CORRESPONDENCE.

Timaru Herald, Volume LV, Issue 5790, 6 October 1893, Page 3

CORRESPONDENCE.

• c ~ THE WEEKLY HALF-HOLJDAY. TO THK EDITOR OF THE TIMARU HKRALD. £m— Seeing that a general half-he lidny is observed m Timsru during each week m every trade excepting floor milliner, I think that i\ is only right to oall the attention of the managers to the subject. They should try and give th?ir employees a half-holiday each week, ai with few exceptions they work twelve hours daily, and it is a well known fact that milling ia most injurious to health, end after working such long hours, a halfholiday would not be missed. It would have a most beneficial effect on all hands, as it would prepare thorn to withstand the various ill effeatu by having a few hours of reoreaticn weekly. Hoping that the managers will take ato, s to stop this sweating, for it is nothing more or lees, I am, &C, Half-holiday If to produce one pound of water or steam one-ninth of a pound of hydrogen is mingled with eight-ninths of a pound of oxygen, and the mixture ignited, a tremendous expansion takes place, with a violent explosion, and heat enough is produced to melt 2Olbs of eteel, or 7Oldb of gold, or 3501bs of lead, if it could be imparted thereto. And if the heat could be converted Into working energy it would be capable of lifting 2600 tons one foot highThe temperature produced m the pound of steam at the moment of combination, would be about 1200 degress Fahr. or about that wished for by the exasperated Nebuohadnezzar when he ordered the farnace (0 be heated seven times hotter than it was wont to ha heated. On the subjeot of oycling the Medical Press haethe following : — All pastimes doubt less have thoir physical debt which must be piid. The physical debt of football, f if nothing more serious happons, is as often as not a broken bone ; that of cricket a splintered finger ; that of tennis a " tennis elbow ;" that of riding a tendency to " bandy logs ;" and so forth, and it must be conceded that m a similar degree the graceful debt of cycling is en ungraceful rotundity of the baok, which bids fair, under present; oiroumetances, to deprive the young men of the generation of any claim to that gracefulness of form inseparably assooiated with an upright figure and a well-expanded and prominent chest. Apart altogether, however, from a health point of view, nothing could exceed the inartistic attitude which is now assumed by the wheelmen trundling them- ■ selves about on safeties. With arms outstretched and elbows ungainly projecting, with slouching shoulders and backs curved to the arc of a hoop, with heads thrown baokj caueing the chiu to assume somewhat a " prognathous " position, suggestive of the natural facial outline or the reputed simian ancestors of man — these are the several features of the riders whioh attract the attention of an observant (spectator at the meet of a cyoling club.