The Sun.
London, England, 1864-01-23 00:00:00

and which caused his first election tobe regarded with
such general interest and expectation have, alas!
been doomed to a very bitter disappointment, and
the most sanguine of his friends and the most cre-
dulous of his admirers cannot but be aware that his
re-election, were his re-election possible, could only
be a signal for the prolongation of hostilities, and
another obstacle to the termination of this too
protracted war.

The public will see with considerable satisfaction
the reversal of the obnoxious decision of the Justices

of Leigh, in regard to the famous Sunday haymak-
ing case. It was only to be expected that metro-
politan judges would put a more liberal construc-
tion upon the case, although in reality the hay-

makers have won the day less by an extension of
the spirit of the law than by a rigid adherence to

its letter. The case came on in the Court of Queen's

Bench on Thursday, before Lord Chief Justice

COCKRTJRN and Justices CROMPTON and BLACK-

BURN, when Mr, :MELLisH, Q.C., showed cause

against a rule obtained by the Solicitor-General
last term, in order to remove the conviction into
that Court, with a view to its being quashed. The

learned gentleman's argument was entirely founded

upon the construction to be put upon the wording

of the clause of CHARLES ll.'s Act for the proper
observance of the Sabbath. The disputed section
stipulates that "no tradesman, artificer, workman,
labourer, or other person whatever shall do or exer-

cise any worldly labour, business, or work of their
ordinary callings," and the doubt was whether
farmers were included in the persons thus enume-
rated. The question to be argued was whether a
small farmer who worked on his farm, as the parties

implicated in this matter did, without exception,
was a labourer within the statute. Mr. MELLISH

endeavoured to show that he was intended by the
words " other person whatsoever" which follow the
list of trades, but the Lord Chief Justice very clearly

showed that by the established rule for the inter•
pretation of such clauses, general terms were under•

stood to apply only to cases ejusdem generis. It was
plain that the term tradesman could not be con-
strued to mean a farmer, and, as Mr. Justice BLACK.
BURN very truly observed, since farmers at the date
of the Act must have outnumbered tradesmen 100
to 1, it could hardly be supposed that had it been
intended to include them in the Act, they would
not have been mentioned as well. Upon these
grounds, then, the Court quashed the conviction, the
matter turning entirely, as more weighty affairs
have done, upon the reading of a doubtful and un-
certain phrase:, It was easy to see that the Justices
took the common sense and right feeling of the
matter into consideration as well as the legal
technicalities—yet had the wording of the act been
a little different they would have been awkwardly
situated. It is true that the paragraph which pro-
vides for the exception of works of charity and
necessity is elastic enough to cover a good deal,

still the possibility of such a case as the one a
Leigh proves that a little reform is needed in this
matter. Had the men been poorer or less strongly
befriended, had the case been hushed up instead of
being brought before the notice of the public it
would never have obtained a hearing in the
Queen's Bench. The same spirit which animated
the Justices of Leigh is unfortunately but too
common. Other acts and occurrences which a
harsh judgment might stretch to reach the meaning
of the act may give rise any day to proceedings
which the real lovers of religion, as well as any
one of common justice and humanity, must deeply
and sincerely regret. If we are once to admit the
principle of making mer, religions by acts of
Parliament, who shall say what construction each
may put upon the acts of his neighbour ? There is
certainly some alteration needed in the act to pre-
vent the repetition of such proceedings, calculated
as they are to bring contempt and discredit upon
any endeavours to promote the observance of the
day of rest. Unfortunately, some busy social
reformer or other is always ready with a scheme
for adding to the restrictions upon the poor man's
Sunday—witness Lord ROBERT GROSVENOR'S
famous Sunday Trading Bill, Mr. SOMES'S Beer
Bill, and the present ca se at Leigh. We do not find,
however, that these moralists are equally ready to
stop the tradesmen's carts from supplying the West
end with perishable delicacies on the Sunday. They
do not suggest that the rich man's cellar should be
locked on a Saturday night and the key given over
into safe keeping until Monday morning. We
would venture to affirm that the Justices at Leigh
would not think it necessary to atop a peer's car-
riage on the highway on the Sunday, even though
the noble lord's airing might be matter of neither
necessity nor charity. IN hat are the poor to think
of these inconsistencies ? The effect on the lower
classes of all this preaching and practice must be
much the same as when quickwitted children watch
their parents doing the very things that they have
forbidden them to do. Not by mere verbal precept
will our working-men learn to value the day of
rest, they must see it appreciated by those who are
free to please themselves in the manner of their
observance, and not be made to suspect that the
legislators find it convenient to express the extent
of their religious obligations through the medium
of other people's self-denial. In the case at Leigh
the matter was made still worse by the fact that it
was no idle pleasuring or needless traffic that was
going on, but the simple, though necessary labour
of getting in the hay, scarcely such a fascinating
employment that men should lose a holiday for the
mere sake of doing it. It is absurd in our climate
to talk about the security of fine weather; we all
know that a sadden change in the wind, a cloudy
night, will very soon alter the brightest summer's
sky. Even with, the glowing weather of last
season the sudden rains which set in early in August
interfered in some degree with the harvest in the
north. If any one therefore has a right to a liberal
interpretation of any restrictive act, it is surely a
member of that class whose services we may disre-
gard, bat which none of us can afford to dispense
with. It is very much to be regretted that
Englishmen holding a responsible position should
have given countenance to so harsh and arbitrary a
construction of the law. That they should have
done so, even amid the enlightened tolerance of
the present day, is sufficient evidence of the
necessity of some change that shall put such un-
just and unreasonable decisions for the future out
of their power.

The contemplated abandonment by the London
Fire Insurance Companies of all connection with

the extinction of fires, and the proposed assumption
of these responsible duties by the Board of Works
is creating considerable discussion in many quar-
ters. It is not to be wondered that the parish
authorities in all parts of London regard the system
of taxation proposed by the recalcitrant companies
for the maintenance of an efficient firebrigade with
much disfavour. Yesterday Mr. IL L. TAYLOR
called the attention of the court to the subject, and
after some slight discussion, the subject was referred
to the General Purposes Committee to consider
what steps should be taken in the matter. Now,
although we consider the representatives of the rate-
payers in the right to check as far as possible all
unnecessary increase to the already heavy burdens
4 of the metropolitan population, we cannot shut our