HOTEL EMPLOYEES AND SUNDAY TRADING.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 2984, 18 January 1881, Page 4

HOTEL EMPLOYEES AND SUNDAY TRADING.

A correspondent to the Lyttelfcon Times ■writes as follows : —Enough has been written in the public journals concerning the systematic Sunday trading that is carried on with apparent impunity in the hotels and public houses of this city, to point out conclusively the demoralising effect it must have upon the community at large if allowed to go on unchecked ; but there is one point that so far as lam aware has not been touched upon. I allude to the iniquity practised by proprietors of such establishments, compelling those in their employ to forego their legitimate day of rest, and to aid them in breaking the law by assisting in the vending of liquors on the Sabbath. As a case in point, I may mention that a few Sundays ago a friend of mine had occasion to call at one of the principal hotels of this city, and was somewhat surprised on entering to find that the bar was open, the young lady in attendance, and a pretty brisk trade going on ; but it was easy to see by the fagged and discontented expression on the young girl's face, that she was an xinwilling slave. On enquiring for the proprietor he ■was informed that he and his family were at church. As my friend remarked " Could hypocrisy go further?" Anything more monstrous could not well be conceived. The proprietor not being satisfied with breaking the law himself, makes his employees unwilling instruments in so doing ; for it can well be imagined what the reply to any remonstrance on their part would be. Such a practice must bo, both physically, and mornlly, pernicious in its effects : physically inasmuch as it is well-known that the employees in public bars are at work during the week from twelve to fourteen hours a day, ■with little or no rest during this time, work that no able-bodied man would submit to for one moment. Such being the case, I will leave yotir readers to judge, whether to compel them to work on the day that they naturally look to as a right, as a day of rest, is not the very essence of cruelty. That such rest is absolutely necessary for their health I venture to affirm no medical man would deny, therefore upon physical grounds alone the practice of employing them on Sundays should be put a stop to; and if upon those grounds, how much the more should it be on moral grounds ? It would be useless, perhaps, to argue the question ■with some of our hotel proprietors, who, ■while outwardly appearing to be God-fearing men, regxilarly attending church on the Sabbath, are cognisant that at the same time, under their compulsory orders, their servants are breaking one of the principal of God's laws. If it is essential for the master's well-being that he attend a place of ■worship on the Sabbath, it is equally so for the servant; and if his acts were not those of a hypocrite he would render them every facility for so doing, instead of endeavouring to destroy every good feeling that they might possess by compelling them to do that which they know in their consciences to be unjust to themselves personally, and wrong in itself. Should, perchance, the law vindicate itself, what does the master care for the shame and discomfort that any rightminded young girl must feel, at being brought into a public Court as the unwilling intrument of her master's greed. Truly, I opine, that the servant is the more heavily punished, for what does the well to-do publican care for the paltry fine that ho is mulcted in; he pays it, and proceeds at once to devise some means for making it up to himself by some fresh infringement of the law, while the shame felt by the employee may probably never be effaced from her memory.