SUNDAY IN HYDE PARK.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XIV, Issue 73, 8 December 1855, Page 3

SUNDAY IN HYDE PARK.

[From ItloycPs News."} Last Sunday, there was a demonstration made m favour of the Sabbath, by that very large body of men and women benevolently denominated the lower orders. The red-clay vessels mustered very strong m Hyde-park to arraign and rebuke the fine, gilt and painted porcelain of life. "Go to church?" cried the Red-clay Mugs; m their turn setting up as Sabbatarians, and trying to convert the wealthy heaLhen m carriages from the wickedness of chesnut long-tails, liveried servants, and silver harness. "Go to church !" cried workingday labour to week-day idleness; and if, as the Poet tells us, angels- sometimes laugh at the piti fulness of human authority, surely angels must have smiled at the justice of the poor man's rebuke. Porcelain, it seems, was very much astonished at the boldness of Red Clay. The Lower Order of Clay Mugs was absolutely rising, frothing over as with vulgar beer, with abuse of Porcelain Vases, breathing odours. The Swinish Multitude had absolutely broken into the Garden of Tulips, threatening not only to tread down the flowers, but to root up and crunch the very bulbs ! The consternation was very general; and though dukes did not descend from their chariots of pride, and take to their porcelain legs m obedience to the rouj^li command of del/" — (fur his Grace of Beaufort made it known to the Times that he remained fixed upon his carriage-seat with the Duchess,. fixed as one of the Duchess's jewels on her jewel-cushion) — nevertheless, the Red Mugs kept the ground, and Fine Porcelain made the best and thu quickest of its way home to Belgravia or May Fair, or wherever was the sanctuary of the family chinacloset. Happily, there was no violence committed. Indeed, nothing could be more thoroughly English than the good humour of the people. The police made a pacific sort of protest, and the people, outraged as they were by the uncharitableness, the injustice of those who insolently call themselves ihie people's betters, -"-the people respected the law, even whilst they looked and spoke a laughing contempt of not a few of the law-makers. Happily, we say, there \va* no violence ; but, if m the deepening tumult blood had been shed, that blood— every drop of it — would have been upon the head of Lord Robert Grosvernor. Let Middlesex make much of her over-good mernhir— let Marylebone, m its profound love of a lord, make the most of her delicate viscount — for, we trust, their days as law-mongers are numbered. Glad we are that the people are at length roused ; and though the demonstration of Sunday last was but as the sighing of the wind to the roar of the hurricane that might and would follow, happily there was no outrage made or offered to life or limb. Let Lord Robert Grosvenor, m Christian gratitude, go down upon his knees and return thanks to the God who, m his mysterious wisdom, has heaped him around with the world's good gifts — let his penitential lordship, we say, thank God that no blood was shed. Up to the present licne, Lord Robert Grosvenor, member for Middlesex, is little other than a simpleton : he might have been a criminal. We are told, that m the heat of the gathering, a carnage full of ladies— beautiful, but miserable dinners — was loudly assailed by cries of "Go to church, and put tho horses m the etable>!" Whereupon one heroic lady arose m the cairinge, and, as though she would confound the impiety of the multitude with the act, she held towards them — a Prayer-book ! She might as well have shown the people the hook iif an opera — II Trovatore, or La Donna del Logo: for the people still irreverently eried — "Walk, walk, and let your horses rest, and your coachmen go to church! In this rough and ready fashion did the open-air St. Giles seek to legislate fot the legislators and their families, \ the sons and daughters of St. Stephen's. And the instinct of the. mass supplied reasoning — they were] just and right. How capitally does the beautifully-bound Prayerbook m the cairiage illustrate the holiday -religion of the Sabbath-mongers 1 What, m fact, is Lord Robert Grosvenor himself, but a Christian superbly bound— a Christian gill-Jettered m the Court Guide — a Christian with gilt edges? How nice and dainty that lordly Volume of Life, so exquisitely printed too, m such brilliant type and upon such parchment paper — how beautifully are the Christian texts found within that remarkably select volume, compared with the thumbed, dirtied, dogf-eared book, sheepVsktn bound, the Prayerbook of the miserable sinner, if iv the misery of li is poverty, if m the carelessness of his moral con dition, he may still care to have one. Now, from the Grosvenor Prayer-book, liie most delicate lady, the finest gentleman may read trippingly off coin forting English texts — the type is so clear, and the paper so bright; whereas, m Red Clay's Prayer book, the text is so begrimed with dirt, and the leaves are so tattered and Lorn, that there is scarcely a complete paragraph of true religion to be picked out of it. Such, m very fact, is the worth of | Pipkin's Prayet-book, as duly considered by the Prayer-honk akin to the Peerage. And, therefore, the Prater-book of the carriage will reform and chastise, and upraise Prayer-book of the donkey cart. Carriage Prayer-book will make a very I stringent Sunday for Prayer-book of Seventh Day Vans, the while it takes-its Sabbaih-Carriage airing m ita own Sabbath patk. " After leaving the park," writes an intelligent correspondent of the Times, " I called at my club,, and, at a time when not a poor wretch m the metro polis might purchase a drop of beer, I obtained for myself whatever liquid refreshment I fancied, and found other gmtleraeu similarly engaged and sioii larly privileged." I Beer, on certain Sabbath hours, is the drink of the Evil One; but at ihe Pharisees' Club, even a sherry cobbler may, at any hour, work m the stomachs of the members. It is alleged, and has been duly proved, against them, that the monks of the olden time had, outside, their -breviaries 60 made that they did the duty of flasks. Religion on the back — a covering of religion — and inside, creature luxuries! Here is another illustration of the Grosvenor Prayer-book— the Breviary of the members of the Pharisee ! The same correspondent quoted above, continues — " Two minutes afterwards o bishop's cariiage* drawn by a pair of well-grooraed horses, driven and guarded by coachmen and footmen m elegant liveries, and conveying two reverend gentlemen (who might, for aught I know, have this very day preached from the text, " Thou shalt keep holy the Sabbath day "), dashed by the door of the cluh, and I really could not help feeling that, after all, the park demonstration was neither unaccountable nor unnatural, seeing that both Sunday trading and Sunday labour are practised with impunity by the bishops themselves, and thai Lord Robert Grosvenor's bill does not contain a clause which will, m the remotest degree, interfere with the Sabbath enjoyments of the rich." Two reverend gentlemen! Haply, a brace of friendly bishops ! Two very tall and very thickly gilt copies of Church Prayer ! Copies, bound m purple, printed on the finest linen, and held to gether by massive golden clasps! And these bishops— should they hunger or thirst — might meekly drive to their Club, the Oil-and-Honey, and thereat take the wherewithal to support the inward, episcopal man. Very different is it with the miserable laity— the wretched methodist, or forlorn baptist— who cannot have a glass of the smallest ale at the benignest s gn. The Oil-and-Honey m Manna-square keeps open bouse— but inexorably closed is the Angel at Islington. Strange is it, that there should be such different laws for the same bona fide travellers from the

