Shaggy Dog
& Black Sheep by Albert Jack
October 16th 2005
On the Treadmill
| On
The Treadmill is another saying relating to Victorian hard labour,
one the great writer Oscar Wilde was subject to during his prison
sentence in the late 1800's. Today it is used to describe exhausting,
never ending work that is without reward or acknowledgement. In Oscar's day a treadmill was a primitive version of modern day step machines found in every gym or fitness centre around the world. Quite simply it was a row of evenly spaced wooden planks joined at each end by a large round cog. Poor Oscar and his fellow convicts were forced to walk the treadmill all day long, akin to walking up an endless staircase but without actually leaving the bottom step. As the playwright himself said at the time 'If this is the way the Queen treats her prisoners, she doesn't deserve to have any'. Needless to say none of his clothes still fitted when he eventually left Reading Gaol. And today, in fitness centres, they all do it for fun? |
