Nelson Chronicle, Colne Observer, and Clitheroe Division News. — 1899-10-20 (Nelson, Lancashire, England)

OPERATION AND SABBATH DESE CRATION.  To the Editor of the "Nelson Chronicle.  Sir,—ln a recent issue of your paper you inserted a letter on the above subject from • A member," in which he says that the opening of our news rooms "will create a strong demand for the demoralising pages of Sunday papers by a depraved sport-loving portion of our community.' Now, having visited those rooms at least three times a week for the last 18 months, I assert that there is not a single person who goes there either for betting or sport of the character such as "A Member" intimates. Better conducted rooms there are not, either in Nelson or out of it. It is a mean falsehood and libel hurled agaiast our Society by a christian member who dare not append his name to his falsehood. He prefers to play the part of the coward by using the assassin's dagger from behind a stone wall. We need not wait till Sunday for betting and sporting news. I find that in two of the leading Manchester daily papers there is four times as much betting and sporting news in them than, say, in the Sunday Chronicle," yet they are all published by Christians. Again he says" Let us rise up against secularising the Sabbath day and thus show that we love the sacredness and blessedness and restfulneas of this God-given mercy." We have yet to learn that going into a newsroom is desecrating the Sabbath. Will "Christian Member" say that he holds to the Mosaic law, because that is the crux of the whole question. And yet there is not. a Christian either in Nelson or out of it who carries out God's command in regard to Sunday observance. For instance, a Sabbath day's journey is 2,000 yards. You must not kindle a fire on the Sabbath day, neither must you eat a black-pudding on the Sabbath or any other day. Again "Christian Member" says "that we are not prepared for a continental Sabbath." It is only too true that too much work is done on a Sunday on the continent. But who is to blame for it? Certainly not the wrking man! Before you can get a better Sunday on the continent you will have to shorten the hours of labour. Take the case of the Italian workman who works 72 hours a week, finishing off at 7 or 8 o'clock on the Saturday evening. What wonder that he goes to theatre on Sunday afternoon? Shorten his hours and this demand for secular work on Sunday will cease. It is not the English workman who is apeing the continental workman, but the foreign workman who is trying to ape us here. Again he says that in the "light of recent events in France, who can envy the political, social, moral, and spiritual decay of their nation." Clearly "Member" is referring to the Dreyfus case. But the whole of his persecutors and prosecutors were Christians! Henry, the forger, was a Christian; On Paty du Clam, the perjurer, is a Christian; Mercier, the perjurer and would-be murderer of Dreyfus, is a Christ-1 ian ; while Zola, who unearthed this diabolical 1 plot, is not a Christian; and Pickart, who stood by Dreyfus, is not a Christian. Nine-tenths of the people of Paris are Christians, and if we take the whole population of France, nineteentwentieths of them are Christians; so that if France is decaying (which I deny) it is, according to "Member's" reasoning, because she is christian.  " Member " is rather anxious to get rid of this Sunday opening as early as possible for the very good reason that if it has a fair trial everybody who cams to watch its progress will commend it for its success. Therefore he recommends another meeting being called at once to rescind the resolution passed on the 2nd inst. To this end a requisition has been sent in to the general Board. The ultimatum has gone forth. War has been declared. The sword has been drawn. We accept the challenge, and of one thing we are certain, that the sword will not return to its scabbard until at least every member in our Society has had the opportunity of knowing that there is a section of our Society who are determined to dictate to vs what we shall eat, what we shall drink, what we shall think, and where we shall think it.—Yours truly,