The Sun.
London, England, 1856-05-14 00:00:00

BANDS IN TEE PARKS ON SUNDAYS.

(FROM A CORRESPONDENT.)

The rumour of Monday has been too soon confirmed.
The Prime Minister has succumbed to the threats of a
religious clique, of which four persons are the leaders.
The individuals are well known. The Earl of Shaftes-
bury has proclaimed himself. The Marquis of Bland-
ford, Mr. Arthur Kinnaird, and Lord Robert
Grosvenor are the three other principal supporters of
this most baneful movement, the evils of which we can at
present only faintly define. Here are two hundred and
fiftipeight thousand five hundred and thirteen persons who
have, for two hours on Sunday, solaced themselves is
waking on the green sward, ar,d listening to music.
These persons, who have thus been innocently recreated
after the toils of the week, consist of numbers who have
been to church once, and who would not go again, but
would employ the remaining hours of the day in mere
sensual gratifications invariably connected with drinking,
and in many cases with intoxication. Another pot,'
tion of the persons thus innocently gratified, after at-
tending Divine service, first, in the morning, and
second, in the afternoon, repair to the neighbourhood
of the band for the purpose of harmless re'arition,
where, safe from even the temptation, or the power, to
partake of intoxicating liquors, they enjoy with their
friends and families their evening meal of un-
adulterated tea and wholesome bread and butter, •
without fear of contamination from the ribaldry
and excesses of those around them. A. third portion of
this mighty assemblage consists of persons of high rank,
or of those in the possession nf riches, who exhibited (for
this country) the unusual and extraordinary spectacle
of real associationship with all the other classes, where
all enjoyed the same pleasure, without the slightest
sacrifice on either side, for the simple reason that
the pleasure was confined to the enjoyment
cf the beauties of nature and of music—the
simplest, purest, and most elevating of all the pleasures
which human creatures can enjoy on earth. The fourth
portion of the multitude were composed of those who
never enter any place of worship, who never have before
known what innocent recreation meant, but who have now
begun to taste and to appreciate the happiness resulting
from the abstinencefrom sin, and to understand that there
is enjoyment independent of drinking ! And all this is
now to be forcibly put down by a Bull from Llmbeth
Palace. Well may the tens of thousands lift up their
voices and weep. Well may the self-righteous Phari-
sees tremble ; but, although the Premier has, as he
thinks, most unnecessarily bowed to priestcraft, he makes a
manly declaration that he is of the same opinion as to the
benefit of the bands on Sunday, but that as long as those
who agree with him do not express their opinion, he can
only grant the prayers of that clique, who it appears
makes a cat's paw of a poor, weak Archbishop, and are
to govern this metropolis, and have absolutely now
set themselves over their Sovereign, and are de-
priving the million of the enjoyment thus provided
hr them ! Will the people of London stand
this ? As well might the Park-goers and Band-
listeners desire the chapels of every denomination to be
shut which is not of their own persuasion. Of course,
cabs, steamers, &c., will now be next. swept away by the
same bands, because those who use them do not send as
many yards of paper into the House of Commons as
those filled up by babies, lunatics, and publicans, to say
that because they do not like a Band on Sunday, no one
else shall have one ! Let the people be peaceable, but
firm and determined, for the days of Religious Persecu-
tion are at hand.