Night work

“ Cometh the night wherein no man may labor,
Therefore we work while yet the day is light;
To thee, to me, to foeman, friend and neighbor
⁠⁠Cometh the night—the night.
Toil on—toil on, nor dally with the morning,
Sweet syren couching in a thousand snares,
Faithless she flies—scanty and brief her warning—
⁠⁠Leaving thee unawares.
Then am'rous breath of noon will tempt to pleasure,
And ease and rest, until the heat be past;—
Arise, and work! We have no time for leisure
⁠⁠Whose sky is overcast. ”

“ I never found inspiration in the midnight oil and oceans of coffee. I have always wanted my solid eight hours of sleep, and would not shrink from nine or ten if they fitted in with a worker's life. Youth often gave me the courage I have not now to take up work again—a promised article, necessary reading, making notes, copying—at night. But youth never induced me to rely upon this night work if I could help it. My nearest approach to a rule was that at the end of the day I was at liberty to play, that my nights at least could be free of work. ”

“ The night cometh in which neither you nor I can work,—may we work while it is day; whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might, for there is no work or device in the grave, whither we are all of us hastening; and when the night is spent, may we all enter on a healthful, a happy, an everlasting to-morrow! ”

“ Rules against working at night or after dark are constantly found in all classes of industries, 'by reason that no man can work so neatly by night as by day.' [751] There was the additional reason that in many trades night work was a source of annoyance to neighbours. ”

“ We’re coming, blithely as we can, to join you in your games!
31 NIGHT IS COMING WHILE the blessed daylight lingers, let us work with might and main, with our busy feet and fingers, also with the busy brain; let the setting sun behold us tired, but filled with honest pride; for the night will soon enfold us, when we lay our tools aside. ”

“ The medical objection to night-work in the case of literary men would probably be that the night is too favorable to literary production. The author of the Essay just quoted says that at night “you only drift into deeper silence and quicker inspiration. ”

“ Do the best you can for Me, and do not try in addition to make up for your time and labor by night work—you had better use the night for necessary rest; the longest night spent in unbelieving labor will not profit ”

“ The Factory Investigating Commission in its Report to the Legislature for 1913, states: “The chief danger to health from night work is ... due to the inevitable lack of sleep and sunlight. Recuperation from fatigue takes place fully only in sleep, and best in sleep at night. ”

“ There has been a sunrise and a noontide and a sunset; the day is done, the night draws on, the task is finished, the labourer hies him homeward from the last hour’s work he shall ever be called upon to perform. ”

“ In the forge the hours are from 12 to 12. Some of the hands always work in the night, without any alternation of day and night work. We do not find any difference in the health of those who work regularly by night and those who work by day, and probably people can sleep better if they have the same period of rest than if it is changed.... About 20 of the boys under the age of 18 work in the night sets.... We could not well do without lads under 18 working by night. ”

“ I have done night work without suffering for it, a thing I have not done in twenty-five years, and I have worked steadily for more hours than I have been able to work at a time since my breakdown in 1899, all without sense of strain or nervous fatigue. ”

“ R. L., 106, § 69.
[64] “The moral dangers of night work are so obvious that they need only be mentioned: the danger of the streets at night, going to and from work, association with all kinds of men employes at late night hours; the difficulty for women who are away from their families, of living at respectable places and entering at night hours; the peril of the midnight recess in establishments that run all night long.” Josephine C. Goldmark, Annals American Academy of Political and Social Science, v. ”

“ Chains and springs on the bars are good things for night-work, as they prevent the leaders’ traces coming off. A narrow road, sufficiently wide, of course, for carriages to pass with convenience—with no ditch on the side—is much the best for night-work. ”

“ The hours of sleep are hours of recuperation. But that the building-up work may go on, pure air is indispensable. During the night the doors are not opened; there is no moving about; all is at a stand-still. ”

“ It is time, now in the evening, to cease from your ordinary work, and high time to know of your lodging at night. It is your salvation that is in dependence; and that is a great and weighty business, though many make light of the matter. ”

