Weekly News. — 1890-09-04 (Blandford, Dorset, England)

RICHARDSON ON SHORTER HOURS. The annual congress of the Sanitary Institute held at Brighton last week was brought to a close on Saturday evening with a lecture in the Town Hall by Dr. W.B.Richardson on" Working Hours for Working Men." Dr. Richardson argued that from a sanitary point of view the working day should not exceed eight hours, and he considered that the reason this standard was not generally followed was due not so much to employers as to the public, who persisted. in the most exacting manner, and for no useful purpose whatever, in making hard workers keep long hours. He admitted that work thrown upon the body as a whole was not usually injurious. It was when it was thrown upon .sie particular part or organ of the body that it was attended with evil results, causing first the failure of that organ, and then the premature death of the worker. Nor health's sake. therefore, work ought to be measured out in accordance with the strain which it put on the body or the mind, or on both together. He contended, further, that the work should be measured out on the principle of adapting the application of the powers of man to his proper wor. ing necessities. With regard to the time for relaxation, Dr. Richardson held above all things that Sunday ought strictly to be retained as a day of rest, not in the Jewish or Puritan fashion, but in such a manner as would give repose and change to mind and body. With an eight hours system of labour, he thought there must come also a better system of recreation during the week, for he repudiated the notion that working men and women. were not wishing for better and healthier pleasures than they had up to this time enjoyed. He contended, in conclusion, that Bank Hol day with its crash, shortness, and head-over-heels character, and with its entire dependence on the weather, ought thoroughly to be revised; that working men and women, like those of ,Q her classes, should have their longer vacation at e..nvenient times, as they required it for the recreation and health of themselves and their tannins,  The Denser News states that an English syndicate has secured the option of acquiring all the leading silver mines near Aspen, Colorado. The journal places the price at 27,000.000‘101.  A ghastly tragedy is reported from Fontana, in the Austro-Italian frontier district, an agricultural labourer having murdered his wife and five children. 3ome Carabineers were sent to arrest him but he was possessed of a gun, and threatened to shoot the irst man who laid hand upon him. ;After vainly zying to secure him the troopers shot him dead. A miser at Dublin, Indiana, having no faith in 3anks, placed some 1,500d01. in gold in tomato cans, end then buried the cans under the brick floor in liS cellar. Thieves have just relieved him of his responsibility. King Kalakaua, of Honolulu, has been entertainng a magnificent banquet the leading American 7.itizens in his dominion. The feature, of the enter:tenement was the total absence of knives, forks, poems, and even chop-sticks.  A scheme for the defence of Lmnion in case ot .nvasion has just been formulated by the military 4uthorities, in which the different volunteer, 'nfantry, and cavalry regiments have been allotted xists commanding strategical positions round the 11am:win' _ _ _  The King of Portugal has been Buttering from fever, resulting from a chill caught while shooting. His Majesty is now better Salaries of pastors in Germany are very low. It is proposed to give a minimum of £9O a year. At present many are as low as £4O.  On Saturday a mare named Roy Wilkes trotted a mile in 2min. ftsec. at Independence, lowa, thus beating the world's record of Maud S., in 1885, by half a second.  The cellars of a brewery at Stoetteritz, in Saxony, fell in on Saturday, burying 16 workmen beneath the debris. Seven of them were killed, while the remainder sustained severe injuries.