The Sun.
London, England, 1850-07-03 00:00:00

WEDNESDAY EVENING, JULY 3, 1850.

Additional Retired Rear-Admirals--George Hills,
George B. Trollope.
Captains—Cbristopher Laroce, George Smith, Thomas
R. Eden.

Commanders —Walter 131swall, John R. Morris,
Thomas Read, George E. Davis, Arthur Grant, John
Gregory, C. William Betty, John W. Jones, Thomas
Draue, Alexander Horn.

Lieutenants—William Knight (c), Charles Peake,
Charles Shaw (a), Joha Hungerford, Henry Lewis (b),
Peter Shuttleworth, Samuel R. Whitcomb, Jas. Skene,
John Wildey, Henry Kitchen, Charles G. Clarke, Ed-
win W. Sanders, James K. Hancock, Hon. John R. M.
Byng, Henry R. M'R. Page. William H. Connolly, Philip
Hudson.

Masters—James Scott, George Renner, Edward Mat-
thews, Robert Wilson, George Filmer.

ROYAL MARINES.

Captain William Taylor.
First•Lieutenants—Jahn G. Timpson, David Miller,
John Bennett, Robert U. D. James.

MEDICAL OFFICERS.

Surgeons—Joshua Harwood, John James, William
Peatie.

Assistant-Surgeons James Clerk, M.D., George
Brewster, M.D.
Paymasters and Purs-rs—William Leach, Thomas
Brett, Hugh Hannah, Thomas McKnight, William An-
draws, Henry Brenton, John Westwood, Edward Waller,
Charles D. Gourd.

SUNDAY POST-OFFICE LABOUR.
(From the Devonport Independent.)
It is fair to presume that those well-meaning but
not over-reflective peoplo who demanded a cessation
of Post-office labour on the Sabbath, have really
asked for more than they intended, and like many
other extravagant petitioners who get all they
entreat, they have had the misfortune to obtain more
than they want. Because they do not like to open
a letter on a Sunday, all the people of these
kingdoms must be deprived of the advantages of postal
communication for two days. There are to be two
blank days to the man of business, two days without
intelligence of commercial matters, two days with-
out information between friends in times of afflic-
tion, when into an hour of suspense is crowded
the agony of years, two days before tidings of
distress are to reach the benevolent capable of re-
lieving it, two days' delay, by pious obstacles, in the
performance of deeds of" piety or mercy. This
measure, passed by the Sabbatarians for the better
obstruction of all kinds of business, is the perfection
of fully. Let us inquire what many of the rigidly-
righteous of the House of Commons, who voted for
this embodiment of their wisdom, really do. They
open their eyes• upon the Sabbath, and ring for the
attendance of their valet to go through his accus-
tomed task—not remembering the words " that thy
man-servant, and thy maid-servant may rest as well
as thou ; " they go to the breakfast-room that has
been prepared on the Sabbath, to take the breakfast
that with busy care has been laid out on the Sab-
bath for the satisfaction of their Sabbath creature
comforts ; they order their horses, groomed on the
Sabbath, to be harnessed in the carriage—Sabbath
cleaned, that the coachman who has to put the
fourth commandment in his pocket with his wages,
may drive them to church as the Sabbath bells are
ringing; the serving part of the household are en-
gaged in their Sabbath duties, connected with their
master's eating and drinking on that blessed day.
They may have learned that it is lawful to do good
on the Sabbath, and may have heard their employers
in secular humour exclaim that there is nothing
better than a good dinner. Leaving these good men
in Sabbath meditation, perhaps with their wives—
perhaps over their wine, until they take their coffee,
we see every requisite has been associated with Sab-
bath-breaking down to the milk, for which the sinful
dairymaid troubled the sinful cow. They take their
Sabbath supper through the Sabbath industry
of the larder, cook, and kitchen departments;
they retire at length to their bedrooms, arranged
on the Sibbath, and go to sleep on the beds so
somniferously Sabbath made; they read next morn-
ing with the greatest pleasure the Times or Chronicle,
the greater part of which was " got up" on the Sab-
bath, and in the evening go down to the House,
like unexceptionable saints, to denounce by their votes
the heinous crime of a widow receiving through
the post a letter on the Sabbath or the day
after, from or about her dying child ! It generally
requires care in condemning the extravagant or
inconsistent regard for what is abstractedly a
great good, since the opposition to the intemperate
advocates of a principle might be taken for scoffing
at the principle they practically degrade, rather than
elevate. Hallowed indeed is the institution of the
Sabbath, but it becomes so, not so much from dis-
continuing thereon what is good belonging to other
days, as in adding to it much of goodness that belongs
peculiarly to itself. The position we take, therefore,
is not likely to be misunderstood by any reasoning
persons ; it is the position adhered to by those who
have inquired what it is that reason has to say on the
subject.

