Zero hour

“ At five o’clock precisely, don’t you say?”
“No, sir, at one.”
“Well, then, at one; those who have nothing to do must suit their hours to those who are full of business. Recollect now, two o’clock precisely.”
“One o’clock, sir.”
“Ay, very true, one o’clock I meant; now let’s go to dinner.”
Nicholas Forster appeared in excellent spirits: and Newton, who did not like to undeceive him, was glad to retire at an early hour, that he might be left to his own reflections, and form some plan as to their proceedings in consequence of this unexpected disappointment. ”

“ So we have a complete striking clock made by a man so poor that he had only his anvil, hammer and file. The weights are hung on cords as thick as an ordinary lead pencil and pass over pulleys having spikes set around them to prevent the cords from slipping. The weights descend 7 ft. in 12 hours, so they must be pulled up—not wound up—twice a day. The single hour hand is a work of art and is cut through like lace. Public clocks may still be seen in Europe with only one hand. ”

“ If you do things by the job, you are perpetually driven: the hours are scourges. If you work by the hour, you gently sail on the stream of Time, which is always bearing you on to the haven of Pay, whether you make any effort, or not. Working by the hour tends to make one moral. A plumber working by the job, trying to unscrew a rusty, refractory nut, in a cramped position, where the tongs continually slipped off, would swear; but I never heard one of them swear, or exhibit the least impatience at such a vexation, working by the hour. Nothing can move a man who is paid by the hour. ”

“ No one will deny the theoretical desirability of reducing excessive hours of work, but let it be clearly understood that the present successful efforts in that direction, whether they be statutory eight-hour day in Europe or the abolition of the 12-hour day in continuous work in the iron and steel industry of the United States, are in the nature of an economic restriction, which while conferring more ease upon the worker tend inevitably to impair the scale of living of people as a whole. ”

“ But only the small mind snaps and snarls for a regulation hour, and it is one of the most mean things to a man like me, who never thought of hours but only the work, that poor spirits here and there be jealous of the clock and down tools just because of the time of day. ”

“ The Eight-hour Movement as a Work-making Policy.—The effort to reduce the hours of labor to eight per day has in it so much that is altogether beneficent that it is not to be put in the same category with the ca'-canny plan of working. And yet one leading argument in favor of this reducing of the number of hours of work is identical with that by which a reduction of the amount accomplished in an hour is defended. The purpose is to make work and secure the employment of more workers. ”

“ Five o’clock! You make a violent exertion, and start up in bed. The vision is at once dispelled; the trunk-maker’s shop is your own bedroom, and the other apprentice your shivering servant, who has been vainly endeavouring to wake you for the last quarter of an hour, at the imminent risk of breaking either his own knuckles or the panels of the door. ”

“ Much discussion bas centered upon the hours of work by wage earners. In the United States there has been a general reduction of weekly working time during the last 10 years, and many industries have been put upon the basis of eight hours per day, although this is still far from being universal. Recently there has been a strong and successful movement for the abolition of the 12-hour day which still prevailed, to a relatively small extent, in continuous industry. ”

“ Of course, there is a humanitarian side to the shorter day and the shorter week, but dwelling on that side is likely to get one into trouble, for then leisure may be put before work instead of after work -- where it belongs. Twenty years ago, introducing the eight hour day generally would have made for poverty and not for wealth. Five years ago, introducing the five day week would have had the same result. The hours of labor are regulated by the organization of work and by nothing else. ”

“ And let it be [Pg 65] admitted that calling regularly at an old apple tree is far short of a full man’s work in the world, even when such calling falls outside of his shop or office-hours. For there are no such hours. The business of life allows no spare time any more. One cannot get rich nowadays in office-hours, nor become great, nor keep telegraphically informed, nor do his share of talking and listening. Everybody but the plumber and paper-hanger works overtime. How the earth keeps up a necessary amount of whirling in the old twenty-four-hour limit is more than we can understand. ”

“ It is well to be clear in the mind about this and strip away the buncombe respecting men being able to do as much in eight hours as in 12, respecting shortening shifts and ipso facto reducing costs, respecting the incentive to management to improve its practices, etc. There was no such thing as a general demand from the 12-hour workers themselves to have their time reduced. Their work was not of the nature to strain their energy any more than eight hours of intensive work, probably not so much, and they liked the opportunity to earn the wages commensurate with their hours. ”

“ Maybe the spirit will move me to-morrow, or perhaps already, to-night; it isn't at all impossible but that it may move me some time to-night, and then my article will be completed in a quarter of an hour at the outside. You see, it isn't with my work as with other people's; I can't sit down and get a certain amount finished in a day. I have just to wait for the right moment, and no one can tell the day or hour when the spirit may move one—it must have its own time. . . ."
My landlady went, but her confidence in me was evidently much shaken. ”

“ The office closing at four would have lost the business of the last hour of the day without compensation from the empty hour prefixed at the beginning. The only way out was for every one to agree to a self-imposed fiction. So the nations that prided themselves most on their intelligence solemnly enacted that all clocks be set ahead. ”

“ With our present system, accuracy in local time is impracticable and has never even been attempted, and is confusion confused since we added the railroad hour jumps. Why did we nurse this confusion till it has become almost intolerable? Because man has always been a slave to mental associations, and habits. Primitive man divided the local day into parts and gave them names and this mental attitude sticks to us after it has served its day. The advantages of universal time could hardly be enumerated, yet we can have them all by dropping our childish association of 7 o'clock with breakfast time! ”

