The Merry Past 



days, cricket and other harmless games would have 

 been generally recognised as a legitimate Sunday 

 amusement on our village greens, around which the 

 elders might sit quaffing their pots of ale. The very 

 contrary, however, is the case, for hardly a year goes 

 by without some tyrannical attempt at making that 

 dismal institution, the English Sunday, more dismal 

 still by means of Sunday closing. It is, indeed, almost 

 impossible to conceive how, in the present age of 

 civilisation, such measures can be seriously discussed. 



Pleasure is the gift of Nature ; it is the first good 

 thing that she points out to us from the moment we 

 appear in the world, and every man surely should 

 have the right of enjoying himself upon a day which, 

 no matter what canting hypocritical Judases may say, 

 was designed as much for recreation as for repose. 



If ever there can be any justification for raising 

 the cry of one law for the rich and another for the 

 poor, it is in such a case as this. While the rich are 

 luxuriously sipping their wines, and pampering their 

 appetites with every luxury which the art of the cook 

 can supply, upon what principle is it that the poor 

 man, after a hard week's work, is to be denied the 

 draught to which his labours have given such a relish ? 



Surely the workers require some relaxation on one 

 day of the week to enable them to return to the 

 same unvaried round of life. The rich fly from town 

 to country, and from country to town. As fancy 

 prompts them they rush across England in their 

 motors, or across the Channel for a continental tour. 

 But the poor have no change of situation or of place : 



7 



