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

POST-OFFICE SUNDAY LABO

NEWCASTLE TOWN COUNCIL.
On Wednesday last the TOWN CLERK read a re-
quisition to the Mayor, signed by twenty-three mem-
bers of the council, requesting a meeting to be called,
to petition against the total suspension of Post-office
labour on Sundays, or for some steps to be taken to
arrest the inconveniences and deplorable consequences
likely to result from the recent Post-office regula-
tions, in consequence of which the present meeting

had been called:
Sir J. Fire said he hoped that the mayor and coun-
cil would not think that he had brought them to-
gether unnecessarily, but that the occasion would be
thought to warrant a special meeting. The subject
which was now coming under their consideration was
one of vast importance. He need not remind the
council of the great alarm, and, he might say,
the general' indignation which had been occa-
sioned amongst men of business throughout the
country, in consequence of the manner in which
the work of the Pest-office on Sundays had been so
summarily interrupted. It was a curious fact, that,
while a minority of his countrymen took very extreme
views of religious matters, the line of conduct which
they took in carrying out their views was not always
consistent with the influence under which they
professed to act. The majority of the people
looked at religious precepts through the medium
of the reason which their Creator had given to them.
The great majority would not, be thought, permit
that great vital organ to be stopped in its functions ;
and that, for two days in the week, all busieess
should be interrupted ; thus occasioning an enormous
increase of Sunday labour in the shape of telegraphs
expresses, and special messengers of various descrip-
tions. It remained to be seen whether, the country
would sit down under that immense disability.
There was a remarkable contrast between th Seb-
batarians and those men of business who would, on
that occasion, oppose them. The latter did not le-
gislate for the consciences of their neighbours, but left
them to spend their Sabbath as they pleased ; they did
not make such parties send for their letters and
papers. But they complained that the parties
he had alluded to did not act in the same liberal man-
ner towards them, that they presumed, by what he
must call -self-righteous assumption, to dictate to
others. Now, when men professed to act under re-
ligious inspiration, or believed that they were so
acting, their neighbours naturally expected from
them honest candour, and straightforward
plicity ; they did not expect to find that sort of
management, to use the mildest expression, sshich
they expected to see in a Newcastle jockey or
a gamester. But see in what manner the party
headed by Lord Ashley and Mr. Plumptre had
carried their resolution through Parliament—
such a resolution as had not been sent from
Parliament to the Crown since the days of Cromwell.
The only simplicity they had shown had been in the
imbecility of their arguments ; all their other pro-
ceedings had been marked by a remarkable degree of
worldly cunning. It was competent to Lord Ashley
to have brought in a Bill for the better observance of
the Sabbath ; but then there would have been re-
peated discussion, there would have been ample time
for the expression of public opinion ; there would
have been a succession of stages at which the
opinion of the Legislature would have been taken;
and before such a measure had been assented to its
merits would have been properly tested. Instead of
that he had chosen to bring forward the question in
such a form that it could be hurried through at once.
But that was not the worst. It had been brought on
on an occasion when the House was peculiarly con-
stituted. He (Sir John) doubted whether there was
any other day in the session on which those parties
could have been so sure of a partial House—so
sure of a majority of men holding extreme views
upon the subjects—men who wanted an observance
of the Sabbath beyond the requirements of Chris-
tianity, beyond reason and common sense. He had
thus carried through an address which had taken the
Government, the Pailiament, and the people all by
surprise. If they looked at the history of the Pest-
office for the last fifty years, they would find that im-
portant changes had been made ; that there had been
repeated concessions to those parties who held ex-
treme views upon religious subjects. One might
have thought that these concessions would have con-
ciliated such parties ; but each concession bad been
coolly regarded as a step towards something more.
That, indeed, had been one of the arguments used by
Lord Ashley. So that, bad as things were now, they
probably had not yet got to the worst. Indeed, it
was difficult to place a limit to unreasonable men
