SATURDAY NIGHT SHOPPING. Is It Altogether Necessary?

Free Lance, Volume III, Issue 129, 20 December 1902, Page 8

SATURDAY NIGHT SHOPPING. Is It Altogether Necessary?

THE wail of the Saturday worker ifl heard in the land, and it is am honest wail, that is worth heeding. The Saturday worker generally works because the mam who knocks off at 12 noon makes him. If he did not knock off at mid-day, the shops would be shut, and the girl who sold ham a Sunday tie, or his "missus" a new dress, would be at peace. It may be right for a carpenter to work four or five hours on Saturday for an amount that a girl who works twelve or thirteen earns in three days or so, and it may be right to make her and everybody else employed in selling Saturday-night "necessities" get as tired as possible, so tihat they will have no inclination to knock themselves up on Sunday. It is custom — Old Country custom — and the colonies, not feeling compelled to follow ordinary custom, feel like making one exception.. » * A worker in New Zealand is bound by statute to have a holiday during one half - day in the week. He or sho is at the mercy of the "boss," and if he says it is to be Wednesday, there is no appeal. It is a kind of local option, or, rather, personal option, that might easily be put an end to. We know, of course, that Saturday, with most firms, is the best business day in the week, and we know that the persons who are fortunate enough to have the week-end holiday are the people who make their less fortunate brother or sister work. * ■• * It is a hybrid kind of institution, that mid-week holiday, and gives employees time enough to curse the fate that < Continued on page 16.)