§ MR. HOLMSasked the Postmaster General, Whether his attention has been called to certain Statements which are said to have been made at an inquest lately held at the Castle Tavern, Holloway, as to the death of a clerk in the Telegraph Department, and whether those statements are true?
§ MR. MONSELLSir, the statements in the extracts referred to by my hon. Friend give a very incorrect view of the case. The young man to whom they refer had been in the Telegraph Street office since the transfer in February, 1870. Up to January of last year he had appeared to be in good health, and had made no complaint whatever of illness or of excessive work. In January of this year he was attacked with smallpox, and was absent from duty for six weeks, and he does not appear ever to have completely recovered his strength after that attack, as on subsequent occasions he had been absent from duty through illness. Prior to his illness of January he had been on night duty, the night staff in Telegraph Street consisting exclusively of male clerks. When he returned to duty after the attack of smallpox he resumed night duty, but in the middle of June last, on his own application, he was placed on day duty. His proper spell of night duty was on one day a spell from 8 P.M. to 9 A.M., and on the following day a spell of from 8 P.M. to 11 P.M. Thus he had 16 hours of duty in every 48 hours, with an interval of 11 hours between one of the duties and 21 hours between the other. Once in six weeks he had to come on duty on Sunday at 9 A.M., and on these occasions he remained in the office (but of course not on duty all the time) until 9 A.M. on Monday morning, but he was free on all other Sundays. The whole of the Sunday duty was counted to him as overtime, and he might at any time have relieved himself of it by paying to a substitute the amount which he received from the Department for it. This, however, he 395 never seemed to have attempted, but, on the contrary, he occasionally acted as a substitute for other clerks, and was paid by them for the extra work. On this point, however, further inquiries are being made. He need not, unless he had pleased, have done more than the 16 tours duty out of 48 hours on week days. Overtime attendance is not compulsory, and no clerk is required to give it who does not wish to give it. As I have stated, he was taken off night duty at his own request in the middle of June, and he had no more than eight hours day duty from that time until the time of his death. It is not true that on the Saturday before he died he was refused permission to go home. On the contrary, having come on duty at noon on that day, he requested permission to go home between 2 and 3 o'clock, and was actually released from duty, and did go home immediately after 4 o'clock. So far from refusing him, the female clerk in charge under whom he worked took especial pains to find a substitute for him, and eventually put herself to much personal inconvenience in order to let him go. There is not the slightest foundation for the imputation that the Post Office in its dealings with this unfortunate young man, or with the other telegraph clerks, has been actuated by parsimony. I am informed that the medical officer at Telegraph Street saw Whittaker on the 12th of July, and did not consider him to be in ill-health. He appears to have died very suddenly from the bursting of a small bloodvessel, although I see no reason to suppose that his state of health was due to overwork. I think it wrong that even voluntarily boys should be allowed to work so long as on some occasions it appears he did, and I will give directions to prevent it.