“ The dusk of evening seems interposed between day and night to invite us to that reflection which should intervene betwixt our labour and our rest from labour, that we may leave our work behind us satisfied that we have done what we could, or, seeing its faultiness, may still lay us down to sleep with God’s forgiveness. ”

“ Those on the night shift are asleep when the sun pours its life and warmth over the world, while those on the day shift are at the machines before dawn and return to their miserable dens, called “homes,” after dark. Many receive no more than ten cents a day. There are babies who work for five and six cents a day. Those who work on the night shift are often kept awake by having cold water dashed in their faces. ”

“ When we were all in bed, no one could stir without causing inconvenience to his neighbours. A sleepless night, invariably accompanied by the restless impulse to stir and fidget, was unforgettable misery, but fortunately our work was so hard that sleepless nights were very rare. ”

“ It was my foolish imagination, the effect of the poison.
The night was full of torture. My bed seemed to lift itself under me, then to fall again, then up again! I used autosuggestion: “At night all the Numbers must sleep; sleeping at night is a duty just like working during the day. To sleep at night is necessary for the next day’s work. Not to sleep at night is criminal.” ”

“ If we begin at nine we work till five, and so on—eight p.m. being our latest hour. Night duty is performed by men, who are divided into two sections, and it is so arranged that each man has an alternate long and short duty—working three hours one night and thirteen hours the next. ”

“ After-Dinner Hours.—The evening hours and their proper occupation are important for the business man, or for anyone who is much occupied during the day. The temptation to let the work of the day run over into the evening must be overcome at all costs, or it will prove serious for the health of most men. It is important as far as possible to get something completely different for men to do at night. Many men settle down to the reading of a newspaper or of a magazine or novel. ”

“ Then they go forth and kindle lights in all the market places and all the streets, and then do their work and business at night-time. For they have to turn night into day in consequence of the great heat of the sun. ”

“ Many men are now obliged to go every day to their work in office or shop, and spend the hours shut in from the fresh air and bright sunshine. At night they sleep in rooms into which they admit little fresh air for fear of taking cold. ”

“ It has been affirmed by some authorities that the more the individual sleeps the longer he will live, which is a perfectly rational claim, in view of the fact that night is Nature's repair time, when she is busy at work replacing the ravages committed by wear and tear during the day. ”

“ With these must not be forgotten the band of night workers who, in one capacity or another, have part in making the morning papers, and who, turning day into night, find it as essential to take a midnight as others do a midday repast. ”

“ And verily, thou choosest the hour well: for just now do the nocturnal birds again fly abroad. The hour hath come for all light-dreading people, the vesper hour and leisure hour, when they do not—“take leisure.”
I hear it and smell it: it hath come—their hour for hunt and procession, not indeed for a wild hunt, but for a tame, lame, snuffling, soft-treaders’, soft-prayers’ hunt,—
—For a hunt after susceptible simpletons: all mouse-traps for the heart have again been set! And whenever I lift a curtain, a night-moth rusheth out of it. ”

“ He stood for a moment oblivious to everything: the evening bird fluttering among the rafters, the song of the nightingale without, the sighing wind in the tower entry, the rustics in the doorway, the group in the choir. Presently he became conscious of the words sung:
“A thousand ages in Thy sight Are like an evening gone; Short as the watch that ends the night Before the rising sun. “Time, like an ever-rolling stream, Bears all its sons away; They fly, forgotten, as a dream Dies at the opening day.” ”

“ CHAPTER XIII THE NIGHT SHIFT — ARRIVAL IN THE SHED — “FOLLOWING THE TOOL” — THE FORGEMAN’S HASTE AND BUSTLE — LIGHT AND SHADE — SUPPER-TIME — CLATTER AND CLANG — MIDNIGHT — WEARINESS — THE RELEASE — HOME TO REST
Whatever the trials of the day shift at the forge may be, those of the night turn are sure to be far greater. For the daytime is the natural period of both physical and mental activity. The strong workman, after a good night’s rest and sleep, comes to the task fresh, keen, vigorous, and courageous. ”

