Railway Workers.

The great Scotch strike of 1890-1 has made us all familiar with the monstrously excessive hours of nearly all grades of railway men. Particulars of their overwork are to be found in the Railway Companies' own returns to the Board of Trade.^†

Nearly all the great Eailway Companies have thousands of men' at work for fifteen, and even eighteen hours at a stretch. Nor is this made necessary by fogs or pressure of business. The London and South-Western Railway suffers from as many fogs as the rest,. and is no less liable to sudden increase of traffic. But the London and South-Western Railway hardly ever keeps any engine driver or signalman at work for more than twelve hours at a stretch. What one company can do, the others could imitate if they liked; but they prefer to work with an inadequate staff.

Average, 185¾ hours per fortnight.

No wonder that during 1889, one in seventeen of the brakesmen and goods guards, and one in eighteen of the shunters, employed in the United Kingdom, were injured by accidents.^‡