The Sun.
London, England, 1866-05-16 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—The House of Lords is doing its best to
bring us into trouble. Under the guidance of Lord
Chelmsford, it last evening passed through com-
mittee a Sunday Trading Bill, which seems likely
to rival in- oppressiveness, and consequent futility,
the Publichouse measure of 1855. Lord Chelmsford
has discovered, it seems, that the Sabbath is violated
in London and the large towns. The act of Charles
11. is a dead letter. People buy and sell and ex-
change in spite of the beneficent legislation of the
Stuarts. There are places in London where a re-
gular fair is held. Not only do poor people buy meat
and groceries on a Sunday morning, but many a
labouring man actually provides himself on that
day with a neckerchief or a pair of boots. The de-
secration must be put an end to, and as nothing is
more easy for a Conservative Peer than to pass a
bill through one House of Parliament, Lord Chelms-
ford gives the public a prospect of a most stringent
measure. Whether it shall become law must de-
pend in a great degree on the reception it meets
with from the country when its provisions are fully
known. We have been accustomed to believe that
in London the Sabbath is very decently kept. There
is a mean between Scottish moroseness and Conti-
nental indifference. Of the two forms of industry
production ceases altogether, while distribution is
very partially carried on. Workmen of all trades
make the Sunday a day of rest. .There is no carpen-
tering or bricklaying, no tailoring or shoemaking.
All mercantile establishments, and all the shops
which supply the upper and middle classes with any-
thing but immediate necessaries, are also closed. In
nine streets out of ten in London almost every place
of business, great or small, is shut up. But there is
a class of goods which have at all times been sold.
The poor have always been able to get their house-
hold necessaries on Sunday morning, and nobody
has been deprived of the power of purchasing a news -
paper on the Sunday. Among the poor in some parts
of London there is a large amount of trading. Many
of the labouring people have only time to make pur-
chases of wearing apparel and the like on Sunday
morning, and consequently there is a class of dealers
who make it their business to supply them. But, as
far as we can see, there is nothing contrary to
public decency in what is done. Unless the Sabba-
tarians can stop the processes of nature, there must
be the need of food ; unless they can deprive their
fellow-countrymen of their natural curiosity and
interest in public matters for 24 hours, there must
be a desire for such things as newspapers ; and un-
less they can change the industrial habits of the
country, the working classes must feel the want of a
Sunday market for the purchase of many articles.
Under the system which has grown up during gene-
ratiOns, and the very existence of which is a proof
that it is required by the needs of our population,
the greatest amount of convenience is given to the
public, and particularly to the working people, with
the smallest amount of labour. Some must watch
that the rest may sleep, and, in a country where
hundreds of thousands labour six days in the week
and take their leisure on the seventh, it is unavoid-
able that there should be a small class ministering
to their wants, whose work falls heavier on that
seventh day. In such a civilisation as ours it is
as necessary that people should work on different
days and at different hours as that they should
work at different occupations. For the health of
the multitude who seek the fresh air there must be a
few railway servants, or coachmen, or steamboat
people esaployed; for the sustenance of the multitude
there must be a certain number of tavern servants at
their work ; and so, to minister to the weekly wants
of so enormous a population, there must be a few
thousands who make their living by Sunday trading.
In such a matter as this the wisest policy is to
leave things alone. The theory that people require
to be protected from themselves or their neighbours
ought not in these days to be made the basis of legis-
lation. Yet it is the corner-stone of Lord Chelms-
ford's bill. We are to shut up the shops of a number
of people who want to keep them open, because if
these shops are not shut up other people will find
themselves obliged to open also. The Christian's
holiday will be taken away if his Jewish neigh-
bour vends his wares during the sacred hours. We
should have thought it had become almost unneces-
sary to refute arguments which assume that nobody
is able to take care of himself, but that each must
be guarded from his own covetousness or the unfair
competition of his neighbour by paternal legislation.
