The Sun.
London, England, 1842-01-06 00:00:00

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MUSICAL LICENSES VERSUS MID-
DLESEX JUSTICES.

In other countries it is the policy of Governments to
encourage and promote the harmless amusements of the
people. In England, the Magistrates, who are the crea-
tures of the Government, are perpetually making them-
selves busy to contract the sphere of the people's inno-
cent recreations. Of the wisdom or folly of these two
courses there can hardly be a difference of opinion in the
minds of any two rational beings. To suppress or abridge
popular enjoyments, is not simply impolitic, it is mis-
chievous. Such proceedings inevitably tend to sour
men's minds, to beget moroseness of feeling, and to
render them dissatisfied mortals. To deny the people the
privilege of indulging in any kind of relaxation most
agreeable to their taste or fancy, provided it be not in
itself vicious or immoral, is the next thing to debarring
there from breathing the air or receiving the light of
Heaven. After men have been toiling six days out of
seven, to earn a subsistence for themselves and families,
by the " sweat of the brow," it iA too much to say, that
on the seventh they shall be excluded from all pleasure—
" cribbed, cabined, and confined" to their own dull, per-
haps, melancholy abodes. Or are they to be coerced
into the frowsy atmosphere of a crowded chapel, or into
the marble coldness of a church ? Yes. This is what
the " London City Mission," and the "Saints" of Exeter

Hall are straining every nerve to accomplish. The no-
torious John Scott, the immense defaulter of Clerken-
well, was one of the most active and officious of this
ultra-sanctimonious set. Ex uno disce otnnes. These
remarks are sufficiently trite ; but they are pertinent to
our present purpose ; and they cannot be too repeatedly
hammered into the skulls of the dull heads among the
Middlesex County Justices.
To come to the more immediate subject of this article.
It will be remembered that, in the month of October last,
the usual period of granting musical licences, when ap-
plication for the renewal of those for the White Conduit
House, the Eagle Tavern, the Royal Standard, and other
places of a similar kind; was made, some demur took
place as to
,compliance therewith, and the Magistrates
ultimately gave way, with a proviso that there should be a
special indorsement on the back of each litense.
With the exception of one or two brief and casual no-
tices, this subject has hitherto escaped the observation
of the Press. It is one, however, that well merits a few
further observations. The conduct of certain parties
concerned in the business would form a little his
tory not unworthy to be read. Nor let it be
imagined that it is merely the interest of a few tavern
keepers, or proprietors of pnblic gardens and saloons,
that is at stake. What the " saints," par excellence, are
strenuously and constantly aiming. at, is to destroy the
last vestige of the old free, hearty, jovial, manly English
character, and to substitute a species of gloomy, howling
fanaticism instead. They wish to put down every species
of what they denominate profane amusements, and to
cohvert the whole country into one vast conventicle of
folly, bigotry, superstition, and hypocrisy. But it will
not do. It is an undertaking beyond the power of all
the Cantwells and Mawworms in the world to achieve.

TO return :--We have already alluded to the indorse-
ment on the back of each license. It runs in the fol-
lowing words:—" The Court, on the day when this li-
cense was granted, expressed a strong opinion of the
impropriety of keeping open on Sundays the saloon, and
other parts of the premises used for public amusements,
and that such practices should be discontinued, and the
house used on Sundays only as a common tavern. The
Court are not to be considered, by this memorandum, as
having pronounced any opinion as to the lawfulness of the
representation of theatrical representations upon week-
days,, in public-houses possessing musical licenses, and
still less as having given such exhibitions their sanction.*
This question does not, on the present occasion, come
before the Court."

