SATURDAY HALF-HOLIDAY.

Evening Star, Issue 2816, 27 February 1872, Page 2

SATURDAY HALF-HOLIDAY.

To the Editor.

Sir,— l am glad that the drapers’ assistants are bestirring themselves to get a halfholiday on Saturday, as well as other working-men—becau e, if they succeed, my daughter, who is working in one of the shops in Princes street, will reap the benefit as well. As it is, I have to meet her about ten or eleven o’clock every Saturday evening to take her home ; and, though it may not be gallant for me to complain, I have often to accompany one of her companions, who has neither father nor broth r, to see her home. I'erhaps you will agree with me, Mr Editor, that a man with six of a family of his own, and who has now turned forty, does not enjoy a long walk after eleven o’clock on Saturday night, even though it should be with a quiet, sensible young woman. I have often thought on my way home from such gallant exploits of the words of the poet Burns “ Man’s inhumanity to man Makes countless thousands mourn.” Yes, and man’s inhumanity to woman makes minya mother and father mourn. Don’t you think it is nothing short of inhumanity to make young women work till ten or eleven o'clock on Saturday nights, and then to let them find their way home as best they can ? Is it not heartless to expose young women to the insults and insinuations of wicked men, who prowl about our streets at these hours for no good purpose ? For my part I think it is very foolish of the shopkeepers to make slaves of thems lives and their assistants for the convenience of other people, especially when it is now so general for workmen in every trade to have a halfholiday themselves. Surely they would not grudge the same boon to beings of the same desk and blood. I am sure they would rather exercise a little forethought and make their purchases earlier in the week, if they were only appealed to in the right way. As nothing can be done now without the aid of the press, 1 sincerely hope you will draw public attention to the cruelty and inhumanity of late shopping on Saturday. May it lie successful is the anxious prayer of Yours, &c., A Father.