who acted as these parties had done. It was a
curious fact that there should be so much pusillanimity,
such a want of moral courage, in opposing such
men ; but this was not so discreditable to the oppo-
nents of these parties as to the parties themselves. It
was well known what a terrible organ was the odium
theologicum. It was plain that any party which was
highly organized was powerful, and it was extraordi-
nary what means were taken by some parties to effect
their objects. On his way down to the meeting he had
received from a merchant a piece of information bear-
ing on the question. He was informed that Satur-
day letters from the South-Eastern Counties, which
ought to have been here on Monday morning did
not arrive till Tuesday. Of coarse, too, the delivery
of letters on a Monday morning must now be very
late, unless they had been previously sorted. Nearly
two days would be lost throughout the empire, and
that loss would produce deplorable consequences. He
had been informed by one of the most experienced
bankers in the north of England that it might happen
that a merchant, after paying in money on a Saturday
night, to meet his bills, might, through this delay,
have his bills protested, and thus have his cretin
shaken. But this would not affect Lord Ashley or
Mr. Plumptre, and so they cared nothing about it;
nor would it much affect the 700,000 persons
who had signed they did not know what. In Lord
Ashley's speech great stress had been laid upon some
beautiful quotations from a prize essay by a working
man upon the importance of the Sabbath. But that
was all quite irrelevant. None of those who oppased
these restrictive measures desired to deprive the
working man of the day, whether as a day of rest,
or of devotion. They left him to spend it as he
pleased. But the effect of the recent change upon
working men might be very disastrous. He had
been informed, by a great manufacturer, that,
in consequence of the non-delivery of letters
on Sunday, a very great number of working
men would be thrown out of employment on the Mon-
day, just as they were now in Scotland. And what
would be the consequences ? The Scotch, who were
the most Sabbath-observing, were also the most
spirit-drinking people on the face of the earth ; and
the one had much to do with the other. Lord Ashley
had dwelt much upon the number of signatures he had
obtained to his petitions ; but he knew wall that he
could obtain almost any number of signatures, on any
subject, on an unusually short notice. There was a
peculiar power in organization under the influence of
religious feeling. He (Sir John) had no doubt that if
Lord Ashley were to propose petitions that all persons
should be compelled to wear black on Sundays,
he could, in a short time, get 700,000 names to
there. Though the Scotch were so strict upon this
subject, the common sense and neighbourly feeling of
the Highland farmers went a long way to relieve
them from the inconveniences it would otherwise oc-
casion. It happened often that a Highland farmer
travelled to his kirk a distance of fifteen miles ; and,
after staying there some hours listening to the sermon,
first in Gaelic and then in English, before he left, he
received at the kirk-door the letters brought for
him ten or fifteen miles in an opposite direction—that
was still further from his residence,—and which he
would not otherwise get for another week unless by
an express journey all that distance. He (Sir John)
did not say that the farmer opened and read his let-
ters and papers on Sunday ; for he believed that,
generally, he did not, but he read them as soon as
it was light next morning. Soon after the wool
merchant, or the cattle jobber probably called, and
unless the farmer knew the state of the markets, he
might lose the only profitable bargain that he could
make during the season. In the profession to which
he belonged the delay in communicating with patients
might often be fatal. Persons were slow to send for
dita t necessarysseicii 'e
Even the restriction pa
tteh,ehyssuorigneeonhotolfrtse,
ction adopted
was expected to arrive. nthefopuenr(ilo
atoidtlntaincdi
found very inconve-
nient ; it had happened to him to receiveletters dur-
ingpreviously to the last had been
hav e stetted at five
then setting out, he ought to
the Monday morning, and to find that, instead of
he had
the
treated the subreiect asti to
moderately as he coul d The
resolution was as foliows
an
:
" That it is the duty of the Goverement to afford the
people every fecility foe the undelayed transmission
fi'
escecially as, in many cases, early transmission of f delivery of letters and newspapers sent fut. on Suhdays
r-
mation may lessen anxiety, avert peculate-4 ruin, or e.-
nish the means of saving human
He had included newspapers, because when foreign
papers arrived, those of them who bad connexions
abroad, and particularly in the army or navy, de-