘Are you drinking the water from the poisoned wells ot burying the dead in the. villages and houses?’ ‘Oh, no,’ thev said, ‘we have obeved you most strictly ; also we have carried “out a precaution suggested by the sorcerers.’ ‘"What was that. I demanded/ ‘They have told us that when death takes place. the hodv of the dead person is to licked by 'all the relations. The sorcerers got it hot af -cr that. ANCIENT ROMAN SEAPORT ON THE TIBER, The Italian Government, which was honourably distinguished by its efforts to protect the monuments of its country s art during the European war, found most useful employment for its prisoners by setting them to complete the excavation of Ostia, the seaport of ancient Rome. the result was that there has been laid bare, within 16 miles of Rome, an ancient tovvn of far greater historic interest than Pompeii. Practically the entire area of Ostia—the theatre, forum, and two important temples—-have been exposed, and one may now promenade streets which may once have echoed to the tramp of Scipio’s legions. _ . The name “Ostia’’ means the river mouths,” and Romans in the primitive age probably thought of it as Roma Ostia— Rome of the Estuary. It is of special interest to the political historian that Ostia, though 16 miles from Rome, was always reckoned as an integral part of the city ” being included in the Palatine Region. This fact is eloquent of its position. It was not a separate city, but that tentacle of early Rome which touched the sea, just as Piraeus was a tentacle of Athens. It was, it is true, some 16 miles distant from its parent city, as against less than five in the case of Athens and Pirceus, but the connection was fully as close. Ostia is said by Livy to have been founded by Ancus Martius, the fourth King of Rome (about 640-616 u.c.). There are no valid reasons for rejecting the statement, despite the curious, unimaginative scepticism of German historians. Probably what Ancus did was to enlarge and fortify an already existing village. The place lay on the edge of a salt-marsh, and can hardly ever have been very salubrious ;

but as th® port of what was already an important city-state it had great importance. Salt works established in the marsh gave it local industry, and furnished a useful commodity for exportation. When Rome became an Imperial power Ostia, though already hampered by the receding sea, as well ‘as by the neglect of the Republican Government to improve the waterway, retained and increased its importance as the seaport of the great city. It seems to have harboured a very cosmopolitan population, and Eastern religious cults—those of the Great Mother of Phrygia, Mithras, and others—found there a welcome. It certainly possessed a temple of Mithras a 3 well as one of the Italian Vulcan. In an old number of the Athenaum (November 6, 1886) is an account of some of the uncovered buildings of Ostia, including that of a large bouse with a mithreeum, for the worship of Mithras, attached. It was not until the third and fourth- centuries that Mithraism became really powerful in the Roman Empire, competing for a time with Christianity ; but Ostia was always the abode ol foreign people and beliefs. It is perhaps significant that the chief place of amusement was a theatre, not an amphitheatre or circus. Curiously enough, the history of Ostia does not present anything very stirring during tile days of its greatness, though many famous men must have embarked or landed m its roadstead, and no doubt there were often brilliant scenes when the fleets which fought Carthage gathered there. But the coast was steadily advancing; and there was now a delta at the moutn of the Tiber. Of the two river arms, the right-hand one—that farther from Ostia was the deeper, and heavy ships began to use it in preference to th® other The necessity of a better harbour for the African corn-ships which supplied Rome led the Emperor Claudius to build a new seaport at the head of the delta about two miles from Old Ostia. This was known as Portus Ostiensis, or simply rA U ?: n , ow ■f >or l°- Thus the importance of Ostia dwindled.

let, it was in its last days—indeed, in tJl ® ver )' a g°n.Y of the Empire’s dissolution —that Ostia saw its most stirring days. Between the years 535 and 550 a most extraordinary and fluctuating contest was waged by the East Romans and Ostrogoths for the possession of Rome. At times the Romans, at others the Gotha, held Rome, hirst the Romans held Ostia while the Goths kept Portus; then the Romans seized Portus and the Goths captured Ostia. The river was the scene of constant fighting, as the Byzantine fleetsi tried to force their way to Rome, and the Goths to prevent them. On one occasion tne Goths blocked the river by a boom and wooden forts; but two Byzantine ships sent by the great General Belisarious, saifed up the stream abreast, supporting on their masts a cross-yard, from whioh ung a boat filled with combustibles, they drove into the boom, lowered their boat-load of incendiary matter, and burned it to ashes. This was only one incident of many, but the long struggle marked the fi lla i rum of Ostia, and it dwindled into an almost deserted ruin on the edge of the fever-haunted Campagna. To-day . l er ® are only a few scores of inhabitants m the village alongside the ruins of ancient Rome s seaport.