GROCERS' EARLY-CLOSING MOVEMENT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVI, Issue 5355, 15 January 1879, Page 3

GROCERS' EARLY-CLOSING MOVEMENT.

TO TUB EDITOR. Sir, —" Gone are the days "—nights, rather—Saturday nights—when we used to ramble in from the quiet suburbs to stroU up and down Qucen-street and feast our eyes on the contents o£ the gay shop-windows. What crowds of young and old, with pleasant, happy faces, bent on the same enjoyment as ourselves, we met and jostled ! How we novnr thought our ramble complete unless we made some purchase, easy to carry,—a doll, anectie, a tin of lobster, or a polonic! How, when we reached the foot of Shortland-street, and cast our eyes on the shopless continuation of Queen-street towards the wharf, w>'*h only a stray pedestrian hero and there, \* instinctively retraced our steps to regain the tide of human forms, enter tlio Hood of gaslight, and see the goods exposed for sale. But, in a few weeks, if this Saturday early-closing goes on, Queen-street, from Shortland-street to Grey-street, will be quite as unattractive for a Saturday night's ramble as it is now from Shortland-street to the wharf, and, consequently, suburbans will remain in thoir suburbs rather than visit a city where there is nothing to be seen. Nay, more, there will be an exodus from Queen-street to the suburbs for fresh air, if for nothing else. Shopkeepers are, as a rule, very obliging and accommodating to the wantsandconvenienccs of their customers, but, in their selection of the day for half-holiday they have not consulted the wishes of their customers, and are, in fact, aware that the half-holiday they have chosen will put many to great inconvenience. They in effect say, no other day but Saturday will we have. Wo know it will put you about, but you must accommodate your pay days to suit our half-holi-day. Pay on Friday, say they. But, sir, you must be awaro that with workingmen who are much given to beer, payment on Friday means a drunk on Friday and also the old establisecd drunk of Saturday besides—two drunks instead of one. It would be far better for the working classes to be paid on Saturday and have a halfholiday on Saturday, and let the shopkeepers keep open on Saturday till 10 p.m. and take their half-holiday on W( dnesday, or any other day when business is slack, people have little money to spend, and the shopkeepers' services are not much wanted. To take themselves off to the North Shore or elsewhere on the old- established shopping-day —the day on which people have money, and want to spend it—the day after which comoß another day (Sunday) on which no food can be purchased—seems to me the most arbitrary, uncivil, and unbusinesslike proceeding that ever intelligent dealers committed themselves to. They seem to have forgotten that they are but the caterers and servants of the buying community,

and that if they refuse to sell on the afternoon on which it is moat convenient for consumers to buy, consumers will find means of gotting the goods elsewhere. Shops in the suburbs are for the n.ost part managed by the shopkeeper and his family, with few, if any, hired hands to cry out for this Saturday half-holiday. These shops will not liktly be much closed. Their owners could not well refuse to supply near neighbours even to the breach of the proclaimed half holiday, and the end will be they will take their shutters down as formerly, and, if city residents have forgotten their groceries, they can then get a mouthful of suburban frrsh air au'l groceries by the same trip. —I am &c., Consumer.