PHYSIOLOGICAL REASONS FOR SUNDAY REST.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 2692, 12 October 1889, Page 6 (Supplement)

PHYSIOLOGICAL REASONS FOR SUNDAY REST.

TiiK.question of Sunday work has of course a moral side, and it is that side which most strongly influences many who are striving to lessen the evil. Physiologists are nniversally agreed that men need, for purely phy.-iological reasons, one day'n rest out of the seven. There is plenty of evidence on this question, all pointing in the same direction, and the conclusion is inevitable that the almost universal desire of workmeu for rest on Sunday, and their strong objection to work continuously every day is the result of a natural physiological law, which like all other laws of tho kind, cannot be violated without someone having to suffer the penalty. There is jjood reason for believing that many railroad accidents are directly traceablo to physical and men f al exhaustion of trainmen, caused by the strain of severe and active exacting duties, performed without relaxation for a period of time beyond that which is allowed by Nature. And in the case of street railway employes, who are required to work from 12 to 16 hours every day, Sundays included, it is probuble that society suffers, and will suffer, a large share of the penalty. For the presence in the community of a considerable body of men to whom civilisation means almost, if not quite, nothing, upon whom society has imposed burdens almost intolerable aud infiuitely heavier than are imposed by Nature as a condition of living , —wo say that the presence of a body of men living under such conditions is a menace and a danger to republican institutions.—American Machinist.