The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1889-11-14
A DANGEROUS OCCUPATION.
THE LINEMAN's WORK, AND ACcI-
DENTS WHICH HAPPEN TO HIM.
How Danger Is Increased by Stray
Electric Light Currents-Men
Drift Into the Business Naturally.

Drift Into the Business Naturally,
1t ii a familiar sight to people living
IN large cities to see groups of three,
four, or more sturdy men in rough
clothes walking smartly along, tools for
fixing wires in their hands, and the straps
and spurs of their "climbers' hanging
over their shoulders. They are all men
with courage written on their faces and
agile strength shown in their bodies,
arms and legs. On and on they walk,
with their eyes, from force of habit,
glancing up toward the wires reaching
from pole to pole and extending across
house roofs. Presently the foreman
halts, and the Others stop behind him.
Here is the first place OF trouble in the
district which this gang is covering.
The foreman gives his instructions, and
the men prepare for work. First they
bind around their legs the spurs and
then taking one comprehensive survey of
the wires aloft, they see that their tools
are all right in their pockets. Now the
climbing begins. One man is at this
pole, another is at the next one, and an
other somewhere else along the street.
The tall sticks of timber are sixty or
seventy feet high In jitfy the linemen
are up among the crosspieces. Often
there are loiterrrs who linger on the
curbstones to watch the work But it is
difficult to tell just what the laborers are
doing away up there in the mir. 1t isn't
pleasant to turn up ones face to the fall
ing rain drops, and besides, the maze
of wires hinders close observa-
ton, and the most careful of onlookers
finds himself unable to see fully the
operation of the lineman. One thing
you can easily see, though, and that is
that the workman displays exceeding
care in selecting his position and in man
aging not to touch certain wires.
AT last descends from the crosspieces
and stands upon the flag walk. But he
has no time to waste, and is soon off to
another pole, up that, at work in the maze,
then down again and Oft to another pole.
Then, perhaps his work takes him to the
roof of a house, and he must climb care
fully over the slanting thin or slate, be
ca;eful about clumsy scuttle holes, and
often support himself delicately at the
caves, five, six, perhaps eight stories
above the ground, A false step, an in
cautious movement, weak thrust of the
spur into the tall stick, and the lineman
would fall to the stones below.
"Well, | am glad there's one more
days work DONE" remarks the worker
among aerial wires, as finally he touches
the earth again. 'I'm glad" he goes
on, 'for now | know that for dozen
hours or so | won't be running any more
chances of accident than men in other
kinds of work. Ordinarily we linemen
don't bother much about thinking of the
danger we are in on the poles and house,
tops. That is, year ago we didn't
mind it much, but now we seldom begin
a days work without wondering whether
it is going to be our turn next to slip and
fall or touch deadly wire. You see it's
been pretty nearly within the last year
that the fatal accidents have happened,
and tell you they have made us men
rather nervous. We always knew we had
hard life, but we kinder got used to it.
There didn't use to be so much danger
Of getting death shock. Now the
danger has increased"
elbow do men get to be linemen?n
ooh, just the same as men get to be
engaged in anything that is perilous. A
young man hasn't had a chance to get
some safe, pleasant trade; he wants work,
and he takes the first thing that comes
his way. live in a small town up the
State, and had been doing various things.
telegraph company came along and
wanted me help put up new line. l
got job-just the same as lots, yes,
most linemen, get started-in handling
the reels of wires or helping the men that
strung them on the poles. | was
groundman-that's what they call 'em-
and did my work all right. None of us
groundmen had to climb poles. The
foreman wouldn't let us. He said it was
risky and the company wouldn't let us
go up the pole and fall down and smash
our heads. They didn't care for us Or
our getting hurt, but they did care about
having to pay damages. That's what
was the matter Well, l worked along
for some months and never went up a
pole. But knewI could do it, for there
wasn't tree anywhere around my town
that | couldn't get up along with any
other boy and without being boosted
either So one Sunday lot of us
groundmen were talking about climbing
we were boarding at farm house
along the road where the line was being
built and Sunday we didn't work-and
while we were talking about skinning
up trees and climbing telegraph poles a
fellow dared me to go up pole. 1t
was a big one and the ground all around
was stony, so that fall would have been
serious; but l put on a pair of
climbers and sailed up that pole as
slick as the foreman could have done it.
That's what made me lincman. The
foreman heard there was groundman in
the gang that could go up pole, and
next time he had to recommend some fell
lows for promotion was one of those he
named. So here l am, going up poles
and fussing around with wires. How did
| get to learn what to do with the wiress
Oh, from watching the linemen when
ever as groundman l had the chance.
1t isn't hard work just to repair or change
wires; the difficult part is in the having
to do it up so high in the air with such
an awfully insecure footing. Sometimes
a wire is slack; then all there is to do is
to pull it taut and fasten it. Perhaps a
line has got out of place and crosses
another. The current is spoiled then,
and we have to straighten the wires so
that each will be independent of the
other. Or may be there is piece of bad
wire somewhere. We find it out and cut
it down and then put in new stretch
and splice it at each end. None of these
things is very hard nor requires much ex-
pert knowledge. Still lineman doesn't
get them all at once. Generally he be-
gins on easy work. The first thing he has
to know how to do is to climb a pole
Then when he gets there he must know
inst what to do. Some oroundmep learn