[-184-]
PART III.
SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE.
WORKING MEN'S SATURDAYS.
WHEN
"from six to six was the order of the day for six days a week, working men
regarded the seventh with the sentiment expressed by the lover of "Sally in our Alley," when he sings-
Of all the days that's in the week
I dearly love but one day,
And that's the day that always comes
Twixt Saturday and Monday.
But among those who enjoy the benefits of the Saturday
half-holiday, this tone of feeling has been considerably modified; and, indeed,
it is now a stock saving with many working men, that Saturday is the best
day of the week, as it is a short working day, and Sunday has to come; and this
latter is a much more important consideration to the working man than to the
uninitiated it would appear to be.
The working man has necessarily to defer the transacting of
many little pieces of business to the end of the week; and when he had to work
till six o'clock on Saturdays, by the time he had washed himself and changed
his clothes, taken his tea, and got through the deferred pieces of business, he
was generally [-185-] thoroughly tired, and it was near bed-time, and Sunday was
upon him before he knew where he was. And though, in point of fact, this did not
lessen the material comforts of the day of rest, yet every one knows that the
previous contemplation and mind- picturing of pleasures to come is in itself a
pleasure of no mean order, in some cases (and the working man's long "lie
in" on a Sunday morning is one of these) anticipation not only lends enchantment
to the view, but really gives an added charm to the realization of the
looked-for joy. On "week days" the working man wakes or is roused from his
toil-worn sleep, or from delightful dreams of a new and blissful state of
society, in which it is permitted to all working men to lose a quarter every day
in the week, about five or half-past five o'clock in the morning, in order that
he may be at his work by six. And when awake he must get up, however much
he may feel disposed to have another turn round, for workshop bells are among
the things that wait for no man, and the habitual losing of quarters is a
practice that leads to that unpleasant thing-to working men- the sack, and so,
to slightly alter a line from the "Three Fishers," "Men must work,
while women may sleep." Early rising may make a man healthy, wealthy, and
wise; but there can be no doubt that it is a great bore when it is compulsory,
and when the heavy-sleeping working man, or the one who acts upon time plan of
gaining length of days by stealing a few hours from the night, reluctantly
"tumbles out," he thinks to himself, "I shall be in there again pretty
soon tonight." But when night comes, and he has had a good wash and a good tea,
he feels like a giant refreshed; and having settled himself comfortably by the
fireside, or gone out for his evening stroll, he feels almost as [-186-] unwilling to go to bed early as he does to leave it, and thus
morning after morning he has to fight his battles o'er again. Sometimes lie does
not wake until a little after his usual hour; he will then hastily consider
whether he can get to his work in time, decide to try it, spring out of bed,
huddle on his clothes, and, without waiting to light his pipe, rush off, and
just come in sight of the workshop gate in time to see it shut, and to join with
two or three equally unfortunate mates in heaping curses loud and deep upon the
gatekeeper. But on Sunday morning there is none of this. On that morning, when
from force of habit the working man wakens at his usual time - I know several
enthusiastic individuals who have themselves "called" on that morning the
same as any other, in order that they may make sure of thoroughly enjoying the
situation-and for a confused moment or two thinks about getting up, he suddenly
remembers him that it is Sunday, and joyously drawing the clothes tighter around
him, he consumes time generally, and morning quarters in particular, and
resolves to have a long "lie in," and in many instances to have breakfast in
bed. And on all these things the working man who benefits by the half-holiday
movement can, when taking it easy on a Saturday afternoon, pleasingly ponder.
For only working men can thoroughly appreciate or understand
all that is embodied in that chiefest pleasure of the working man's Sunday,
"a quarter in bed." To any late-rising, blasé gentlemen who may be
in search of a new pleasure, I would strongly recommend the adoption of some
plan-(if nothing better occurred to them, they might commit some offence against
the law, that would lead to a term of imprisonment "without the option of a
fine")-that would for a time make rising at a fixed and early hour
compulsory, and [-187-] when the morning arrives upon which they can once more
indulge in a "lie in," they may exclaim, Eureka! for they will have
found a new and great pleasure.