“ In life, the mind and the circumstance give the true seasons, and regulate the darkness and the light. Of two men standing on the same foot of earth, the one revels in the joyous noon, the other shudders in the solitude of night. For Hope and Fortune, the day-star is ever shining. For Care and Penury, Night changes not with the ticking of the clock, nor with the shadow on the dial. Morning for the heir, night for the houseless, and God’s eye over both. ”

“ Nor is it necessary to send them to bed at the very time when all nature awakens from the torpid influence of the day-star; sleep in the atmosphere of a stifling bedroom would bring no rest and no pleasant dreams. But an hour after sunset there will be a change; the night-wind rises and the fainting land revives; cool air is a febrifuge and Nature's remedy for the dyspeptic influences of a sultry day. Open every window, and let your children share the luxury of the last evening hour; after breathing the fresh night-air for a while, they will sleep in peace. ”

“ The brown night has retired, and the meek-eyed moon, mother of dews, has disappeared: the young day pours in apace; the mountains’ misty tops are swelling on the sight, and brightening in the sun. It is the cool, the fragrant, and the silent hour, to meditation due and sacred song; the air is coloured, the efflux divine turns hovels into palaces, and shoots with gold the rags of beggars. ”

“ Night is the city's disease.
The streets and the people one sees
Glow with a light that is strangely inhuman;
A fever that never grows cold.
Heaven completes the disgrace;
For now, with her star-pitted face,
Night has the leer of a dissolute woman,
Cynical, moon-scarred and old.
And I think of the country roads;
Of the quiet, sleeping abodes,
Where every tree is a silent brother
And the hearth is a thing to cling to.
And I sicken and long for it now—
To feel clean winds on my brow,
Where Night bends low, like an all-wise mother
Looking for children to sing to. ”

“ I shall think often now of those whose watch is by night—not with any pity, for it is a strange, quiet life, but a happy one. I only knew it in a rather dead season, not in the busy time when trains were coming in and patients arriving nightly. There the night staff has small time for reflection. The hours pass in a whirl of bed-baths, dressings, and settlement. ”

“ I saw men who had been working on the night shift lying like fallen logs, huddled together in small, dark, stuffy rooms, sleeping the sleep of exhaustion that follows in the wake of heavy physical labor. ”

“ There are three scenes to every day—morning, noon, and early evening—when the very actors themselves are changed. To one who has never been in the fields at daybreak, [Pg 54] the world is so new, so fresh and strange, as to seem like a different planet. And then the evening—the hour of dusk and the deeper, darker night! Go once this autumn into the woods at night. ”

“ Time flies and morning succeeds the night, but no bill is rendered, and every artifice and trick is employed to detain the guest, until the latter, overcome with saké and fatigue, rolls over on the floor in a drunken sleep. ”

“ Instead of using the night for sleep, you spend it in reading; your bedstead is a bookcase, your pillows a desk! At the time when the wearied brain asks for rest, you lead it through these nocturnal orgies, and you are surprised to find it the worse for them the next day. ”

“ The drowsy heat of the afternoon invites to slumber as the cool hours before the noon of night invite to music, reverie, or sentimental conversation, and our midsummer-night dreams would be no worse for a moonlight ramble on the mountains or in the garden-suburbs of a large city. ”

“ Nor is it proper for the healthy to pursue those occupations in the evening, which are attended with proportionally greater fatigue of mind or body: such pursuits ought to bo followed in the morning, and the easiest purposely deferred to the latter part of the day; an arrangement by which a more composed and refreshing night's rest will be ensured. Beside this inconvenience, the eyes necessarily suffer from candle-light.—See also Bed-time. ”

“ Towards evening, presuming the necessary tasks have been accomplished, men, women and children recline lazily upon their mats, and for hours make the night hideous with their peculiar clucking language. ”

“ The energy has subsided, the sap has gone down from the tree. Nature has retired, and all the coaxing in the world will not induce her to come forth until such time as the day dawns and she steals back upon him of her own free will. That is what, most of all, distinguishes the night from the day shift, and makes it so wearisome for the pale-faced toilers.
There is a poignancy in preparing for the night shift, the feeling is really one of tragedy. ”