Sunday Under Three Heads | Page 8

hiring, on the
waiter for delivering, and on the landlord for selling, on the Lord's day.
But it does not stop here. The waiter delivers the ale, and darts off, little
suspecting the penalties in store for him. 'Hollo,' cries the father,
'waiter!' 'Yes, Sir.' 'Just get this little boy a biscuit, will you?' 'Yes, Sir.'
Off runs the waiter again, and down goes another case of hiring,
another case of delivering, and another case of selling; and so it would
go on ad infinitum, the sum and substance of the matter being, that
every time a man or woman cried 'Waiter!' on Sunday, he or she would
be fined not less than forty shillings, nor more than a hundred; and
every time a waiter replied, 'Yes, Sir,' he and his master would be fined
in the same amount: with the addition of a new sort of window duty on
the landlord, to wit, a tax of twenty shillings an hour for every hour
beyond the first one, during which he should have his shutters down on
the Sabbath.
With one exception, there are perhaps no clauses in the whole bill, so
strongly illustrative of its partial operation, and the intention of its
framer, as those which relate to travelling on Sunday. Penalties of ten,

twenty, and thirty pounds, are mercilessly imposed upon coach
proprietors who shall run their coaches on the Sabbath; one, two, and
ten pounds upon those who hire, or let to hire, horses and carriages
upon the Lord's day, but not one syllable about those who have no
necessity to hire, because they have carriages and horses of their own;
not one word of a penalty on liveried coachmen and footmen. The
whole of the saintly venom is directed against the hired cabriolet, the
humble fly, or the rumbling hackney-coach, which enables a man of the
poorer class to escape for a few hours from the smoke and dirt, in the
midst of which he has been confined throughout the week: while the
escutcheoned carriage and the dashing cab, may whirl their wealthy
owners to Sunday feasts and private oratorios, setting constables,
informers, and penalties, at defiance. Again, in the description of the
places of public resort which it is rendered criminal to attend on
Sunday, there are no words comprising a very fashionable promenade.
Public discussions, public debates, public lectures and speeches, are
cautiously guarded against; for it is by their means that the people
become enlightened enough to deride the last efforts of bigotry and
superstition. There is a stringent provision for punishing the poor man
who spends an hour in a news- room, but there is nothing to prevent the
rich one from lounging away the day in the Zoological Gardens.
There is, in four words, a mock proviso, which affects to forbid
travelling 'with any animal' on the Lord's day. This, however, is
revoked, as relates to the rich man, by a subsequent provision. We have
then a penalty of not less than fifty, nor more than one hundred pounds,
upon any person participating in the control, or having the command of
any vessel which shall commence her voyage on the Lord's day, should
the wind prove favourable. The next time this bill is brought forward
(which will no doubt be at an early period of the next session of
Parliament) perhaps it will be better to amend this clause by declaring,
that from and after the passing of the act, it shall be deemed unlawful
for the wind to blow at all upon the Sabbath. It would remove a great
deal of temptation from the owners and captains of vessels.
The reader is now in possession of the principal enacting clauses of Sir
Andrew Agnew's bill, with the exception of one, for preventing the
killing or taking of 'FISH, OR OTHER WILD ANIMALS,' and the
ordinary provisions which are inserted for form's sake in all acts of

Parliament. I now beg his attention to the clauses of exemption.
They are two in number. The first exempts menial servants from any
rest, and all poor men from any recreation: outlaws a milkman after
nine o'clock in the morning, and makes eating-houses lawful for only
two hours in the afternoon; permits a medical man to use his carriage
on Sunday, and declares that a clergyman may either use his own, or
hire one.
The second is artful, cunning, and designing; shielding the rich man
from the possibility of being entrapped, and affecting at the same time,
to have a tender and scrupulous regard, for the interests of the whole
community. It declares, 'that nothing in this act contained, shall extend
to works of piety, charity, or necessity.'
What is meant by the word 'necessity' in this clause? Simply this- -that
the rich man shall be