cradle to the grave! Beautiful, nevertheless, are the bishop-travellers m a Sunday carriage— a handsome substantial vehicle, strong enough it may be— if hypocrisy have its true reward— to rumble along the Pavement of Good Intentions. Hypocrisy, wa say ; for will no bishop open his consecrated mouth m the House of Lords m defence of the true Christianity that does as it would be done by — that does not lock up the beerbarrel from the poor man, and then order the butler to send up, for his own Christianity, that "twenty port." If the unreasoning mob — as the despised, the outraged people are deemed by their Pharisaical legislators — were to pluck these Sunday bishops from their Sunday carriages, and make them, bare-footed and bare-headed, take each their Christian way, each to his humble palace — who, from his heart, could raise a cry of sacrilege; who would not rather, pleased with the rough lesson, rub his hands, and smile approval of the act? [ These Sabbath-tnongers would, if they might, hang the Sunday heavens with Bishop's aprons— would hide the blessed Sabbath sun m a shovel-hat: but at length the people are aroused ; and if the mockery be persisted m. those aprons. will be torn to shreds, that hat will be footed and danced upon. Lord Robert Grosvenor, nevertheless, proposes to go on with the bill. He said as much on j Tuesday. (Does his ltirdshiu sleep at his town i residence on Sundays r) We are, his lordship assures us, altogether mistaken as to the benignant purposes of his bill. In a letter of the 15th June, he'ass.ures the unbelieving world that, should the "bill pass into a law, it wilLnot prevent the working man from enjoying the best shoulder of mutton and the roost 6avoury baked potatoes his means will enable him to procure?" How touching is this lordly familiarity with a working-man's dish! How patronizingly does the lordly nose t-nuff the smell of his mutton — how does Chris tianily delight m the savour. of baked potatoes! After all, the working-man may embrace the Right Hon. Robert Grosvenor, member for Mid diesex, as a man and a brother! His lordship would not allow his brother to shave on Sundays after ten o'clock, neither shall his brother purchase to himself a newspaper after that hour, neither shall his brother get a Sunday snack at chop-house &r coffee-house. And why should he? For is not Brother L.rd Grosvenor a member of the Pharisee? and may he not even make a Sundaycall upon hy< friends the Bi.-liops at the Oil-and Honey? Unmarried clerk* and lonely bachelors m general may suck their Sunday thumbs; hut as for Lord Grosvenor, his Sabbath eyes may be "red with wine, and his teeth white with milk." At the Hyde-park meeting, a man — desirous of avoiding the interference of ' the police— laid himself down on the grass, that lie might address the people assembled around him. He said— " Friends, the liberty of the subject has been greatly infringed upon this day, because we met quietly and peaceably to show our displeasure of a bill, which, if it becomes law, will ruin thousands of poor persons — I mean little tradesmen. You see we are prohibited from making kuown our grievances, because it is stated that this park is not public property. Now I, for one, maintain that it is, and belongs to the people, and the people alone." And so the horizontal speaker was proceeding, when he was disturbed and made to rise and walk by a policeman. Now, we would advise certain high folks to lay this incident to their hearts. Small, vulgar as it is, it contains a warning and a moral. The ppople of England are patient, loyal, respectful of ihe laws— but there is a lime when obedience is the ignorance of the slave, and not the virtue of the trie. Let this pharisaical tyranny proceed, ar.d we know not what may not be pulled down. It may happen that even the Bishops may find ihembelves laid dat upon their back 9, very low m the grass.