THE HALF-HOLIDAY.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIX, Issue 3181, 12 November 1892, Page 2

THE HALF-HOLIDAY.

TO THK EDITOR. Sir, —I am very sorry indeed that there is already dissension amongst the Hamilton dtorekrepers. At the meeting held last Friday week to consider the half-holiday tho Mayor repeatedly requested all those interested to express themselves as to tho most fitting dav. Saturday was urianiously declared to be the mist appropriate day in every re3pect. Mr Hatrick was most pronounced in its favor, and in a cmble of days he deliberately breaks his pledge, This is very unfair to the thirtythree who have pledged themselves to close nn the Saturday afternoon. I feel sura we have the sympathy of the public in this most desirable movement, and if they would only assist us by refusing to make any purchases on the Saturday afternoon, the holiday would very soon be looked upon as a very valuable institution, and a great boon ti the storekeepers and their assistants. —Yours etc., H.-unr/roN SroREKEKi'KR. TO THIS EI>ITOK. Sib, —It is not my u*u il practice t> bring any man's name or his private business into publicity through the correspondence columns of a newspaper ; but the somewhat unique position taken up in the columns of your last two issues by Mr J. R. E. Hatrick seems to me so extraordinary that I canmrt help deviating from the rule above referred to. If one might venture on the barbarism of parodying Byron, Mr Hatrick's action on this woeltly half-holiday question might be described thus :— "Ani wliispjrinij that hj'd no'r.r consent consented. ]!ut next day of the s lid consent repented." I notice too that with the true eye to business, Mr H. utilises the leaflet in which be. announces his departure from his pledged word only two day 3 old as a medium for advertising the merits of Kaiapoi suits. Perhaps, however, this is the gentleman's facetious manner of insinuating that the coats belonging to the said suits are at all events not "turn-coats." Now when Mr Hatrick allowed his name to appear in one part of a newspaper under a straightforward promise and engagement that hd will do a certain thing, and in another part of the same paper to a declaration that he won't fulfil that promise one is forced to draw from this very peculiar state of affairs one of two inferences: first, either Mr H. knowing that the other business people who along with himself promised to close on Saturday afternoon ; and so give to their employees the fullest benofitof the weekly half-holiday which the law providps for them, being men of their word would close and so give him the chanoe, by repudiating his promise of stealing a march on them; or second, Mr Hatrick has the misfortune to number amongst his customers a few people so selfish as to bring pressure upon him, rather to break his pledged word and nullify a> movement that would be a real substantial benefit to scores of their fellow men and women than that their convenience should be interfered with in the slightest degrne. Let us adopt the latter and more charitable inference, and with reward thereto let me tell Mr Hatrick that amongst the public there are others, and many others, who do take an interest in movements that concern tliß welfare of their fellows, who have imbibed jeeply the liberal spirit of tho times in which we live, who will spare no ellort to make the lot of the toiling men and women of the world better and brighter, and wtu pojsess both the will and the power to prove to those who would be obstructive to what they conceive to be the most important movement of modern times that "the way of transgressors is hard," and that the mill of public opinion is like that other of which it is said "it grinds slowly but it grinds excoeding small.—l am, etc., Watchman.