The working half of Saturday is up at one o'clock, and that
wished-for hour seems to come round quicker on that day than any other. In a
well-ordered workshop every man is allowed a certain time each Saturday for
"tidying up," sweeping of the floor and benches, cleaning and laying out in
order of the tools. This is completed a minute or two before one o'clock; and
when the workmen, with newly-washed hands and their shop jackets or slops rolled
up under their arms, stand in groups waiting for the ringing of the bell, it is
a sight well worth seeing, and one in which the working man is, all things
considered, perhaps seen at his best. He is in good humour with himself and
fellow-workman; is in his working clothes, in which he feels and moves at ease,
and not unfrequently looks a nobler fellow than when "cleaned;" and
is surrounded by the machinery with which he is quite at home. When the bell
rings the men leave the works in a leisurely way that contrasts rather strongly
with the eagerness with which they leave at other times; but once outside the
workshop gates, the younger apprentices and other boys immediately devote
themselves to the business of pleasure. They will he seen gathering together in
a manner that plainly indicates that there is "something in the wind." The
something in the wind may be a fight that is to come off between Tommy Jones, alias
"Bubbly," ,and Billy Smith, otherwise "The Jockey," owing to the
latter sportingly- inclined young gentleman having openly boasted that he could
take Mary Ann Stubbins for a walk any time he liked; Miss S. being a young lady
of fourteen, the [-188-] daughter of a retail greengrocer, and generally regarded as
the lady-love of Bubbly, it being notorious that she gives him much larger
ha'p'orths of apples than any other boy, and - when her father is not looking -
supplies him with roasting potatoes free of charge. Or the something in
the wind may be a hunt after a monstrous rat that is believed to haunt a
neighbouring pond; or perhaps the something is the carrying out of a hostile
demonstration against the butcher who rents the field adjoining the workshop,
and who has been so unreasonable as to object to their catching his pony and
riding it by three at a time.
The first proceeding of the workmen upon reaching home is to
get their dinner, which they eat upon Saturday and Sunday only iii a leisurely
manner; and after dinner the smokers charge, light, and smoke their pipes, still
in a leisurely and contemplative manner unknown to them at other times. By the
time they have finished their pipes it is probably two o'clock, and they then
proceed to clean themselves up-that phrase being equivalent among "the
great unwashed" to the society one of performing your toilet. The first part of
the cleaning-up process consists in "a good wash," and it is completed by
an entire change of dress. A favourite plan of cleaning-up on Saturday
afternoons is - among those who live within easy reach of public baths - to take
their clean suits to the bath, and put them on after they have bathed, bringing
away their working suits tied up in a bundle. Some of the higher-paid mechanics
present a very different appearance when cleaned up from that which they
presented an hour or two before, when we saw them sauntering out of the shop
gates. Working-class swelldom breaks out for time short time in which it is
permitted to do so in all the butterfly [-189-] brilliance of "fashionably" made clothes, with splendid
accessories in collars, scarves, and cheap jewellery. But neither the will nor
the means to "come the swell" are given to all men, and a favourite Saturday
evening costume with the mass of working men consists of the clean moleskin or
cord trousers that are to be worn at work during the ensuing week, black coat
and waistcoat, a cap of a somewhat sporting character, and a muffler more or
less gaudy. Of course, the manner in which working men spend their Saturday
afternoon is dependent upon their temperaments, tastes, and domestic
circumstances. The man who goes home from his work on a Saturday only to find
his house in disorder, with every article of furniture out of its place, the
floor unwashed or sloppy from uncompleted washing, his wife slovenly, his
children untidy, his dinner not yet ready or spoilt in the cooking, is much more
likely to go "on the spree" than the man who finds his house in order, the
furniture glistening from the recent polishing, the burnished steel fire-irons
looking doubly resplendent from the bright glow of the cheerful fire, his
well-cooked dinner ready laid on a snowy cloth, and his wife and children tidy
and cheerful. If the man whose household work is neglected or mismanaged is, as
sometimes happens, of a meek character, and has been unfortunate enough to get
