The Sun.
London, England, 1861-08-21 00:00:00

the whole population, in fact, rendering homage
to the illustrious Normans of the 11th century, we
may say with—confidence :—' Patriotism is not ex-
tinct in France, as has been asserted, and though
it may smoulder it will always blaze up when the
proper moment arrives."
All we can say is, may France henceforth be con-
tent with past glories. It is far cheaper, far less
disturbing to the peace of Europe, to build monu-
ments to the memory of successful expeditions, and
to deposit golden books in churches, than to build
frigates in rivalry with the once conquered coun-
try, and to assemble armies by the half million in
camps and garrisons. We can be content to forget
Cressy, and Agincourt, and even Waterloo, if
France will but be content with her WILLIAM
THE CONQUEROR. Very harmless will such trophies
be if they be but rightly interpreted ; and let the
interpretation be, if so it pleases France, that when
she sent us over the Norman she rendered us invin-
cible against all future invaders. That we can
assure her is our interpretation of this monument
and its inscription. We angrily, at first, accepted
the ruthless conquerors; in the course of the eight
centuries we have thoroughly amalgamated
them. Saxon popular freedom, and Nor-
man feudality are now harmonized in the
social life and the Legislature and Government
of the country. We are the better for the fusion ;
and looking to the modern representative of Dives
—to the Docks of Cherbourg—we confidently tell
the would-be WILLIAMS of this age that their
day is gone by. The expedition from Dives was
the parent of counter •expeditions which we need
not enumerate ; and we only hope that the age
of monuments will be the age which shall give
occasion to no more.

All work and no play—makes JACK [supposing
we read it JOHN BULL] a dull boy." It is an old
saying, and a very true one. It is pleasant to know
now for certain that the wisdom latent in it is being
every day more and more widely recognised. Of
this we have abundant evidence about us. There
is the early closing movement, to begin with. The
more widely that system is applied in the trade of
this industrious country—this land, as NAPOLEON
called it, of shopkeepers—the more clearly does it
prove to be really and truly to the advantage of
the employers. During the diminished hours of
labour the employees are found to do quite as much
work, if not even more, and to do it more energeti-
cally. The compromise brought about in a lower
class, that is, among the bricklayers, &c.—a com-
promise securing to those wielders of the trowel
and their attendant bearers of the hod
the advantage of a Saturday half-holiday,
without any diminution of the week's wages—
tends satisfactorily in the same direction. An
excuse for the more general arrangement of this
Saturday half-holiday among all classes-of the mer-
cantile and professional community—rather than
a simple excuse, perhaps, we should say a good and
valid reason—has been furnished opportunely of
late by the consolidation of tho Volunteer Move-
ment. For the purpose of securing to the Volun-
teer Riflemen, whether employers or employed, the
certainty (so far as anything can in this way be
rendered certain) of a weekly drill together in their
respective corps, the Saturday half-holiday has come
to be generally recognised as a patriotic no less
than a sanitary necessity. The argument for the
half-holiday movement all along still remaining
in its way good and valid likewise. That argu-
ment being one in favour of affording the employed,
particularly the younger members of the employed
class, the opportunities at pleasure of self education
or of rational amusement. By abbreviating the du-
ration of office hours, by closing just a trifle earlier
the shops and manufactories, those hitherto
" cribbed, cabined, and confined," at the desk or
behind the counter, almost uninterruptedly during
their waking hours (saving for the mere snatch
of meal-time) might it was felt be afforded the op-
portunity—it was a secondary matter whether they
xsed it or not—might at any rate be afforded the
opportunity of making their nightly choice between
the allurements to study and the allurements to
innocent recreation. It is now some years since the
question here alluded to was gradually (after long
argument in its favour) brought into a state of some-
thing like systematic organisation. It has been in
operation now, for a long while, far and wide,
throughout the country—not everywhere it is
true, as yet, but in a vast number of localities.
And that aggregate of localities, we are glad
to know, is steadily multiplying. Nowhere has it
been found to result in disadvantage to the employer
—never with inconvenience to the public—always
with more or less appreciable benefit to those who
have obtained this opportunity for relaxation, or for
self-education. It has advanced so well and so
advantageously for all parties as a system that we
can no longer have any anxiety about it. We can
never dream of the chance of its abandonment. It
has gone on too excellently, it has been diffused too
widely for that. The Early Closing Movement has
taken its place for good and all (in every sense of those
words) among the number of our national and
popular "institutions." There is no more left for
one moment's fear in its regard. As well expect
the current of the Thames to flow back upon its
course, not by the simple tidal rise, but altogether
flow back upon its course past Fulham, past Rich-
mond, back through all its windings to its fountain
head at the " Seven Springs," in Gloucestershire,
there to be swallowed up like the river in the
"Arabian Tales," or like that other river in the old
classic mythology! The responsibility of carrying
on the good movement is past and gone. It advances
now by its own impetus, by the momentum it has
already attained : and it would be just fairly impos-
sible, we believe, for anyone, either now or hence-
forth—even temporarily—to impede its progress.
In the metropolis and in the provincial towns all
ynoCwlosairangonAglotvheemmeonstt,
through the country the
place EarlEarl
we repeat, has taken its
practically beneficent of our national institutions.
It has already become, so to speak, ;thoroughly
acclimatised. Brought down amongst us from the
" empyrean" of abstract reasoning—it has been
taken home (even in this hard, practical age) as
BACON aspired to have the truths incul-
cated in his Essays taken home—" to men's
businesses and bosoms." Added to the daily
benefit accruing to the industrial masses from the
operation of the Early Closing Movement—comes
the weekly benefit resulting from the system of the
Saturday Half-Holiday. And that, as we have
said, has latterly had secured to it the additional
reason, the additional inducement, of furthering in
a most effectual manner the better discipline and
completer organisation of our National Guard,
now from 100,000 to 200,000 strong, our supple-
mentary army of Rifle Volunteers.

In connection with the subject involved in all
this, we are glad to see that the importance of a
larger amount of physical education in our public
schools has been recently insisted uponbyMr.RDwlN
CHADWICK, in one of the papers contributed by
him to the recently-published bundle of Blue-books,
upon the subject of National Education. It was
only the other day that Lord BROUGHAM took
occasion, at Dublin, to eulogise the labours of Mr.
CHADWICK, and inferentially to commend his own
(Lord BROUGHAM'S) discernment, in having years
and years ago pronounced the efforts made by Mr.