The only question is this—is there more of good
than of evil done by the delivery of letters once on
the Sabbath ? If people really believe that there is
more of evil than of good, that the receivers of
letters are made more worldly, that the stream of
mercy and benevolence is not strengthened, that
kindly affections are not promoted, that it is not in-
telligence absolutely neceessary to be given on that
particular day that it is transmitted, then of course
they did perfectly right in opposing the continu-
ance of a Sunday post ; only they should
bear in mind that if it be wrong to run mails
on the Sunday, it is wrong to sail ships,
that it is wrong for clerks in the Post-
office to work under any circumstances, it is wrong
for clerks in any other office to work, and a delayed
dispatch, instructions kept back which might have
been forwarded, the machinery of Government sus-
pended in particular cases in which it might have
been kept going, and numberless other aberrations in
the ordinary course of affairs that may result in the
greatest confusion, or most serious accidents, must be
esteemed as slight sacrifices on the altar of resolute
principle.
If on the other hand, however, there be—and we
contend there is—more good than evil resulting from
the Postal communication on the Sunday, and if the
opportunities for good which were thereby possessed
will become, as we contend they must become, seri-
ously circumscribed, then there is no valid argument
for discontinuing that communication. We maintain
that the question is not simply whether a certain
number of persons in the employ of the Post-office
ought or ought not to do duty a short time on the
Sunday, but whether the whole population shall be
deprived, for two days out of every week, of some of
the greatest facilities they have ever possessed, not
only for commercial, but even for moral purposes.
With respect to the determination of Government
to give effect to the resolution of the House of Com-
mons, though we regret that determination, we must
be free to confess that few possessed of their discre-
tion in the matter would have used it otherwise than
they did. The representatives of the country chose
to allow a small compact party of Anti-Sunday-Post
men to place the Ministry in a minority, upon a
question far more important to their constituencies
than to the Administration. Mr. Rowland Hill had
previously met with every species of misrepresenta-
tion and abuse. Had he been a thorough reprobate,
and had every member of the Government resolved
to support him in an attempt to ignore the observance
of the Sabbath from the ritual of Christian obliga-
tions, scarcely more reproach could have been cast
upon them. An absurd cry was raised, it was em-
bodied in a resolution, and the onus of rejecting it
was thrust upon the Government by the members
who preferred rushing to their dinners, or riding to
the races, to voting on the question. The Govern-
ment, therefore, found one party making earnest de-
mands, in ignorance as is believed, of the practical
effect of them, if conceded ; and another party with-
out sufficient interest on the question to abstain from
a race or postpone a dinner. Under these circum-
stances the Government resolved to let one party
know exactly what it was they did, and the other feel
what it was they neglected to do. It is very provok-
ing unquestionably, especially since Lord Brougham's
legal doubts as to the correctness 'of the course pur-
sued, turn out as light as his own political reputation ;
but in the end this affair will prove the surest means
of silencing for ever an agitation characterised by
such an extraordinary disparity between motives and
results.

The suspension for two days of all Postal commu-
nication will never be tolerated when the inconve-
nience and loss involved come to be felt. As it is,
the success of the righteousness of the House of
Commons only springs out of a love for horse-racing,
and an impatience for a dinner !
(From the Welshmen')
SUNDAY LABOUR IN THE POST.OPPICE.—On
Sunday last the recent regulations (published
elsewhere) respecting the non-delivery of letters on
the Sabbath Day came into operation in this and all
other towns throughout the kingdom, and although
it would naturally be less felt here than in other
places of more extended commercial importance, in
consequence of the comparative strictness with which
the Lord's Day is usually observed in Carmarthen,
yet even in this town the public was subjected to a
great amount of inconvenience and annoyance, whit ,
will, of course, be considerably multiplied in all cases
where an emergency shall arise for the rapid trans-
mission of intelligence. We may remark, en passant,
that if the regulation was intended to promote relax-
ation from labour on the part of those employed in
the Post-office here, it decidedly failed, for there was
no remission of toil on the part of the usual employes,
if we except the actual delivery of the letters and
newspapers. It is only an act of justice to acknow-
ledge the convenience afforded by the deputy-post-
master of this town, by giving an extra delivery at
seven o'clock on Monday morning, thereby affording
an opportunity of replying by first mail to London.
It is evident that a recurrence to the old mode must
be speedily resorted to, but it is, perhaps, judicious