for a wife a woman who is a termagant as well as a sloven, or one of those lazy,
lackadaisical, London-Journal-reading ladies with whom working men are
more and more curst, he will have to devote his Saturday afternoon to assisting
in the woman's work of his own house. But when the husband is not of the
requisite meekness of spirit, he hastens from the disorderly scene, and roams
about in a frame of mind that predisposes him to seek the questionable comforts
of the public-house, [-190-] or to enter upon some other form of dissipation. On time
other hand, the man who has a clever and industrious wife, whose home is so
managed that it is always cosy and cheerful when he is in it, finds there a
charm, which, if he is endowed with an ordinary share of manliness and
self-respect, will render him insensible to the allurements of meretricious
amusements. In no rank of society have home influences so great a power for good
or evil, as among the working classes. Drunkenness is in many cases, doubtless,
the result of innate depravity, and a confirmed drunkard is rarely to be
reclaimed by home comforts, which to his degraded mind offer no charm; but at
the same time there can be no doubt in the mind of any person who is acquainted
with the manners and habits of the working classes, that thousands of working
men are driven by lazy, slovenly, mismanaging wives, to courses which ultimately
result in their becoming drunkards amid disreputable members of society.
There has been a great deal written and said about what is called modern
servantgalism; and while there could,
no doubt, be a good deal said respecting ill-tempered, ignorant, selfish, and
"genteel" mistresses, there is equally little room for doubt that the
complaints against modern female servants are "founded on facts." To those
whose lot it is to employ servant girls, the combination of vanity, affectation,
ignorance, and impudence, which go to make up servantgalism, may afford
amusement as well as cause annoyance. But it is no joke when we consider that
these servant girls, and their compeers the shop and dressmaker girls, are the
class who become the wives of working men and the mothers of their children.
Servantgalish ideas and sentiments are, in a general way, the result of the
universal fastness of the age, of [-191-] the all-pervading desire for the possession of wealth, and
the love of display, which developes Robsons and Redpaths, causes Jones,
ex~greengrocer, to publicly intimate that it is his intention to be known for
the future by the name of Fitzherbert, and brings so many "fashionably"
attired young men before the magistrates. But while the general character of
the age we live in may in a great measure be held responsible for the vanity,
love of dress and high notions which characterize the female domestic mind, and
in a still more remarkable degree the minds of the "young ladies" of
millinery and other establishments, there is a special element which
contributes directly to the generation and fostering of the worst spirit of
servantgalism. That special element is the devotion of those females to the
perusal of the tales published in the cheap serials, of which they (the class of
females in question) are the chief supporters. The miscellaneous parts of these
serials, the "household receipts," sayings witty and humorous, and
the "ladies' page," may, though dull, be harmless and even instructive nor
is there anything immoral in the tales, which are the chief and most injurious
features of these publications. On the contrary, it is the tremendous triumph
and excessive reward - of which a rich, titled and handsome husband is invariably
a part - awarded in them, to virtue, as embodied in the person of a "poor but
virtuous maiden," which is the most objectionable part of these tales; and which,
taken in conjunction with the distorted views of life which they contain, and
the exaggerated splendour and luxury of their accessories, make them time most
pernicious of all works, not of a directly immoral character, that can be placed
in the hands of poor, half-educated, and not particularly strong-minded girls.
That poor but vir-[-192-]tuous maidens occasionally find rich and titled husbands is
doubtless true, but still constantly harping on this string, and mingling the
sensational adventures of the stock virtuous maiden, and the poor clerk or
travelling artist, who ultimately turns out to be a rich nobleman, with splendid
carriages, gorgeous dresses, dazzling jewellery, and luxurious boudoirs, is
scarcely the way to make the general run of poor but virtuous maidens contented
with their position in life. For neither their type of mind, nor the nature of
their education is of a kind that fits them for making fine distinctions, and
they are wont to argue in this wise, "Are not we, too, poor and virtuous?
