The Weekly Gazette for Middlesbrough, Stockton, Hartlepool and Cleveland District. — 1883-05-12 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

SUNDAY OPENING OF MUSEUMS. THE State deals curiously, and sometimes ludicrously, with most matters affecting the morals and religion of the people; and the result of the debate in the House of Lords on the question of opening museums on Sundays will serve to bring more clearly to the front several striking anomalies in our governing system. The Earl of Dunraven moved for an extension of the policy of Sunday opening "to all museums and galleries supported by national funds." The noble Earl, having no desire to interfere with public worship, altered his resolution so as to read, in accordance with a suggestion made by Lord Stanley, of Alderley, "that Sunday opening should not take place before two o'clock in the afternoon." The Earl of Shaftesbury moved as an amendment "that such institutions as the British Muqeum and the National Gallery should be opened on week-day evenings to the public, between the hours of seven and ten, at least three days in the week." Lord Dunraven was defeated by a majority of twenty-four; and Lord Shaftesbury's amendment, with the addition of the following words, supplied by Earl Cairns, was subsequently adopted: —" If and so far as might be found consistent with the safety and general welfare of the institutions indicated." Here we have about as flagrant an instance of throwing dust into the eyes of the uninitiated as we can well recall. So far back as the 27th of March, 1860, a Select Committee of the House of Commons on Public Institutions reported that such treasure-houses as the British Museum and the National Gallery should be opened on three week-day evenings. That recommendation has never been carried into effect, because there is no way of lighting such a building as the British Museum without deteriorating its priceless treasures and creating the possibility of destruction by fire. Therefore, those of their lordships who voted for a resolution which is not worth the apace it occupies must either have hit upon a plan for removing the impractibility of the Committee's recommendation in 1860, or they must be blessed with a wonderful elasticity of conscience and an almost incredible belief in the gullibility of the British public. The intention was, evidently, to shelve the broader question of opening the institutions on Sunday afternoon; and the intention was successful; but if it were possible to read the inner thoughts of those legiglators who constituted the majority against the Earl of Dunraven's motion, we should not improbably discover that it was not so much a regard for the holiness of the Sabbath as an unreasoning hesitancy to allow the Museum and the Gallery to be thrown open to the working classes (those sacrilegious Vandals) on the Sunday that acted as an incentive to the course they pursued. Even supposing that the lighting and other difficulties were overcome, the privilege sanctioned by the House of Lords could not be taken full advantage of. When an artizan has ended a hard day's toil he is more in need of repose, in these exacting days of wear and tear, than a brief acquaintance with the great masters of Art and Literature whose works are to be found in the national repositories. The case of the poor shopman and the humble shopkeeper is more deplorable still. They work late hours, and have neither a Saturday half-holiday nor a Saint Monday. These are numbered among the people for whom we ask that the galleries and museums shall be opened on Sunday. Outside opposition to the proposal chiefly emanates from Young Mena' Christian Associations, Bible Classes, Debating Societies, the Stepney Parliament, the South Hackney Sympathetic Society, and the Lord's Day Observance Society. These associations are, of course, entitled to a healing; but they cannot be said to reflect the opinion of working men. The Lord's Day Observance Society allege that the Sunday opening of museums in Paris, Berlin, Florence, and many other Continental cities has increased the number of suicides, infanticides, and murders. This is a wild assertion, incapable of proof. Other elements there may be at work on the Sabbath abroad; but to accuse art of being responsible for homicidal mania is a startling proposition. But, whatever may be the true