SUNDAY AMUSEMENTS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5402, 20 July 1878, Page 3

SUNDAY AMUSEMENTS.

(From tho Examiner, April 6.)

We remember «a capital story of an ignorant old woman iu an out-of-the-way Somersetshire village, whose little grandchild was dying of peritonitis. The "vicar's wife kindly looked in to administer such spiritual and material comfort as the ease admitted. The uuhappy baby was lingering in sad torments, and the kindhearted lady compassionately remarked, that beseemed to suffer very much. “Yes,”- the old woman replied solemnly, “he suffers agonies, poor little thing. But it pleases the Lord.” Tins is, we cannot but think, the view which the stricter sect of the Sabbatarians take of the Sunday. Sunday, they think, ought to be made as much as possible a day of annoyance, tedium, vexation, . and weariness. Tho Mosaic commandment says we are to do no work. This they interpret to mean that we are to take no pleasure. The public-houses, it is true, aro to be open during certain hours, but respectable, orderly people wlio want to enjoy a holiday—which is, be it noted,'identical both in derivation and meaning with “ holy clay ” or red-letter day—are to he driven into church by tiie simple process of shutting up all other places of instruction and amusement. The process may disgust sensible, men, not perhaps with religion in itself, but with religion as it is professed and practised. It may weary them ; it may render their life barren of those innocent pleasures without which life is hardly worth living ; but as the old woman said, it. pleases the Lord. Such, as far as we can make out", is the view of Lord Cairns. Indeed the debate of Tuesday evening last was interesting from two aspects. Those who supported Lord Thurioe had really nothing to say, They were in the position of a man who gets up in a public meeting to demonstrate that "a straight line lies evenly between its extreme points, or that murder is a crime, or drunkenness a disgrace to a gentleman. - Their opponents, on the other hand, showed the weakness of their case "by lugging out all the old and most ponderous artillery of bigotry aud prejudice. Lord Cairns, who spoke with an unction almost worthy of ids pious predecessor, denounced any proposal for opening museums and picture galleries as au attempt to introduce the thin end of the wedge, aud to bring upon us the ContinentalSunday. If, his lordship thinks, you, open "museums aud picture galleries, you will have to give concerts. Upon concerts will follow theatrical entertainments, aud upon these race meetings. The absurdity of this is so obvious, that wb. need 'hardly argue against it, . It reminds us of De Quincey’s grave objection to murder on the ground that from murder you may insensibly lapse into forgery, and one! with theft, drunkenness, and possibly idleness ; indeed, that many a man has dated Ms downward career from some trifling murder, of which at the time he thought but little. To argue that if the British Museum is opened on Sunday, we shall before long have the Derby run on Sunday, is a piece of reasoning only to be compared with the famous story of the highwayman, who confessed on the gibbet that lie owed Ms untimely end to bird-nesting on Sunday when a boy. The thin end of tho wedge however was not his lordship’s only point. With a zeal' worthy of the Puritan .whom Barnaby saw “ hanging of his cat on Monday,,for killing of a mouse ou Sunday,” he gravely declared that, “ with a view to the moral, physical, and intellectual welfare of tho nation, nothing ought to be done on the part of the Government to sanction the idea that the country was apxious to get rid of the sanctity of the Sabbath.” We have no" wish to bo irreverent, ■ but the “ sanctity of the Sabbath ” seems to ns a sonorous phrase, such as “ the interests of Europe,” “ the true welfare of the nation,” “ tho solidarity of the human race,” and other such pompous circumlocutions, which mbn are apt to use when they do not exactly know what they mean to say. To a certain extent, those who agree with Lord Thnrloo make, iu our judgnriqnt, a mis-, take by representing the question as a working man’s question. The great bulk of English working men, if they have any opinion at all about tho Sunday, would really like the Continental Sunday. They would like suburban race meetings, and fairs, aud theatres, and music halls ; and iu default of these they extemporise amusements of their own, possibly even less edifying. We do not believe that if the British Museum or the National Gallery were open on Sunday, qny vary large percentage of bargemen, coa'ihoavers, navigators, bricklayers, and Billingsgate porters would avail themselves "of tho opportunity thus offered them. Lord Thurloe’s.roal clients are not tho working men, but those members of the lower middle classes who crowd our great cities and large towns. Commercial clerks of all kinds, shopmen, and all that large section of tile community which toils from year's end to. year’s 1 end with no relaxation beyond the recognised fortnight's holiday all these have literally but one day iu tho week,-they can ball their own. What chance has a clerk in the Bank of England of over visiting the British Museum, or tho Royal Academy ? Eor him those places have no existence, and yot they are the very places of all. others in which he would, we believe, prefer to spend his Sunday. There aro, ns Lord Moriey pointed but, really only two things to be considered, Tho first is the thin-end-of-the-wodgo argument. This is ridiculous. - All that Is proposed is to open public institutions. If tho thin end of the wedge is to be dreaded, wo got it long ago, when wo opened Kow and Hampton Court, and allowed the public to roam about Greenwich Hospital and in Chelsea Gardens. The pretence that it is impossible to draw,the lino between the Alhambraand the British Museum, or Astloy's" and Kew Gardens, or Drury Lane and the National Gallery; is too transparent to bo seriously entertained. But, we are told, if you throw these places open on, the Sunday, you impose extra work bh tho officials, and, according to Lord Cairns, and the Bishop of London, tho working man is bitterly opposed to anything that admits tho principle of Sunday labor. Lord Motley's answer is, lot

the officials of these places work on. the Sunday, and have a holiday on some other day in the week. The matter is simply one of arrangement, Railway servants work mi Sundays, domestic servant-; work o.i Sundays, the employes of-the daily newspajers work on Sundays, policemen and the employes of gas and water comp mien work on Sundays, and yet t-hoy all manage in some shape or another to obtain a reasonable amount of holiday, and by no means gum themselves out as ill-used or aggrieved folk. What does the Duke-of Westminster tell us? That nhen he two years ago opened the picture galleries of Grosvenor House on 'the Sunday, they were visited by nearly twelve thousand people, most of whom, we may be sure, were of the, middle or, the lower middle classes, for , the British working man, wc are afraid, is not educated up to the point at which he can intelligently Appreciate “ Greek Slave.” Were the National Gallery open ou the Sunday, it would, during web aud tempestuous weather, when country excursions are out of the question, be frequented by thousands of educated, intelligent, aud consequently well-behaved and orderly visitors, who, as things are now, never have so much as a chance of inspecting its treasures. Lord Truro tells us that iu Brussels and Paris no great harm has come from throwing open picture and sculpture galleries ; and Lord Hunraven, with considerable quiet humor, pointed out thatwhatever Mr. Girdlestone may say to the contrary—neither the fish iu the tank, nor the people in the town, are any the worse because the Brighton Aquarium is open on Sunday. The matter.is so simple, that it would be settled at once, were ii not that the classes whom it really concerns are, we are sorry to say, not sufficiently energetic in making their grievance known. . >