PHYSIOLOGICAL REASONS FOR SUNDAY REST.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 2233, 23 September 1889, Page 3

PHYSIOLOGICAL REASONS FOR SUNDAY REST.

The question of Sunday work has, of course a moral aide, and it is that side which mofit strongly influences many who are striving to lessen the evil. Physiologists are universally agreed that men need, for purely physiological reason 8, one day's rest out of the seven. There is plenty of evidence on this question, all pointing m the same direction, and the conclusion is inevitable that the almost universal desire of workmen foi rest on Sunday, and their strong objection to work continuously every day is the result of a natural physiological law, which like ■11 other laws of the kind, cannot be Tiolated without gomeono having to suffer the penalty. There la good reason for believing that many railroad accidents are directly traceable to physical and mentpl exhaustion of trainmen, caused by the strain of severo and active exacting duties, performed without relaxation for a period of time beyond that which is allowed by Nature. And m the pwfot street railway employee^ who are required to work from } 2 to 16, hours every day, Sundays included, it la probable that society Buffers, and will suffer, a large ■bare of the penalty. For the presence m the community of a considerable body of men to whom civilisation means almost, if not quite; nothing, npon whom society has imposed burdens almost intolerable and infinitely heavier than are imposed by Nature as a condition of living — we say that the preaanca of a body of men living under each conditions is a menace and a danger to republican institutions. — " American Machinist "