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

SPIRIT OP THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

*-

TIMES.—The House of Lords is doing its best to I
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 everyplace
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 someparts
of London there is alarge 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 hat 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 employed; 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 public injury 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-cresses 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 au 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
serialnewspapers and the numerous publications
which furnish so large a part of the public readnag.
In passing along the streets of any English town
one of the most remarkable objects is the number
of shops in which periodical publications, political
or literary or theological, are sold, often in company
with the most heterogeneous wares. On Sunday the
indows 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 bas, 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, Tith 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
nonce on the most 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
were only too
which high and low, rich and poor,