Under the heading "Ships and Drink: How Men Lose Time,"
the Daily Mail of Tuesday prints a strong letter from its special correspondent at Liverpool. Ships have been held up and unable to sail to schedule time through the slack work of dockers and the drunkenness of sailors and firemen. " Irregular timekeeping is the curse of dock work and thousands of hours are lost at Liverpool every week by slackers." At " big well-managed ship-repairing yards " two thousand men invariably lose the first quarter of the day through arriving late, and on Mondays the number is increased to three thousand. Long queues of dockers are seen waiting outside big public-houses at ten minutes before noon, though morning work is not supposed to cease till twelve, and at their public-house meals the heavier beer, now at 8d. a quart, is more in favour with the men. " I asked a man how many pinta he drank in the day. I don't think ten would do me any harm,' he replied, ' but I can't afford more than five '—i.e., is. 8d. a day or a quarter of the man's wages."
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