The Sun.
London, England, 1850-07-10 00:00:00

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2€ 11114

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, JULY 10, 1850.

At a late hour last evening Mr. LOCKE brought
forward his motion in the House of Commons on the
subject of the abolition of the Post-office Sunday de-
livery. The resolution which the Hon. Gentleman
submitted to the House was as follows :

" That, whilst this House acknowledges with satisfac-
tion the diminution in the amount of Sunday labour
effected by the recent arrangements in the Post-office,
it cannot but be sensible of the great public inconve-
nience which has arisen from the total cessation of any
delivery or collection of letters on Sundays, and that a
humble address be therefore presented to her Majesty,
praying that she will.bo graciously pleased to cause an
inquiry to be made, whether the amount of Sunday
labour might not be reduced without completely putting
an end to the collection and delivery of letters, &c., on
Sundays; and that, pending such inquiry, her Maj:sty
will kie graciously pleased to give orders that the collec-
tion and delivery of letters, &c., on Sundays shall be
continued as heretofore."

After a long discussion, Lord Jour; RUSSELL sug-
gested, as a substitute for the motion, that " a humble
address should be presented to her MAJESTY, praying
that she would be graciously 'pleased to cause an in-
quiry to be made whether the amount of Sunday
labour in the Post-office might not be reduced with-
out completely putting an end to the collection and
delivery of letters on Sunday."
Mr. Locse pressed his motion to a division, when
his resolution was rejected by a majority of 191,
the numbers being for the motion 92, against it 233,
whereupon Lord Jonis RUSSELL'S amendment was
put as a substantive resolution, and, notwithstanding
the strenuous opposition of the Sabbatarians, was car-
ried by a majority of 83, the numbers being ]95 for
to 112 apinst it. It will be seen therefore that thi
matter
now rests entirely in the hands of the G)-
vernment, and we cordially j.iin Mr. name
lloi,verin in exprePing" a hope that the inquiry viii
be followed up wi:Li rapidity, as it is most unjust and
impolitic that a small portion of the community should,
as at pr:sent, impose restrictions upon the great body
of the people." We should have been better pleased,
seeing it is admitted that the alteration has been
made without inquiry, had the Sunday delivery been
restored pending the inquiry ; but Lord JoHN Res-

SELL has perhaps adopted the best course that under
ail the circumstances it was in his power to adopt.
He took a false step when, in the first instance, he,
in answer to the address of the house of Commons,
recommended the abolition of the Sunday delivery
without inquiry, and he has been hampered by the con-
sequence of his error ever since. It is clear that sines
the decision of last night the Government has the
whole affair in their hands, and we would urge
those who are in favour of a Christian and
common-sense observance of the Sunday, as con-
tradistinguished from a Judsical and puritanical
one, to act with vigour.
The Sabbatarians are endeavouring by every
means in their power to put " the screw on,"
and they must be fought with their own weapons.
The division list should be scrutinized with accu-
racy, and those who have abstained from voting out
of fear of the saints, or who have voted with them out
of fear, should be reminded by their constituents indi-
vidually that the majority of electors may perhaps he
found on the other side.. We urge upon our

brethren of the Press, and upon all who are in-
terested in this matter, the absolute necessity of
not relaxing a moment in their pressure on this subject
until the restoration of tha Sunday post is practically
reduced to action—which it may be within one week,
and will be, if the matter be properly urged on the
attention of the members of the Government, with
whom, and with whom alone, the decision of this
matter rests. We could not but be struck with the
" modest assurance" (if the man had not been a Lord,
we should have designated it by some other name)

of my Lord ASHLEY, who in the course of the debate,
coolly asked whether it could be said that a full, fair,
and sufficient trial had been given to the measure,
seeing that it had been only in operation for twenty
days. There are some poisons so rapid in their
orration as to produce &at% in twenty se-
conds, and this measure, which condemns all
mankind, to socisi death every Sunday, has bad
more than a sufficient trial. As was well said by Mr.
AGLIONBY, it has been tried too long, and it has given
extreme dissatisfaction to the country. The bearded
Member for Birmingham, Mr. MUNTZ, whose whole
career has been one long hunt after notoriety, sup-
ported the SAbbaLrians, because he (Mr. MuriTz)
had been in the habit of receiving from
thirty to forty letters every Sunday, the
reading of which he found to b 3 a mater of p-r-
-sonal inconvenience ; but surely Mr. MUNTZ might
have obviated this by simply abstaining trona opening
his letters on a Sunday. Why should the poor man
be deprived of the comfort of hearing from
his son or daughter, and answering their
letter on a Sunday, because Mr. MUSTZ does
not possess sufficient self-command to withstand the
temptation to do that which he believes to be wrong?
file Hon. Gentleman also thought it decent to assert
that all the letters of complaint which had ap-
peared in the newspapers had been written by the
editors themselves. This assertion is, perhaps, the
most unfounded that even Mr. MuaTe ever made,
and that is saying a gr, at deal. The Honourable
Member -has at various periods of his existence'been
himself connected with journalism, and may, per-
haps, have been in the habit of making anonymous
communications to himself; but we can assure him, from
a very lengthened experience, that such practices are
eschewed by all conductors et newspapers of character
and respectability. It is not, however, the merchant or
the manufacturer, or the banker who is £0
interested in the restoration of the Post office
Sunday delivery as the poor man. It is emphatically
and par excellence the poor man's question.
This point was admirably put by Lord JOHN RUSSELL.
" I own it oppears to me," said the Noble Lord,
" that if the commercial men of Manchester, or Glas-
gow, or otter large towns are generally of one mind
as to this subject, there is nothing which should pre-
vent them from refraining from carrying on commer-
cial business ; but it is a different question with those
persons who have families and domestic affairs con-
cerning voyages abroad, or friends in imminent dan-

