Section I.—Introductory Remarks and Divisions of the Subject of this Chapter

Labour may be excessive, either in point of duration or intensity. It may occupy too large a portion of the labourer's time; leaving him intervals too short for reasonable refreshment and repose; or it may, in the degree of immediate muscular exertion, be too arduous and severe. In both these modes, the field negroes on sugar plantations are cruelly and destructively overworked.

The degree of intensity of labour, is obviously not susceptible of such direct definition and proof as its duration; because we have no definite standard or scale whereby to measure muscular exertion.

An actual beholder may perceive that a man is working hard, or the reverse; but has no means by which he can clearly prove the fact to others; still less any terms by which he can define the positive degree of energy or languor. To convey any accurate conception of it, he must resort to the effects produced, in a given time; and can apply that criterion only when the subjects and modes of labour, and its ordinary produce, are such as we are familiar with. unknown, and local circumstances also, affecting the workman, are foreign to our experience and observation, we cannot easily form even a comparative estimate of the work, in point of easiness or intensity.