Now, the first question that must strike the most cur-
sory reader of the above is, how did it happen that those
Middlesex Justices became so suddenly sensitive as to
the evil, of which they complained for the first time
only in the month of October last ? Had these
places then become of a more obnoxious character
than before that time ? There Is no such allega-

don made, no such pretence set up. Yet these musi-
cal licenses had been previously granted for years
in succession for the same places, by the same
Bench of Justices, without any similar or other in-
dorsement, and with only the caveat of one or two
crotchetty members of the Court, such as Mr. M'Wil-
liam. What, then, so unexpectedly enlightened the,
until then, darkened optics of these Middlesex sages and
Solons of the law ? The Saints of the " London City
Mission " must answer this interrogatory ; and fortu-
nately they have done so to our hands. Be it known,

that ihese Worthies, these pattern-of-religion men, ad-
dressed a memorial in writing (not in print—that would
have been dangerous) to each of the Middlesex Justices,
praying " That they would grant no license by which
the Lord's• day would be legally desecrated, and the cor-
ruption of youth of both sexes advanced, to the injury
of society." The document is dated from the " London
City Mission-office, Oct. 14, 1841." We have already re-
marked it was sent in writing, no doubt from a fear that,
if it had appeared in print, it would have prematurely
exploded.
It is worth while to observe the artful manner in
which this privately circulated manifesto is couched.
The very first paragraph contains the following words,
viz., " That among the obstacles to the progress of
social happiness and of good order in society your Me-
morialists have especially to complain of the existence
and rapid increase of Sunday and other large taverns,
licensed for concerts, under the 25th of George IL The
proprietors of several of them, under the name of Con-
certs' have plays performed ; they have large theatres,
large companies of actors, and all the paraphernalia of
the licensed theatres with this disadvantage, that
spirits and water, and other liquors, and cigars, are
served to the company during the whole time of the per-
formances."

Setting aside the quality of the grammar the tenour
of the, foregoing passage is to leave•no.'otherintditikice
than that " plays" were:performed at tho-Tlaceir in ques-
tion on Sundays. If this be not the °Woos onnstruc-
tion to be put on the words we have cited, whsit,t,other
will they bear ? Otherwise, why allude to perform-
ances at all ? The ground of complaint is the dese-
cration of the Lord's Day—and that alone. The words
marked in Italics are so underlined in the manuscript

new lying before us. It speaks of Sunday Taverns
licensed for concerts, in a way that will admit, if we
speak literally, of only one interpretation, and as if those
taverns were licensed for concerts to take place
on that day ! There is no reference to week-
days. The passage, therefore, to which we are
adverting was, beyond all doubt, so framed, with a pre-
meditated design to mislead ; or, we must adopt the
other alternative, that the Committee of the " London
City Mission" are more illiterate than we take them to
be. But we beg to ask, where is the difference between
Sunday and other taverns ? Are they not all open on
Sunday ? Or are some open and some shut ?
But what Dogberries the Middlesex Justices must
have been, not to see through the flimsy veil thrown
over the real purpose of this precious Memorial I That
they should have been hoodwinked by it ! The purpose
was nothing more nor less than to make them the cat's-
paws of the " London City Mission," and its cat's-paws
they became. Talk of desecrating the Sabbath by
theatrical performances I Why, it would be difficult to
find fifty decent persons in the whole metropolis who
would sanction by their presence any spectacle of the
kind. Nay, it is questionable whether any half dozen
actors could be mustered, even from the refuse of the
profession, so far to debase themselves by performing on
a Sunday, supposing they might do so with impunity.
No ; a reverence for the Sabbath is too deeply rooted in
the breasts of all classes in England (except, perhaps,
the higher) to be easily eradicated. We think we have
now given a tolerably sufficient proof of a gross decep-
tion having been practised upon the Court by the Com-
mittee of the " London City Mission."
The same unique document, the Memorial, goes on to
state that—" Your Memorialists sent on Sunday even-
ing, Aug. 1, ten of their missionaries to visit five of these
Sunday taverns." What ! had they no other means of
knowing, what was going forward but by sending their
own " missionaries" to these dens of pollution? After
that, the word " missionary" should stink in the nos-
trils. The Memorial omits to add, whether they escaped
contaniinatien, what quantity of " spirits and water"
they drank, what "cigars" they smoked, or what other
" refreshments" they consumed. As to all these mad,
ters, we are left cruelly in the dark.
, Surely, if these places are producing the demoralize.
tion charged upon thorn, a detachment of spies and in-
, formers need not have been employed to verify the fact.