HALF HOLIDAY.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume IX, Issue 1011, 13 December 1881, Page 3

HALF HOLIDAY.

io the editoe. “ Alt work aud no play makes Jack a dull boy.” Sib, —There are two letters in your last issue deprecating the continuance of the Wednesday half-holiday. There are two sides to every question. I shall take the other, and I submit that the institution of the half holiday is a great relief to the employees, while it need not occasion the least inconvenience to the employers or to the public, who if they will merely bear in mind that it is Wednesday will suffer no greater loss or discomfort than they do on Sunday afternoon. It is rather selfish to require that clerks or shopmen shall keep their noses on the grindstone every day from (some of them) 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., and to allow them really no respite but Sundays and State holidays. Besides, in many cases the service does not end with attendance from 9 to 5, but on emergencies extra service, to make up balancies, or at stocktaking, is always cheerfully given, therefore it would seem only fair to make such slight concession as is now asked. Again, it is really necessary to the due performance of the duties required that there should be a few hours a w'eek devoted to recreation, to be “ chained to the galley oar ” from Monday morning to Saturday night, without intermission, is too much. A man, after a few hours of healthy amusement, or exercise, or the following for that time a different pursuit, goes back on Thursday morning with a fresh stock of energy, and perforins his duties more efficiently than if he returned fagged and dispirited at the refusal of such recreation. The famous Mantalini discovered howbitter and disheartening is life when compelled to pass it in “ one demnition grind,” aud it is a well known fact, almost historical, that those employed who have always had due care to the proper living, recreation, and general health and efficiency of their servants, have invariably been the most successful in business. But the present is eminently a quesbetween the public and the employees. If the public will assist in obtaining some amelioration of the condition of the employed by devoting Wednesday afternoon to some other pursuit than business, then the Wednesday halfholiday will become an institution I believe to the general benefit of the community. —Yours, &c., W. H. Tucker.

[We wonder what our correspondent would say if he were “ chained to the galley oar ” of even a tri-weekly newspaper, on an average of 14 to 16 hours a day ? —Ed. S.]