SUNDAY IN GLASGOW AND LONDON.

Evening Star, Volume VII, Issue 1988, 18 September 1869, Page 2

SUNDAY IN GLASGOW AND LONDON.

The London correspondent of the Aberdeen Free Press writes :—“ I took a walk through Glasgow on Sunday last to see how the people observed the Sabbath, For an hour before the kirktime there was scarcely a soul to be seen in the streets. In the whole length of Buchanan street, from Cowcaddens to Argyle street, I encountered only eight persons. For an hour after kirk-time the streets presented the same deserted appearance. I could well imagine what the comfortable classes were about; they were putting on their Sunday clothes, they were at the kirk, they were at their beef and broth. But what were the people doing, the uncomfortable classes, who had no best clothes to put on, and who, consequently, did not care to make a shabby appearance at kirk 1 ? I was told to look for them on Glasgow Green. I went thither in a ramshackle cab, which I found waiting to be hired at the Salt Market. I was the only rider on the skirts of the green, and the people stared at me and my vehicle as if they had never seen the like before. I had an uncomfortable feeling that they regarded me as a Sabbath-breaker, and was more than once apprehensive that they might attack the cab and demolish it, as their Presbyterian forefathers used to attack and demolish cathedrals. There were many thousands of men, women, and children on Glasgow Green. The majority of them were lying listlessly on the grass, some asleep, others smoking short pipes—all, as it appeared to me, expressing on their faces extreme weariness. I have heard it said that the Scotch are ‘ back-

tes,’ not ‘ bellyites,’ that they take more pride in being well dressed than pleasure in being well fed. That is true of the middle classes and of the upper section of the lower class, but it is not true of the great mass of the lowest. I saw hundreds, I might say thousands, of men and women on Glasgow Green who had put on no mg of Sunday clothes, who had not even washed from their hands and face the working day dirt. It seems to me that the Scotch working classes of the lowest order compare unfavorably with their English brethren in this respect. The London Whitechapel costermonger is not a very religious person; he never went to church but once in bis life, and that was when he was christened—he would not have gone then if he had not been earned. He has no knowledge of the commandments, or the thirtynine articles, or the Church or the Mosaic law, but nevertheless he has a sort of respect for Sunday. He does not swear the less, or drink the less, or blaspheme the less on that day, but he has an instinct that it is the day to put on the best of his rags. If he can do no more, he sports a clean wisp of neckerchief on the Sabbath.”