and should not we therefore also get rich husbands, be dressed in gorgeous
garments, and wear costly jewellery, and lounge in magnificently furnished
boudoirs?" The discontented and hankering spirit which these stories
create in the silly girls who read them, render them particularly liable to
become a prey to any "fashionably attired" scamp who can use the high-flown
language of the stories themselves. To uninterested observers the ideas of those
whose minds are inflamed by these absurd tales may appear simply ludicrous; but
to those upon whom they have a direct bearing they have a sad as well as a
grotesque aspect. Household duties are neglected in order to find time to read
time tales, or discuss with some sympathetic soul the probable means whereby
some "lowly heroine" will ultimately defeat the schemes of the intriguing
and demoniac Duchess of Bloomington, and marry that mysterious young gentleman
with the raven locks and marble brow, at present employed in the shawl
department of the West-end emporium at which the duchess deals, and whom she
and the reader know to be the true heir to the richest earldom in England. [-193-]
And when the tale-tainted wife begins to contrast the manners and language of
her commonplace husband with those of Lord Cecil Harborough, or time Honourable
Algernon Mount Harcourt, the result may be imagined. In short, these
publications pander to a very dangerous kind of vanity. I am fully aware that
the labouring classes have benefited largely by cheap literature, but at the
same time I am bound to say, speaking from an extensive experience among those
classes, that the particular class of cheap literature of which I have been
speaking exercises a most injurious influence upon them, and is frequently the
insidious cause of bitter shame and misery, as well as a potent cause of the
squalor and mismanagement so often found in the homes of even the higher-paid
portion of the working classes.
Taking
it for granted that time representative working men have tolerably comfortable
homes, their methods of spending their Saturday afternoons will then depend upon
their respective tastes amid habits. The steady family man who is
"thoroughly domesticated" will probably settle himself by the fireside, and
having lit his pipe, devote himself to the perusal of his weekly newspaper. He
will go through the police intelligence with a patience and perseverance worthy
of a better cause, then through the murders of the week, proceed from them to
the reviews of books, and "varieties original and select," take a passing
glance at the sporting intelligence, and finally learns from time leading
articles that he is a cruelly "ground-down" and virtually enslaved
individual, who has no friend or well-wisher in this unfairly constituted world
save only the "we" of the articles. This is generally about the range of a
first reading. The foreign intelligence, news [-194-] from
the provinces, answers to correspondents, and enormous gooseberry paragraphs,
being left for a future occasion. By the time such first reading has been got
through tea-time is near - for an early tea, a tea to which all the members of
time family sit down together, and at which the relishes of the season abound to
an extent known only to a Saturday and a pay-day, is a stock part of a working
man's Saturday. The family man, whom the wives of other working men describe to
their husbands as "something like a husband," but who is probably regarded
by his own wife as a bore, and by his shopmates as a mollicot - will go marketing
with or for his wife, and will consider his afternoon well spent if he succeeds
in "beating-down" a butterman to the extent of three-halfpence. The
unmarried man who "finds himself," and who is of a scraping disposition, or
cannot trust his landlady, will also spend his afternoon in marketing. Many of
the unmarried, and some of the younger of time married men of the working
classes, are now members of volunteer corps, workshop bands, or boat clubs, and
devote many of their Saturday afternoons to drill, band practice, or rowing.
When not engaged in any of the above pursuits, the men of this class go for an
afternoon stroll-sometimes to some suburban semi-country inn, at others
"round town." In the latter case, they are much given to gazing in at shop
windows - particularly of newsagents, where illustrated papers and periodicals are
displayed, and outfitters, in which the young mechanic who is "keeping
company" with a "young lady," and upon whom it is therefore incumbent to
"cut a dash," can see those great bargains in gorgeous and fashionable
scarfs marked up at the sacrificial price of 1s. 11¾d. Those men who are bent
upon improving their general [-195-] education, or mastering those branches of
learning - generally
mathematics and mechanical drawing - which will be most useful to them, spend
their Saturday afternoons in reading. Other men again, who are naturally of a
mechanical or artistic turn of mind, and industriously inclined, employ their
Saturday afternoon in constructing articles of time class of which so much has
been seen during time last two years at industrial exhibitions; or in making,
altering, or improving some article of furniture. But whatever may be the nature
of their Saturday afternoon proceedings, working men contrive to bring them to a
conclusion in time for an early (about five o'clock) tea, so as to leave
themselves a long evening.