“ So that if A, e.g., begins work at 8 in the morning, and B at 10, B's workday must nevertheless end at the same hour as A's. "The time shall be regulated by a public clock," for example, the nearest railway clock, by which the factory clock is to be set. The occupier is to hang up a "legible" printed notice stating the hours for the beginning and ending of work and the times allowed for the several meals. Children beginning work before 12 noon may not be again employed after 1 p.m. The afternoon shift must therefore consist of other children than those employed in the morning. ”

“ I think it is a logical conclusion to draw that these men think they have got a dangerous element out of the way now and they can return again to the ten-hour system. I know that I had considerable to do with the eight-hour question, although I only spoke once in that neighborhood, every man being a stranger to me—but I went down there in March previous and made an eight-hour speech and formed the nucleus of an eight-hour organization there, and the Stock Yards succeeded in starting the eight-hour system, though they have not been able to keep it up in its entirety. We claim we have done much. ”

“ Hence if the numbers one, two, and three had been used to denote any of the actual hours, confusion might have arisen between them and the preliminary strokes,—a confusion analogous to that which, in our own still imperfect method of striking the hour, leaves us in doubt whether the single stroke we hear be half-past twelve, one o'clock, half-past one, or any other of the numerous half-hours. Old-fashioned clocks, arranged on the system just described, are still sometimes exposed for sale in the curio-shops. ”

“ Rise an hour, an hour and a half, or even two hours earlier; and—if you must—retire earlier when you can. In the matter of exceeding programmes, you will accomplish as much in one morning hour as in two evening hours. "But," you say, "I couldn't begin without some food, and servants." Surely, my dear sir, in an age when an excellent spirit-lamp (including a saucepan) can be bought for less than a shilling, you are not going to allow your highest welfare to depend upon the precarious immediate co-operation of a fellow creature! Instruct the fellow creature, whoever she may be, at night. ”

“ They have infinite crotchets and caprices with their clocks and watches, which seem made for any thing but to tell the hour—gold-repeaters, watches with metal covers, clocks with hands to count the seconds. There is no escaping from quackery and impertinence, even in our attempts to calculate the waste of time. ”

“ Above all, strong comp time legislation preserves the protection of our 40-hour week, which has been the law now for most of this century. Today the law says if you are an hourly worker and you work longer than 40 hours, you get paid time and a half for overtime. Our plan would give you the choice of taking an hour and a half off for every hour you work instead. But under the congressional majority's plan, some employees who work and extra hour would get only an hour off—less overtime than they would be eligible for today. ”

“ It wants just five minutes of the hour, if I judge the time right."
"No harm can happen from being a little too soon," replied Ralph.
"Sometimes, sir," answered Gaunt Stilling; "many a man has got his bones broken for being half an hour too soon; as, for instance, If a man appoints another to help him in a fray, and gets to his enemy half an hour before his friend, he will have time to take a mighty good drubbing for his lack of punctuality." ”

“ At one-thirty o'clock."
"That's the exact luncheon hour, as it happens, but I notice that many of the best fiancés make it a practice to report for duty at least half an hour before the gong. It looks so much better."
"Running and eating's no better than eating and running, you allege. There's some small merit in the contention.... What of those sterling fiancés who punch the time-clock a full hour before the whistle?"
"Oh, dear me, Hugo, are there any like that?" ”

“ But in any case, whether he does so or not, every man in this country whose life is in-door ought to so divide his time that, come what may, he will make sure of his hour out-of-doors in the late afternoon, when the day's work is nearly or quite done. If he must get up earlier, or get to his work earlier, or work faster while he does work, no matter. ”

“ Such activities, it is claimed, consume 3 or 4 minutes at the most. The employees are also allowed a 14-minute period at the completion of the established working periods to leave the plant and punch out at the time clocks.
Working time is calculated by respondent on the basis of the time cards punched by the clocks. Compensable working time extends from the succeeding even quarter hour after employees punch in to the quarter hour immediately preceding the time when they punch out. ”

“ If an hour's sleep before midnight is worth more than an hour in the morning, then an hour in the morning is of course worth less than an hour before midnight, and a person must sleep a greater number of hours in the morning to obtain an equal amount of rest. A person retiring at eleven and rising at eight, would probably get no more rest, possibly less, than a person who should sleep from nine to five;—a period one hour shorter. But if so, he actually loses an hour of time a day. And you well know, if Franklin had not told you so, that time is money. ”

“ You must admit that a clock cannot strike until the hands have made their regular passage through all the minutes and seconds that make up the hour!"
"For heaven's sake! What a preamble!" ejaculated the count. "But go on. The first minute?"
"Yes; the first minute a stoppage occurred caused by the escapement objecting to furnish canteens; if the militiamen wanted canteens they must provide them themselves."
"I trust the clock was not allowed to stop for want of a few canteens," ironically observed Count Vavel. ”

“ An hour after ten is worth, to these man-catchers, more than two hours in the early evening, and it may be easily understood how inestimable is the half-hour after midnight, which is now vouchsafed them. And what amount of compensating advantage can be shown to balance the evils for which in Ratcliff Highway and its neighbourhood, "the extra half-hour" is responsible? There are no night factory hands, no railway travellers, no play-going folk in this quarter of the town to whom facilities for obtaining beer or spirits, after twelve o'clock, would be a convenience. ”

“ Seven and a half hours is the time spent actually on the job, but, as I have already explained, one has got to add onto this time taken up in ‘travelling’, which is seldom less than an hour and may often be three hours. In addition most miners have to spend a considerable time in getting to and from the pit. ”