Her Majesty's Mails

As the question whether continual railway travelling is prejudicial to health has frequently been discussed of late, it may not be out of place to instance the case of the travelling employés of the Post-Office, which seems to show that persons in the enjoyment of good health are benefited by railway travelling. The ratio of sickness among the Post-Office clerks and sorters engaged upon railways is certainly not greater, we are told, than among the same class of officers employed at the London establishment. The fact seems to be that, were it not that the former travel generally at night-time, are exposed to sudden changes of weather, and are, on certain emergencies, forced to travel oftener and further than the authorized limits, the ratio would be considerably less than it is. Dr. Waller Lewis, the medical officer of the Post-Office, supplies us, in a recent report, with a number of cases that have come under his immediate notice, where incessant, and even excessive railway travelling, does not seem to have been at all detrimental to the health of those so engaged. "One of our best officers," says Dr. Lewis, "states that he has no doubt that, during the period of twenty years that he has been engaged in railway duties, he travelled, on an average, a hundred miles a-day, Sundays included. All this time he not only enjoyed excellent health, but he was stouter and stronger than he has been since leaving that duty." Dr. Lewis further tells us, that it is part of his duty to examine candidates for appointment in this department of the public service, and again to examine them after they have undergone a probation varying from six to eighteen months. "In reply to my question, addressed to such officers after a probationary term, of how they found the travelling agree with them, some stated that they had never been so well in their lives. A considerable number of them replied that they had not had an hour's illness since they commenced railway duty." Of course, these last-mentioned persons were candidates for appointments in a lucrative branch of the Post-Office, and their statements must be received subject to this understanding and with due caution: still, it seems certain that the general testimony borne in the travelling offices is not unfavourable to the healthiness of the employment.