Burns' " Cotter's Saturday Night," though one of the best
of his many fine poems, and an enchanting picture of natural and possible "rural felicity," and probably a truthful description of the best pastoral
life of the period, would be in no respect applicable as a description of the
Saturday nights of the present generation of working men and their families. How
cotters of the agricultural labourer class spend their Saturday nights I am not
in a position to say, but it is quite certain that if compared with the model
cotter of the poem, the artisan class of the present day would show a decided
falling off in moral picturesqueness. The " intelligent artisan"
(I merely
state the fact) does not spend his Saturday night by his am fireside, or devote
it to family worship, and however "halesome parritch"- "thick
dick" he would call it - may be, he would emphatically object to it as a Saturday
night's supper. The lover of the modern Jenny, when going courting on Saturday
night, will not rap gently at the door, but will give an authoritative
ran tan upon the knocker; and on being admitted [-196-] will
not be "sae bashfu' and sae grave." On the contrary, lie will have a
free-and-easy, almost patronizing manner, will greet Jenny in an off-handed
style, and tell her to look sharp and get her things on; and while she is
dressing, he will enter into familiar conversation with her father, incidentally
telling him to what place of amusement he is going to take Jenny, and perhaps
informing him that he has put a crown on the Cheshire Nobbler for that
pugilistic celebrity's forthcoming encounter with the Whitechapel Crusher. When
Jenny is ready he will take his departure with her, merely observing that he
will see her home all right, and feeling proudly conscious that he has fully
impressed his parents-in-law that are to be with the fact that he is a young man
who "knows his way about." In other words, he is not a Scotch cotter, but an
English mechanic.
After tea those men who have been out during the afternoon generally stay in
for an hour's rest before setting forth on their evening ramble in search of
amusement, while those who have been at home, go out in order to get through any
business they may have on hand before the amusement begins. Saturday being the
only time at which working men can safely indulge in any amusement that involves
staying out late at night, and being moreover a time when they are flush of
money, and when they can get to the entrance of any place of entertainment in
time to take part in the fist rush, and so secure a good seat, they avail
themselves of this combination of fortuitous circumstances, and hence the
crowded state of theatre galleries on that night, and the notice on music-hall
orders that they are not available on Saturdays. The theatre is the most popular
resort of pleasure-seeking workmen, and the gallery their [-197-] favourite
part of the house. Two or three mates generally go together, taking with them a
joint-stock bottle of drink and a suitable supply of eatables. Or sometimes two
or three married couples, who have "no encumbrance," or who have got some
neighbours to look after their children, make up a party, the women carrying a
plentiful supply of provisions. To the habituées of the stalls and boxes
the eating and drinking that goes on in the gallery may appear to be mere
gluttony, though the fact really is that it is a simple necessity. There is
scarcely a theatre gallery in England from the back seats of which it is
possible to see and hear with any degree of comfort, or in a manner that will
enable you to comprehend the action of the piece without standing during the
whole of the performance, and standing up in a gallery crowd is a thing to be
contemplated with horror. In order to get a place in the gallery of a well
attended theatre on a Saturday night from which you can witness the performance
while seated, it is necessary to be at the entrance at least half an hour before
the doors open, and when they do open you have to take part in a rush and
struggle the fierceness of which can only be credited by those who have taken
part in such encounters. And when you have at length fought your way up the
narrow, inconvenient, vault-like staircase, and into a seat, and have
recovered sufficiently to reconnoitre your position, you find yourself one of a
perspiring crowd, closely packed in an ill-lighted, ill- ventilated, black hole
of Calcutta like pen, to which the fumes of gas in the lower parts of the house
ascend. It is not unlikely, too, that you find yourself seated next to some
individual who has been rendered ferociously quarrelsome by having been half
strangled in the struggle at the doors, and who, upon your being [-198-] unavoidably pressed against him, tells you in a
significant
manner, not to "scrouge" him whoever else you scrouge. To endure this
martyrdom some substantial nourishment is absolutely necessary, and the
refreshments of the gods provided by the theatrical purveyors of them, being of
a sickly and poisonous, rather than an ambrosial character, consisting for the
