SUNDAY IN LONDON IN THE 16TH CENTURY.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 1521, 5 March 1886, Page 4

SUNDAY IN LONDON IN THE 16TH CENTURY.

Sunday was a most buttling gala day on the Thair.es backside; the almost umberless watermen were well employed; the bear gardens—it is not easy to say how many there were — were »n full play. The Queen was fond of sports even 011 Sunday?, the old Church appeared to sanction it, and later on the Romanising Bishop Laud did not discourage it. It was even said by some writers—Cartwright and Gosson, 1-372 and 1.">79 that the services of the Church were hurried over that the people might not be disappointed of their aports. Allt yn and Henslowe, church wardt ns as they soon after were, made bad coinplaiuts of tlie suppression of Sunday sport, and the great injury and lots that accrued to them —" in the afternoon, after Divine service, it was the chiefest means and benefit to the place." John Field, in his "Godly Exhortation," exclaims—"ls it not a lamentable thing that now, after so long preach-1 ing of the Gospel, theatres should be full and churches ttnp tie?" And, alter bis manDer, he urgts the authorities to make, the p« ople go. But so it was ; tbe laws and customs of one tune are not the laws and customs of another. — Waljord s Antiquarian.