The Sun.
London, England, 1855-06-27 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

(From the Daily News of this day.)

It was Queen Caroline, we •think, who asked Sir Robert
Walpole,what it would cost to inclose St. James's-park, with
a view to exclude the public from it. " Madam," the Pre-
mier is said to have replied, " only a Crown." It wreto be
wished that our present Premier had the courage to give a
similar hint to Lord Robert Grosvenor and his lordly abet-
tors in Sabbath legislation. But Lord Palmerston, though
he gave a curt enough reply to the poor Presbyterian clergy-
men of Scotland when they petitioned him for a fast, does not
venture to speak in the same strain to aristocratical masters
of boroughs.
Yet the shoals on which the section of the aristocracy, re-
presented by the promoter of the Sunday Trading Bill, is bent
upon driving us, are quite as dangerous as those towards
which Queen Caroline would have steered but for the warn-
ing voice of a sagacious Minister. These men propose nothing
less than to compel by act of Parliament the great majority
of the people of England to change the habits of life which
have prevailed among them for many generations. If Lord
Robert Grosvenor had ever returned from Richmond by water,
on a Sunday summer evening—we beg his pardon for the
monstrous supposition—he would have seen the banks on either
side covered, the whole way, with many parties, arrayed in
their best attire, walking or seated in tea-gardens and before
taverns. It is ten to one that in the course of his passage he
would not have witnessed one unseemly gesture or heard
one angry, word. Had he lingered at Hungerford-stairs, he
would have witnessed ono steam-boat after another discm-
bogning its living cargo, and have convinced himself that all
were sober—hilarious indeed, but conversing in under-tones,
betokening a decent restraint imposed upon themselves out
of respect for the day. Let us farther suppose that Lord
Robert, before proceeding to Richmond, had taken a walk
through the streets of London about the time that morning
service in our churches and chapels ends. He would have
seen numbers of men, women, and children issuing from the
bakers' shops, carrying little roasts of meat with potatoes
baked beneath, or from the beershops with pots of ale and
porter. Had he followed any of the parties so burdened,
he might have seen families who rarely have a moment
for social converse during the week assembled round
their humble boards, cultivating the domestic affec-
tions. On inquiry he would have learned that the attend
ante of a couple of bakers' lads and a couple of
tapmen enabled some 20 or 30 families to enjoy this Sunday
dinner without the trouble of cooking it. The labour of three
or four men for a few hours enabled 100 or 150 persons to
rest on the Sabbath. The individuals thus released from care
and labour may not have used their rarely recurring leisure
exactly in the way Lord Robert would approve of ; but at
least they had an opportunity of doing so which otherwise
they could not have had. It is, moreover, highly probable
that Lord Robert, in the houses ho visited, would have seen
newspapers lying abOut that had been purchased that morn-
ing. Node, we are not going to ask Lord Robert to admit
that all these things aro right and proper ; but we maintain
that they! cause no public scandal, lead to no breach of the
peace, are not inconsistent with honesty, sobriety, and well
regulato4abour. The people who act as we have described
have done so all their lives, and their fathers and grandfathers
before them. They see no harm in it ; few of them have
even heard it alleged that it is wrong. It is their drop of
honey in their bitter draught of life. And all of a sudden
they find themselves debarred from such simple enjoyments
under vexatious penalties, by the instrumentality of men who
enjoy a Monopoly of political power. Does Lord Robert
expect that such an attempt to revolutionise the habits
which haye been striking root in a people through long
generations can be endured with patience ? Does he think
that no inquiries will be made as to whether the class to which
be belongs solemnise the Sabbath in the same ascetic fashion
that he would compel the less wealthy classes to do ? Let
last Sunday's assemblage iu Hyde-park answer him. English-
men of all ranks, so far from disliking persons of gentle birth,
are but too apt to be deferential to them in excess. This holds
good of all classes ; even the Chartist movement suffered be-
cause the working classes preferred gentlemen, like Fergus
O'Connor , and Dr. John Taylor, for leaders, to men of
their own class, like Lovett and Collins. The humblest arti-
san among us, if left quietly to enjoy himself in his own way,
gridpgteuse ielo shorses, grooms, fine pictures, or
recent Sabbath legislation has
sumptuous
manfare. hisß e:trria our ge,
stirred up thousands of this good-natured, lord-admiring
people to desert their usual Sunday haunts and pursuits for
the sole purpose of jeering and insulting the aristocracy. This
opposition to his lordly will has only made Lord Robert more
intent upon carrying his Sunday Trading Bill. Against na-
tional convictions and habits laws are inoperative. He and his
abettors had better take warning in time. To inclose St.
James's-park would have cost a dynasty its crown ; to con-
demn our tradesmen and artisans to fasting and moping on
Sundays niay cost our peers their coronets.
We know our aristocracy too well to believe them capable
of desisting from what they believe to be right out of per-
sonal fear ; but thqugh they are too proud to shrink from
danger to themselves, there is no shame in their being reluc-
tant to expose others to danger. A storm of popular exas-
peration, which should sweep them from their places would
not pass harmless over humbler heads ; and if they will re-
flect they i cannot but perceive the unreasonableness of the
course they are pursuing. They have an undeniable right to
act upon their own convictions—they have a right (we might
say it is their duty) to endeavour to persuade others to act in
the way they believe to be proper; but they, have no right to
compel those who do not think as they do to act as if they
did, Even on the assumption that. their views of religion
are the true ones, they ought to know that only the volun-
tary sacrifice is acceptable in the eyes of God. Human laws
and penalties cannot make men religious ; they can only make
them hypocrites or malcontents—that is all.
The most provoking part of this affair is, that the exces-
sive zeal for the enforcement of a Judaical observance of the
Sabbath by pains and penalties is utterly uncalled for. We
value the securing of one day's rest in seven for all men
as a privilege above all price. We believe that nothing short
ofa religious sanction can insure it. But we maintain that
the Sabbath is better observed in England than in any other
country on the face of the earth. They whose conscientious
convictions prompt them to celebrate it with ascetic self-
denial, aro at perfect liberty to do so undisturbed. Their
fellow-citizens, who are of another way of thinking, respect-
fully abstain on that day from noisy amusements which might
break in upon their quiet. Throughout the land labour is
intermitted on the Sunday. The few exceptional cases are
those of individuals who serve the not wealthy public in the
same capacity that domestic servants do the rich. Theatres
are closed on that day, and balls are unknown. We confess
that this compromise—this mutual tolerance—has for us more
charms than either the gaiety of continental, or the Pharisaic
stillness of Scotch Sabbaths. We have seen in France ma-
sons and carpenters pursuing their avocations en a Sun-
day, and have regretted that they denied themselves the
Christian privilege. We have seen the streets of Scotch
towns silent and deserted on Sundays as cities of the
dead, but we knew that this compulsory suspension of the
throb of public life was the main cause why drunkenness—the
vice that can most easily be indulged in secret—prevailed to
a greater extent in Scotland than the sister kingdom. The
Sabbath is rationally and decorously observed in England, and
more so in the present day than at any former period. The
improvement is the consequence of the better cultivated tastes
and intellects of the people. _lf further improvement is pos-
sible, it eau only be effected by advancing the education of the
people. We admit that, so long as taverns are the only places
of resort for the public on a Sunday, the- weak and unwary
are liable to indulge to excess ; but you cannot prevent men
from drinking by merely shutting the tavern door against
them. Provide other places of resort for the people, and they
will only repair to taverns for necessary-refreshment. - Throw
open to them our public parks and gardens, our collections
of arts antiquities, and animal from distant climes, Open to