The Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1860-06-15 00:00:00

done to make their work permane,nt and com-

plete.

We look to those who have originated

and conducted the movement to
.carry it nobly
and successfully through.
Touching this important subject, we have
lately received many communications, bearing

more immediately, however, on the recently
enacted bye-law for closing the public mar-

kets of this town at ten o'clock on Satur-

day night. A considerable amount of dis-
cussion on' this point is now being carried
on; and no small degree of feeling has been
imported into the agitation against the new rule.

The market tenants are said to be all but unani-

mously opposed to it—and they certainly consti-

ute a numerous and important section of our
rellow-townsmen. A greater or less proportion of

the Markets Committee is also reported to be
adverse to the new order of things—and doubt-
less their influential position and individual

opinions must give strength and colour to the case

of the remonstrants. Last, not least, a consider•

able portion of the public, who have been accus-
tomed to make their purchases at these markets
late on Saturday night, are said to be indignant at
the enactment which shuts the market doors in
their face an hour earlier than they have
been accustomed to. The general public,
the Markets Committee, and the tenants

all united in one phalanx to procure the repeal of
the new bye-law! Why should they not succeed ?
Who has a right to resist them ? Upon what
ground shall any body dictate to a combination
in which would -seem to be included the voices and
opinions of all who have any right to be heard in
the matter ? Even were the earlier closing of the
markets demonstrably the very best arrangement
conceivable, why should we force an unwelcome
boon down the throats of a reluctant and remon-
strating body, whose interests alone are thereby
affected for good or evil ? Is the Town Council
warranted in maintaining its own views against
those of the tenants and their customers? Is it
not plainly their imperative duty to effect a
precipitate retreat, as they have done before on
this very point, and to throw open the markets
until within an hour of midnight on Saturday ?
This is the course demanded by the present agi-
tators. Will the Council succumb to it ? If
they have made a mistake, there is nothing un-
wise or undignified in promptly rectifying it ;
but it were only weakness and a betrayal of their
trust to give way before mere clamour. In
adopting the new regulation, it is admitted, they
were actuated by the best intentions, and were
swayed by reasons which many consider sufficient
to warrant the resolution. The matter has not
not now for the first time been under their con-
sideration ; and the failure of a former experiment
of a somewhat similar kind only leads to the
inference that the actual and unavoidable diffi-
culties in the way have been duly weighed and
disposed of. If the Council are to be asked to
reconsider the matter, the appeal must be accom-
panied by incontrovertible proof that, in the
estimation of the general public, the new ar-
rangement has been already condemned, and
that it is really for the interests of the public
and the tenants to have it abolished. If such a
case can be made good, we presume there is but
one course open to the Council, namely, to waive
their individual opinions in deference to those of
a majority of their constituents. Until then, we
doubt not, they will continue to maintain the
position they have taken tip with becoming firm-
ness and conscious strength.
It has been asserted that the question about
the markets has no relation to the Early Closing
Movement, and, therefore, that the two subjects
ought not to be mixed up, but, on the contrary, that,
iu justice to both, they should be kept apart from
each other. Is this really correct, or is it a deliberate
fallacy ? Has the Early Closing Association no
proper interest in the decision of this market
question? Nobody has the courage to organise
an opposition on the general ground occupied
by that association ; and, thus, we find the
advocates of the views of the tenants care-
fully disavowing any desire to interfere with
that movement. They claim a special exemp-
tion in behalf of the market transactions on
Saturday night. Are they entitled to the benefit of
such a plea, or is it merely a cunning device
to escape antagonism with the principles of the
Early Closing Association ? It is clearly the
duty of that body to weigh this question well,
and to employ any means at their command to
enlighten the public mind as to its true bearings.
There ought not, we think, to be a doubt that the
settlement of this matter most closely concerns
the great object of the general Early Closing
Movement. We draw this conclusion from the
very arguments employed by those who desire to
make us believe the contrary. The weightiest
argument we have seen adduced in favour of the
late closing of the markets is that employers
refuse to pay wages on Fridays instead of Satur-
days ; and that, in too many instances, not even
on Saturdays, until ten or eleven at night.
Now here we have the existence of the very
evils the Early Closing Association desires to
remove, brought forward to prove that it ought
not to interfere in this question. One of the
objects that body has most steadily kept in view
is the payment of wages on Friday. If that
cannot at once be attained, surely an early hour
might be fixed, by general consent, for payment on
Saturday. Is not the attainment of so desirable
an improvement greatly affected by the hour
at which the public markets close ? If masters
and workmen know that wages, to be fully
available for marketing purposes, must be paid
early, because the markets close early, what will
be the certain result ? Shall we try to force the
masters to do their duty to their workpeople
by closing these markets at a reasonable hour ;
or shall we indirectly countenance and encourage
theni in their malpractices by keeping open
to a later hour. Because employers commit a
cruel injustice, shall we sanction their conduct
by the perpetration of an equally unjust act ? Is
the existence of one evil a ground of justification
for another ? Instead of this question having no
relation to the more general one of early closing
and payment of wages on Friday, we believe it to
be the very reverse. Nay, more, we cannot held
thinking that very much of the success of the
general early closing movement depends upon its
determination. Under the new regulation for
closing at ten o'clock on Saturday, the shoe
pinches, and the workmen cry out to be set free
earlier, else they cannot get to market; and the
market tenants shout in chorus that the doors are
closed before their customers can reach their stalls.
The real' question then comes to this, are wages
to be paid, and workmen set at liberty, earlier, or
is every consideration of justice and propriety to
give way before the unreasonable and extortionate
requirements of men who would drain the very life
blood of their employes if they could only coin it
into gold.

WOMEN AND MEDICINE.—Women never have been,
and never will be, debarred from practising medicine;
openly or on the sly. It is so natural to them, and so
irresistible while they live in families and have the
charge of the sick, that no remonstrance or ridicule has
ever availed to put a stop to female quacking. The best
informed and most rational physicians have always seen,
and the most courageous of them have always said, from
that day to this, that the only cure is in making physi-
cians of some well-qualified women, who alone can
convince their sex of the seriousness of medical practice,
and the infinite mischief of meddling with the delicate
t ,e
organisation of the human frame without all the _
and act
ledge that can be obtained of the structure a
know
Meek.reform to begin,—..Miss Martineau in Owe
of its various parts. The time has arrive for this