These things are mentioned to show that it was not merely a love of agitation for itself that animated the telegraphists at this period. To fully recount their grievances, it would be necessary to go into a mass of technical detail that would only confuse, and no better convince than the few general facts recorded. Added to all this, there was much dissatisfaction regarding the holiday question. The annual leave was distributed throughout the year, so that many went for years without a summer holiday, while for the loss of Bank holidays there was no equivalent given. Then, again, the conditions and environments of their work were not everything to be desired. There was, too, such a thing as “telegraphists’ cramp,” analogous to writers’ cramp, which the growing pressure of telegraph work had introduced among the operators. True, it was not of very frequent occurrence, but it was something to be reckoned with, and no man knew when his turn might come. Telegraphists’ cramp, it appears, is a nerve-wringing, brain-torturing malady, varying in degree of intensity. In one individual it may be confined to simply the nervous inability to signal particular letters, in itself a fatal defect in a telegraphist. Whatever be the pathological explanation of this very curious nervous phenomenon, it undoubtedly affects telegraphists more or less, and is something to be feared, more particularly in its ultimate results. It is a malady of such a peculiar nature that those to the eye physically able yet may be absolute wrecks as regards their nerves and the operation of signalling particular things.