most part of ale and porter, originally bad, and shaken in being carried about
until it has become muddy to the sight and abominable to the taste; rotten
fruit, and biscuits stale to the degree of semi-putrefaction; those gods who
take a supply of refreshments with them when they go to a theatre, display, not
gluttony, but a wise regard for their health and comfort. After the theatres,
the music-halls are the most popular places of Saturday night resort with
working men, as at them they can combine time drinking of the Saturday night
glass, and the smoking of the Saturday night pipe, with the seeing and hearing
of a variety of entertainments, ranging from magnificent ballets and marvellous
scenic illusions to inferior tumbling, and from well- given operatic selections
to' the most idiotic of the so-called comic songs of the Jolly Dogs class. Music-halls being practically large public-houses, it is riot, as a matter of
course, permitted to take refreshments into them. The refreshments supplied in
these halls, however, are generally moderately good, but at the same time more
than moderately dear, while the waiters, who, in accordance with the usage of
these establishments, have to be pecuniarily "remembered" each time that
they refill your glass or bring you the most trifling article, haunt you in an
oppressive and vampirish manner if you venture to linger over your drink; and,
all things considered, it is not too much to say that, notwithstanding the
comparatively low prices of admis-[-199-]sion to them, music-halls are about the dearest places of amusement that a
working man can frequent. Next to the theatres and music-halls, the shilling,
sixpenny, and threepenny "hops" of the dancing academies and saloons which
abound in manufacturing districts, are the amusements most affected by the
younger and more spruce of unmarried working men. And it is at these cheap
dancing academies (which, not being connected, as the saloons generally
are, with public-houses, are looked upon as exclusive and genteel
establishments) that unfortunate working men generally make the acquaintance of
those young ladies of the millinery and dressmaking persuasion, who entertain
secret hopes of one day marrying a gentleman; but who, unhappily for society in
general and the working classes in particular, become the slovenly mismanaging
wives of working men. Other men spend their Saturday nights at public-house
"free-and-easies", from which they will come home happy if the comic or
sentimental song - the learning of which has been their sole mental labour during
the past week - has been favourably received by their free-and-easy brethren.
Of
course there are some of my class who prefer above all things to spend a quiet
Saturday evening in a reading-room, or at a working man's club, though the
members of these clubs are by no means so numerous, nor is the success of the
institutions themselves so great as might be supposed from so much having been
written and said about them. But, however differently working men may spend the
bulk of their Saturday night, it is an almost invariable practice with those of
them who are not teetotallers, to "drop in" some time during the
night at some house of call, in order to have a pipe and glass in company with
the  [-200-] friends or shopmates who frequent the house. For though
drunkenness is happily giving way to "manly moderation" among the working
classes, they have not yet reached the bigoted stage of anti-alcoholic belief
that would decree that because they are virtuous, there should be no more pipes
and ale.
And while the men of the artisan class (the class that has
chiefly benefited by the Saturday half-holiday movement) now look upon Saturday
as in many respects the best day of the week, their wives and families also
regard it as a red-letter day. For on that day Mrs. Jones, the blacksmith's
wife, gets the new bonnet or dress without which, she assures her husband, she
is not fit to be seen out of doors ; or time new article of parlour furniture,
lacking which-since she has seen a similar piece of furniture at her neighbour Mrs.
Brown s house - she is, she tells Jones, quite ashamed when
any decent body calls to see them. On that day, little Billy Jones gets the new
jacket, and his sister Polly the new frock, which will draw upon them time envy
or admiration of their companions at Sunday school on the following day, and
each of them will on Saturday receive the penny which is their weekly allowance
of pocket-money, but which, owing to the promptings of their "sweet tooth,"
and the advice of not altogether disinterested, though for the time being
extraordinarily affectionate playmates, they will spend a few hours after they
have got it, and experience in consequence much remorse whenever during the
ensuing week they see a great bargain in the way of toffee. On Saturday night
too Billy and Polly are indulged in the dissipation of sitting up late, in order
that they may have a share of the hot supper, which, like a tea with relishes,
is also a characteristic of a working man's Saturday.
