Swansea and Glamorgan Herald, and South Wales Free Press. — 1889-11-27 (Swansea, West Glamorgan, Wales)

SUNDAY OBSERVINCBB.  At our last Council meeting a little breeze sprang up, pethaps inailverteutly, on the all important subject of opening our picture gallery on the Sunday. The matter, however, after an explanation from the mover of the resolution WILS put to sleep fee the time being at any rate again. But a few days ago, I Mad an effusion from some one, in the Leader, purporting to deal with the consistency of the advocates of Sunday rest. This individual referred no doubt to the blowing out of blast furnaces, etc., on the Sunday. The question here naturally narrows , itself into whether it is prieticable to damp down a furnace on the Sunday or not. If it is not, then where is the inconsistency of an irresponsible councillor? The fact is, any one with the minutest knowledge of blast furnace work, will at once see the fallacy of my friends arguments. It is next to an impossibility to put out a furnace without incurring a very heavy pecuniary loss both to master and men. To the master because it would knock a hole into a Laudred pounds to relight, replenish. etc., and the men because as a consequence they would be idle awaiting productive operations. Therefore an absolute necessity exists here inasmuch as it touches the very fundamentals of production. And this is in contradistinction to going gazing at pictures on the Sabbath. A matter that is Innocent enough in itself, but, moreover, is not a necessity, for there are few even of those that would go to such places that possess the taste, or inclination, essential to the enjoyment of any work of art. But would go to 'kill time." "Who murders time, he crushes in the birth a power ethereal, only not adored." Terrible occupation sure enough that of killing time, and yet we do it consciously, and as we get older wish we had our time over again. No, there are, apart from the Scriptural side of this great question, facts, stern facts, that we all must look at, for each day is a little life, and in all conscience our time for six clays is taken up enough in the world, and of the world, to an extent, and we should give one day fur rest and meditation, at anyrate. In these days of Radicalism when the G.O.M's. , words are eaten as a sweet morsel, and whatever he says is law; let me ask any of his followers that might read this note to digest the following, his own words, on the Sabbath. Even his enemies will admit his great intellectual powers as well as his grand physique, and to have kept both these powers mtaet for so many years and under great strain pre-supj. Nt a knowlielge of the laws of physiology etc., and he must therefore be recognised as all authority. Read, therefore, mark and learn: "At the Sunday Observance Congress, held in Paris under the presidency of Mr. Leon Say., letters were read from President Harrison and Mr. Gladstone. Mr. Gladstone wrote:—"lt seems to me unquestionable that the observance , of Sunday rest has taken deep root, both in the ' convictions and the habits of the immense majority of my countrymen. If it appears to many of them a necessity of spiritual and Christian life, others not less numerous defend it with equal energy as a social necessity. The working-class is extremely jealous of it, and is opposed not merely to its avowed; abolition, but to whatever might indirectly tend to that result. Personalty, I havoalways endeavoured, as far as circumstances have allowed, to exercise this privilege, and now :nearly at the end of a laborious public career of nearly fifty-seven years, I attribute in great part to that cause the prolongation of my life and the preservation of the faculties I may still possess. As regards the masses the question is still more important ; it is the popular question par exrellener."