ger. Here is a difficulty which I cannot get over. The
Post-cffice is armed with all the power of the State to
prevent other persons from taking letters, and is there-
fore charged and takes upon itself to be charged exclu-
.ively with this duty of conveying a letter on Saturday

evening from London, informing a daughter that her
father is dangerously ill, and that if she does not re-
ceive the letter immediately, she may never see him
again or-receive his blessing; and the letter having
arrived in the provincial town early on Sunday
morning is there detained 24 hours in the post-office;

the daughter knowing of her father's illness, and suffer.:

ing all the agonies cf protracted anxiety during these
24 hours." The question is one of domestic and social,
rather than of mercantile importance. If Mr. MUNTZ
desires to benefit by information he may have re-
ceived on a Sunday to mike his thousands by a lucky
spec, he has the railway and the electric telegraph at
his command; not so the poor man, s ho, although able
to afford his penny for his letter, cannot afford
fifteen shillings for a message, and yet the poor
man is to be condemned for twenty-fJur hours to the

agonies of suspense as to the life or death of a dear loved
child, because, forsooth, the personal convenience of
Mr. McYrz is served by the stoppage of the Post-
office delivery on Sunday. The most logical and
most convincing speech of the debate was that of
Mr. ROEBUCK ; the Hon. and Learned Member
for Sheffield exposed in the most complete manner
the fallacies of those who pretend that this question
of Post-office Sunday delivery is a religious ques-
tion :

" He at once directly and roundly asserted that

if this was a religious question, that House had
no right to interfere in the matter. That House
had no right to thrust down the throat of kny man
a religious opinion. (Cheers.) He denial that
the Sabbath came cf the Christian religiol.—eilear, hear,'

from Colonel Thompson.) He spoke it seriously and gravely
as cue conscientiously and deeply concerned for the interests
of the country, that as far as religion was concerned, this
question was not within the competency of the House of
Commons. Well, then, if it was nut the Jewish Sabbath
which they were ende4vouring to enforce, it was the
Christian Sunday.--(Hear, hear.) to,
was the Christian
Sunday ? A thing that differed widely from the Jewish
Sabbath.—(Hear, hear.)"
This unanswerable argument evidently produced a
great effect, and gave a tone to the whole of the
debate; the religious pretence was not osten-
tatiously put forward as it has been on
other occasions, end when alluded to, it was al-
luded to so gingerly that it was evident

even the saints themselves were ashamed of it.
The following argument of the Hon. and Learned
Member for Sheffield was also felt to be unanswer-
able, and was, therefore, unanswered :

" The Noble Lord the Member for Bath talked of Post-
office labour on the Sunday. But where was the difference
between the work of a man who dropped a letter at a door
and that of the servant who rose early in the morning, whc
laid the elegant breakfast table, and then prepared the coach
t drive hi, lord or master to church. (Cheers.) A healthy
man required but a crust of bread and a glass of water. But
how many
of those who signed petitions coLfined themselves
to that ?"

My Lord Asnear, who is a very
not inform the House how his
man,pasdid
w s the
Sunday, or whether on
with athat dlay he contents himself
o uo
tt
the
debaten one single argument
supp
support
r twas f
thepro-
duced crust.t h throughout h N
Sabbatarian view, it was all reckless asser-
tion and " holier-than-thou " assumption ;
yet still we urge cur friends not to trust
too implicitly to the goodness of thei •
r cause.
Like their protctypes, the Pharisee.who h
.1 erought an
accusation of Sabbath-breaking against the Divine
Founder of our Christian religion, our dmo ern Sab-
batarians are indefatigable in their exertions
to cram their own absurd doctrines down
the throats of others, and are perfectly reckless of
the means which they employ for that purpose; it was
but yesterday that some persons connected with one or
two obscure weekly newspapers, which are not pub-
lished on Sunday, waited on Lord JOHN RUSSELL,
under the pretence that they were a deputation
'of gentlemen convected will the weekly
newspapers, to solicit his Lordship not to
restore the Post-effice Sunday delivery, when they
must at the same time have known that at a public
meeting of gentlemen connected with the weekly
newspapers, held the night before, a petition for the
restoration of the Feat-office Sunday delivery had
been agreed to by a large majority. Again we urge
upon all those who are in favour of a really Christian
I.nd common-sense observance of the Sabbath not to
relax in their exertions until the Post-office Sunday
delivery shell be restored.

If the doctrine of " finality" be really abaLdontd,
as tsserted by her .MAJFSTY'3 iVinisterF, if any al-
teratiOn in the 1101.)rrn Act i 3 cvcr to be enctioned,
we are unable to conceive any rational grounds for

THE SUN,