In fact, there is no reason to believe that there is
any such unwilling trading. The tradesmen who
sell on Sunday are people to whose customers the
day is most convenient, and those who have another
class of customers keep their shops shut. Those
who thus work on Sunday are in no worse position
than domestic servants in all families, and they,
moreover, contrive to find a day of leisure in the
course of the week. The system has now com-
pletely accommodated itself to the wants of the
country ; it gives bread to thousands of a very poor
class; it ministers to the convenience of those whose
leisure is short and whose means are small ; and it
seems to us that, unless some publicinjury is alleged,
no Government ought to interfere with it. Lord
Chelmsford, however, does not see matters in this
light. When we recollect that all the various forms
of Sunday trading have grown up in spite of the law
by which each act of trading is now punishable by
fine, it is but reasonable to infer that the law is in
itself unjust and inexpedient as regards mere buying
and selling, and that if any change is to take place it
ought rather to be in the direction of moderat-
ing the old statute. But the failure of the
present law only suggests to Lord Chelmsford
a fresh enactment and the imposition of heavier
fines. Still, as there are certain branches of Sunday
trading which may be considered too powerful to
attack, a set of exceptions are introduced, which
will lead to some extraordinary and subtle distinc-
tions in the working of the Act. Aldermen and
police magistrates must prepare their faculties for
the decision of some very knotty points. Lord
Teynham, who seems to have studied the measure,
and who was not contradicted last night by Lord
Chelmsford, tells us that, though fruit and pastry
will be lawful, shrimps and water-tresses will be
forbidden. The greengrocer will be able to supply
his customers with potatoes, but must refuse them
wood or coal with which to cook them. People
may sell meat or bread, but not an ounce of tea or
sugar. The pastrycook may vend his tarts, but if
he venture an ice for sale or a piece of barley-sugar
the policeman may come down upon him, and he
may have to pay his 20s. But the most absurd
and oppressive part of the bill relates to the sale of
newspapers and the numerous serial publications
which furnish so large a part of the public reading.
In passing along the streets of any English town
one of the most remarkableriodil
publications,objectsisth political
e nul per
of shops in which er ca
or literary or theological, are sold, often in company
with the most heterogeneous wares. On Sunday the
indoors are fuller than usual, and the sale is largest,
because the day is a day of leisure ; but by Lord
Chelmsford's bill no such publication is to be sold
at any place in the United Kingdom after 10 o'clock
on Sunday morning. As a great favour, Lord
Chelmsford consented to leave the words " or de-
livery of," so that a newspaper or periodical bought
before 10 o'clock may be delivered after that hour;
but in other respects the bill, after passing through
Committee, stands as it did before. Such is legis-
lation in the Peers. We are not surprised to find
that even among Lord Chelmsford's friends there
were some who could not avoid expressing a doubt
as to the wisdom of his measure. When it comes
before the House of Commons this dissent will be
more strongly expressed. We hope and believe that
so mischievous and oppressive a scheme will never
receive the sanction of the Legislature.
POST.—The anniversary of what the late Premier
not inappropriately termed our Isthmian games has
once more returned, and in the noise, the excitement,
and the turmoil of a Derby Day the financial crisis,
the imminent European war, and the Reform Bills
will be equally forgotten ; for on this day the
greatest metropolis in Europe throws off its busi-
ness look, its Exchanges are deserted, and its in-
habitants betake themselves bodily to the Epsom
Downs. Every one, from Ministers of State down
to costermongers, yield to the paramount influence
of the day, and concentrate their undivided atten-
tion on an event which determines which of a num-
ber of three-year-old foals possesses the greatest
speed. Downing-street and Covent-garden are
alike abandoned, for the Premier for the time being
may have, and not unfrequently has, a horse entered
for the great race, and the costermonger is safe to
have a bet on one of the favourites. And so it
happens that every one who can go does go to the
Downs. From early dawn the roads converging
towards Epsom present an appearance unknown
except on this eventful day. Traps which have not
seen the light since the festival of the preceding
year are again brought into requisition, and, despite
their dilapidated condition, are fully freighted and
despatched on their hazardous journey. The four-
horse drag, with its well appointed team, struggles
onward, side by side with the humble donkey-cart,
whose shafts as well as interior appear completely
efflorescent with human beings. It is the Londoners'
carnival, and the peer and the pot-boy are for the
non ce on the rnost perfect equality. Little dolls, and oc-
casionally, we regret to say, toys of more formidable di-
mensions, supply the place of the bon-bons of an Italian
carnival, and are thrown at and by senators and
" non-electors," the inhabitants of Belgravia and
the denizens of Whitechapel, with the most indis-
criminating partiality. The road to Epsom, like that
to Hades, levels all distinctions, and the ferryman
of the Styx never collected the oboli from his
pas-
sengers with greater disregard for their antecedent
social status than did the toll-makers at the Sutton-
gate—happily now no more—collect the sixpences
which high and low, rich and poor, were. only too

anxious to thrust into their hands, in order to secure
a passage through that narrow aperture. In a word,_
the Derby Day, with all its accessories, is a national
institution, and as such reflects many of the princi-
pal traits of the national character. The love of a
fair contest, where the best animal, whether man or
horse, wins—the love of social enjoyment, unfettered.