That the Saturday half-holiday movement is one of [-201-] the most practically beneficial that has ever been
inaugurated with a view to the social improvement of "the masses," no one
who is acquainted with its workings will for a moment doubt. It has made
Saturday a day to be looked forward to by the working man with feelings of
pleasurable anticipation, to he regarded as the day on which he can enjoy many
timings, which but for it he would not have the opportunity of enjoying; and do
many things tending to his own improvement, or the comfort of his family, to the
doing of which he had formerly to devote that portion of his Saturday night
which he can now spend in some recreation. It enables them to view their
relative position in a rosier light than that in which they were wont to regard
it, and to see that though they may often have to work whilst others play, they can also sometimes play when many others have to work and disposes them to
think that, notwithstanding that there are many hardships incidental to their
station in life, they are not quite so "ground down," robbed and
oppressed, as sundry spouters and writers who live on and by them would have
them to believe.
But there is one aspect of the Saturday half-holiday movement
in which those sections of the working classes who have benefited by it have
been weighed and found wanting. They have not as a body given the practical aid
which, without any inconvenience to them selves or their families, they might
have done, and which as working men they ought to have done, to the
extension of the movement among the less fortunate sections of their own class.
In the manufacturing trades time Saturday half-holiday is an almost general
thing, and many of the largest employers of labour in those trades - both
companies and private firms - now pay their workmen on Friday night, with an
ex-[-202-]press view to facilitating early shopping and marketing on
Saturdays. And yet it is notorious that the late shopping of the artisan class
is the sole means of keeping thousands of shops open till eleven and twelve
o'clock on Saturday nights, and consequently of keeping tens of thousands of
shopmen and assistants at work till those late hours; thus making Saturday the
worst day of the week for them, and compelling them and their families in many
instances to do their shopping on Sundays. Workmen of the artisan class
are disposed to entertain a rather contemptuous opinion of "counter-
skippers," but they should bear in mind that even counter-skippers are men and
brethren, who feel all the irksomeness of confinement, and are doubtless endowed
with bumps that cause them to long for, and would enable them to enjoy, a
half-holiday.
It would be simply absurd to suppose that the sections of the
working classes who already enjoy the Saturday half-holiday could by any act of
theirs at once extend the movement to other sections, but still it is in
their power to do much towards it. If the men in those trades in which the
holiday is established would follow an understood law, to have all Saturday
marketing and shopping incidental to the requirements of themselves and families
finished, as a general rule, by four o'clock, the result would be that thousands
of young men would be released from the bondage of the counter some hours
earlier on Saturday night than they are at present. It is in the power of the
working classes to do much in this way, and the thoughtlessness and indifference
of many working men on such points as these must often give additional pain to
those of their own class who suffer by it. And I am sure it must have brought
something of shame as well as sorrow to the minds of many thoughtful [-203-]
working men when, in the early part of 1866, the clothiers'
assistants in the large clothing establishments at the East-end of London
brought their grievance (that of having to work seven days a week, and
ninety-four hours for a week's work) before the public, and appealed to
"the workmen of London to give them one day's rest out of seven, by not
shopping at clothing establishments that continue to keep open on Sundays."
Occasions frequently arise in which large sections of the working classes, and
sometimes even the general body of them, stand in need of the good opinion or
friendly assistance of other sections of society, and it behoves them to show
themselves deserving of assistance when their hour of need comes, by showing
such brotherly kindness and consideration for each other as may be in their
power, even if they should have to make a little alteration in their
habits to do so. And of the matters in which it is in the power of some sections
of the working classes to render material assistance to others, the extension of
the Saturday half-holiday movement is one of the most prominent, and one in
which aid may be given - with little or no self-sacrifice upon the part of the
givers.
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