The Sun.
London, England, 1856-07-12 00:00:00

there should be some person. to instruct the
people in the Russian language. • The Polish
dress was prohibited, and all the inferior order:
were commanded to wear th© Russian dress.

Surely, if ever there was just frandation fo,
remonstrance—if ever it was an imp rative
duty
on those who were entitled to claim the'bonafide
performance of such a contraeb—it was in the
case under notice. But • there °were sinister in-
fluences in operation.
.Russia -was not the only
wrong doer I Austria and Prussia should
be arraigned by the same indictment—their
representatives should stand in the same dock.
This would not conduce to the pending matri-
monial project. It might avert the possible chance
of having England governed by a Prussian Vice
roy. The inauspicious marriage of our fifteen-
year-old Princess Royal was in certain quarters
regarded as of far greater consequence than the
welfare and prosperity of betrayed Poland. The all-
important topic was therefore passed by sub silentio.
Hints were thrown out that the intentions of the new
• Emperor of RUSSIA were generous and benevolent
—that any interference might only damage the
cause which it was intended to benefit. " The
light cloud was therefore permitted to pass from
the face of the moon." The golden opportunity
slipped away. The " so-called" amnesty was
published, the shortcomings whereof have been so
well exposed by Lord LYNDHURST, and which was
▪ tharefore most properly rejected by the exiles, who
could only consider it as a mockery and delusion.
The word of promise was "kept to the ear," but
it was cruelly "broken to the hope." Lord CZ /MEN-
,
DON thinks that there is more to hope and expect
from him than this pretended amnesty. We
▪ wish we could share these hopes—we ••cannot,
however, pin our faith on Princes—more especi-
ally on one who has 'already so greatly disap-
pointed the expectations that had been formed on
his sense of justice and equity. We cannot call
it " clemency," for that would be to admit
that there was an error to be pardoned ! The
brief discussion of last night casts additional light
on the Precious Peace—cobbled up to, suit the
wishes of Germanism, without regard to the
honour or interests of Great Britain, or the cause
of suffering humanity throughout the entire
world.

The Saturday Half-Holiday Movement we do
not hesitate to stigmatise at once as a mere farce,
sham, mockery, and delusion—if en Sundays such
places as the Crystal Palace, and the National
Gallery, and the British Museum, and the Surrey
Gardens remain obdurately closed against the
labouring population. The Early-Closing Move-
ment is little better, wthout some such compre-
hensive corollary in the way of a Sunday Opening
Movement. The benevolent project set on foot
last night at a great aggregate meeting in
Exeter Hall will, even when happily fructuous of
the good intended, be but a partial benefit after
all, without it be coupled with precisely this con-
comitant advantage—the generous enterprise ad-
ventured upon, we mean, for the emancipation if
possible from a long, grinding, and hitherto hope-
less thraldom of the unfortunate assistants of
the London Milliners and Dressmakers. GOD
speed, say we, each and all of these gene-
rous and congenial schemes for the moral and
intellectual advancement, as well as for the phy-
sical amelioration of such very numerous and
hard-worked members of our industrial community
—as the needlewomen, and shop attendants, and
the toiling multitude generally throughout this
vast hive of labour, our huge and crowded
capital 1 HEAVEN' prosper, say we, the
labours of those who would in any way
forward the benevolent undertaking inau-
gurated yesterday, and with it the philanthropic
purpose involved in the Early Closing Movement,
and in the offshoot from that elder and more
comprehensive project the movement in
behalf of an organised system of Saturday
Half-Holidays ! HEAVEN prosper the pro-
moters of these plans in the very
process. of their development--Gon speed each
one of these noble enterprises individually
And yet while avowing our heart to be thus
earnestly in the cause, we cannot conscientiously
but reiterate a profound conviction that no-
thing adequate can by possibility be at all
accomplished in the proposed direction, unless
together with schemes like those already enume-
rated, there shall be simultaneously effacted the
most practical benefaction of all to the
struggling million 1 That involved in the open-
ing of places of innocent resort and recreation,
of places conducive at one and the same time to
bodily and mental improvement, on each recurring
Sunday, on every seventh day, on those 52 equi-
distant holidays comprised within a year, holidays
already belonging as an inalienable right (in the
way of rest and leisure)to each and every individual
indiscriminately. Cmnmcn sense tells us, surely,
that we ought first of all to apply the privileges
already in our possession, before striving after
others with a view to their better employment.
Fifty-two holidays in each year, not half-holidays
but whole holidays, the labouring people
of Eegland in town and hamlet, in farm
and factory, already possess. Fitty two Sun-
days already remain in every twelve-months at the
disposal of our industrious tens and hundreds of
thousands is London and Westminster. But upon
these fifty-two holidays per annum, the people are
formally restricted by the sheer force of legislative
enactments from enjoying to their heart's content
the very freedom which is to any holiday the real
source and secret of its advantage. The Law
comes in upon these fifty-two annual days of
leisure, and positively prohibits the moiling and
toiling multitude of our metropolis from the
merest chance of any rational enjoyment. The
alternative permitted to the people on Sundays, the
alternative from which they are allowed to choose
lies mainly, in fact, between the tavern and the con-
venticle; or supposing them to shrink with repug-
nance from either, there are still the sordid streets to
perambulate, with all the shop-shutters tightly
fastened, as though the city were hebdomadally
stricken with the plague, and the inhabitants
(decked out in their best) were hurrying away in
opposite directions, in the hope of escape from the
chancesofcontagion. Certainly, besides these, there
are other egregious sourcesof enjoyment still within
the grasp of the more enterprising members of the

labouring community. They may, if they list,
be churned up and down the great open sewer of
London called the Thames. They may swill beer
and spirits by the gallon, if they so please, in the
rural retreat of their cockney tea-gardens. They
may, if they care to do so, between certain hours
of the Holy-Day, keep the swin2,,doors of the
flash gin-palaces ever on their one dreadful vibra-
tion, to and fro, elbowing, as they pass in and
out, the dregs and refuse of an idle and vitiated
population. All this the law tolerates upon
Sundays, upon the fifty-two annual holidays of
the people--but obdurately closes against those
who ar,, their bread by the sweat of their
brow on all the rest of the Si., ;lays of every week,
such places as the Surrey Gardens, and the British
Museum, and the National Gallery, and the Crys-
tal Palace ! As though those places were really
the abomination of desolation ! Continue ittina-
ciously to keep open the gin-palaceii theNbeer•