, 1865-01-27
From tie Spectator, December "a.
ENGLISH HOLIDAYS.


The notion that sail work and no play
makes Jack a dull boy,'' so carefully in
culcated on childhood is at last p@enrtra-
ting The adult miad, slowly Of course, as
such ideas always do snteul- III this
country, but still with visible effect. The
shopmen, we rather think, began the
movement. They found out, after try
ing to work without stopping except for
sleep for nearly thirty years-wc believe
EngIishmen never worked so hard as
between 1915 and 1915, the period of
crushing taxation and manufacturing ad-
vance-that their life was a little too
like life on a slave plantation, that keep
ing shop from seven am. TO midnight
with no break except for scauty meals
was worse than imprisonment, and at
last they muljnIrd. The better class of
employers had during The previous Gene
ration made a great deal Of money. and
were willing to risk a LITTLE, aad besides
they perceived that The practice of shop
ping, on which they depended for their
profits, would not he diminished bv a
limitation of hours, so they did not resist
very hard. The avaricioas among their
class were coerced, particularly in the
county towns, by something very Ike
physical force, plate glass, for example,
disappearing with unpleasant rapidlty,
and early closing I e., closing at eight
o'clock, became in the better shops the
rule. 1t would be the rule in poor shops
also, but for the ingenious peryersity
with which employers adhere to the
practice of paying wages at night, and
usually on Saturday, d practice appa-
rently intended to give Workmen every
opportunity Of getting rapidly rid of their
cash. The art;zans followed with their
demand for short hours, now an |inyari-
able item in their catalogue of grievances,
and they too partially carried their point.
Their leaders say they have failed, and
are still trying fer one more hour, bat
they forget Whit the state of affairs was
about 1920, when the hours Of Iabour,
now eleven per diem, were very nearly
fourteen. Then came the proposal TO
initiate the school-bovs, and make Satur-
day "a legal haIfhoIlday, a movement
which failed partly because the Sabba-
tarians took it, up, anL neither press nor
workmen would follow them, partly be-
cause the Workmen themselves did not
see their way to such a sacrifice Of mo-
ney, but chiefly because Saturday is of
all others The day country shopkeepers
can least spare. Il is market day all
over England, and to change a market
day is the most difficult Of enterprises,
as the Jews, for example, know 4 'he,r
cost. They have tried in many places
to alter it over and over again, but have
always failed, the farmers being deter
mined to have their ebay out' before
the day of rest, and not just before ano-
Their working day. The day, too. isfxed
by many Acts Of Parliament, habits have
been adjusted to it for centuries, and a
change would involve a small social revo-
luton. Had The shopmen asked for the
time at the other end, Monday morning
instead of Saturday night, they might
have got it; but people do not like be-
ginning work in the middle of an easy
day.
rhehaIfholiday failing the new demand
is for more holidays, a request made
suddenly urgent by the accident ofChrist-
mas and New Years Dav falling upon