by the restrictions of even the most considerate and
paternal of Governments—the love of absolute
equality in regard to all that concerns the individual,
and his right to regulate his own actions according
to his own fancy, are all vividly illustrated in the
ordinary proceedings of a Derby Day. There are,
however, other considerations which are forced on
our attention by the recurrence of this anniversary
besides those immediately incidental to the follies
and the amusements of the road and of the hill. The
prize which will be won to-day by the owner of the
fleetest of the three-yr-olds is accounted the blue
riband of the turf, and it must be confessed that,
independently of the eclat of securing that decora-.
tion, the fortunate victor also obtains a reward of
so substantial a nature that it would have astounded
those who first conceived the idea of establishing
horse races for prizes with a view to inducing
breeders to devote particular attention to the pro-
duction of their stock. But, large as is the amount
of the subscriptions paid by the owners of horses
entered for the Derby, and which, with some trifling
deductions, passes into the pocket of the pos-
sessor of the fastest of the lot, it is occasionally
insignificant when compared with the sum found ,
due to him in the balance-sheet of his betting-book.
The Derby is, in respect to the inducements which
it holds out for gambling, only partially distill:
guishable from any of the races which are run at
other " meetings ;" but, accepting it, as we may
fairly do, as a type, it involuntary forces upon
our notice some of those offshoots of the racecourse
which, after the manner of parasites, threaten the
stability of the parent stem. The "'Ring" is not
an institution of to-day or of yesterday, and we
have no intention of preaching a homily on the
vice of gambling. Those who desire to risk their
money on events of chance can do so without fre-
quenting the betting-ring or visiting a German
watering-place ; and the trickling drops on a pane
of glass caused by a passing shower, or the varying
lengths of the straws which may be pulled from a
corn-stack, furnish to those who are so inclined as
ample an opportunity as could be desired for ex-
changing the luxury of a palace for the squalid misery
of a hovel. But, although we decline to consider
the evils of betting regarded per se, it may not be
out of place to pass a few comments upon the rela-
tionship in which the " Ring" stands to the racing
stable, and the nature of the influence which the
one exercises over the other. No one possessing the
slightest conversance with sporting matters can 31;
fect to be ignorant that the speed of horses is n°
unfrequently affected by the amount of the moor
staked on their ill success, instead of, as one would,
a priori, suppose, the result of a wager being solely
dependent on the capabilities of the horse about
which it is made. In a word, the " Ring," vii3,lr,
was originally an accidental appendage to the stable
and entirely subservient to it, has now gained the up'
per hand, and horses which belong to a confederation
are now as often scratched, or pulled, or doctored/
in order to lose a race, as they used to be put in La.
high state of training in order to gain one.
betting-book, from the magnitude of the transae"
tions which it records, eclipses the list of Prize:
which reward the successful horses, and men have
learned that it may be much more profitable to lose
a race than to win one. Against practices such as
those at which we have hinted little or no precau-
tions can be taken, and the public are compelled to
place implicit confidence in the honour of the
bers of the turf. The favourites for to-day's race
are watched even whilst we write with an anxiety
and care far more jealous than are expended on 1:111-\
safety by the body guards of the most powerif;
sovereign. " The Ring" has cast " The 1111":0
proper into the shade, and it has become little le4d
than ludicrous to urge that the main object and
of horse-racing is the improvement of stock. A. f
fact is patent, and cannot be denied, that 99 out ()
every 100 race-horses are foaled, reared, and trained
with no other object than that of furnishing to their
owers the means of making a good book.