THE HALF-HOLIDAY QUESTION.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 13377, 19 March 1909, Page 9

THE HALF-HOLIDAY QUESTION.

♦ TO THE EDITOR OF "THE PREBS." Sir, —Several letters have- appeared in your columns lately stating that ono of the consequences of Saturday closing would be that the residents of Christchurch would have to partake of three days' old bread on the Monday. Ono is almost tempted to ask, like tho French Princess when she heard the rabble of Paris crying lor bread, "Couldn't they eat cake?"

Why on earth should a half-h'»li:Uiy interfere with a baker following ni's usual calling on a Saturday morning? Your funny man in a laboured piece of humour in this morning's issue refers to the- grocer ceasing to groce at 1 p.m. on Thursday, but might 1 point out that ho has been, growing up tin 1 o'clock, and there is nothing in the world to prevent the baker lrom baking till the same hour on Saturday.— Yours, etc., WHOLESALER.

TO THE EDITOR OF "THE TRESS." Sir, —The battle royal between the Thursday and Saturday factions has begun in earnest, and the same okl time-worn arguments are being brought forward in lavour of the Saturday half-holiday as wore advanced when a eimilar agitation was in progress some years ago. The alleged reasons for the Saturday half-holiday have been reiterated so often and have become so monotonous, that I had fully determined not to take part in the inkslinging contest, but have been constrained to <fo so by Mr Anderson's extraordinary effusions in the newspapers. Of course our hearts bleed for the young man with the large dreamy eyes and poetic tendencies whose soul pants for the gurgling stream (which on Mr Anderson's showing is a believer in the Thursday half-holiday, and ceases to gurgle at one o'clock on that day), but who is compelled .with much agony of soul to deal out tape and shirt-buttons in a draper's shop on Saturday. Our burning tears also fall for the ambitious young Ajax with the 16-inch calf who is forced to put up sugar in pound bags at the grocer's, meanwhile conjuring up visions of tho frenzied crowd that -would be cheering itself hoarse at his prowess in chasing a football over the landscape if he only had tho Saturday half-holiday. But this is all by the way. What I want to deal with is the question of eport. which ds so consistently pitchforked into the warfare of words that is now poing on, ns the main argument in favour of the Saturday hnlf-holiday. "Xo one is a more interested spectator of a decent game of football than myself, but. honestly, I think we nre raising sport to a pedestal from which it must soon totter to its fall. Where as "sport" at the present day as wi> understand it in the true sense of the vord? Cycling has been killed by the stealthy inroads of the cash element, football is nioro and more coming under the ban of professionalism, and we are paying coaches, large sums of money to instruct our cricketers in the ins and outs of tho game; and yet we are repeatedly having "sport" flung in our faces as the main reason for a universal Saturday half-holiday. Candidly, it appears to mc that, * judging by the direction in which sport is trending, it is an exrvlodrd fallacy as far as the Saturday" hnlf-holidav is

Concerned. Apart from this fact.* however, if there is so much sporting element among the ranks of thosp'who are comnoilrd to the hnlf-holi-day on Thursday, surely in the nr.nie of Roo<lness there shonkl be srtifficifnt enterprise to establish Thnr.«d.iy Associations in the various branches of sport.—Yours, etc., OLD SPORT.