THE SATURDAY HALF-HOLIDAY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 194, 26 December 1868, Page 3

THE SATURDAY HALF- HOLIDAY.

(JFrom the Leisure Hour.") When a working man has been toiling with the regularity of a machine for weeks or months together from Monday morning till Saturday night — rising early in order to keep time at the counter, in the warehouse, or in the workshop, and often retiring late because I compelled to work late — it is small wonder if he grows weary and spirit-broken and discontented with his lot. Well-meaning people i are apt to call him reckless and vicious because when he does escape from his long labours he turns for refreshment and recreation to the pnblic houae. They do not reflect that in many cases others are more to blame than the late labourer — that very often his week's j wages are paid to him in the public-house, and he has to wait there on the Saturday night until he gets them; that not seldom his wife comes to wait there too for the money which is wanted for the market, where the Sunday's dinner must be bought. This system of late Saturday night's pay is too common even now, and it is a source of degradation as well as of heart-burning to thousands ; but twenty years ago it was, among an extensive class of employers in London, the rue rather than the exception. The motives that led to such a system were sufficiently manifest to any one who sought for them. In those days Sunday work was far more common than, happily it is now, and in busy times, during the height of the London season, men rarely knew, before their wages were paid on the Saturday night, whether they would be wanted to work on Sunday or not. The employers themselves often did not know what work might come in of an nrgent kind to necessitate Sunday labour ; but as they were ready to undertake any amount of work that could possibly be done, it waa their habit to wait for the last chance of the last hour of the week, and lo keep the men waiting for their pay until that chance waa decided — for if the men were suffered to go away before such expected order came, there would have been no means of collecting them again for the Sunday work. Over and over again have we seen hundreds of men and lads thus waiting for their wages until within a few minutes of midnight — their wives sometimes crowding the doors, and that in the bitterest weather, in the vain hope of getting hold of some portion of the husband's wage in time to avail themselves of the poor man's late market. See what this system led to, and still leads to wherever it prevails. The weekly money not being forthcoming in time to be spent iv the regular and lawful market, had to be spent in the irregular and unlawful one. Out of the late-pay system grew the Sunday morning market, to which the workers were driven to have recourse for the necessaries of life. The business of marketing, and the subsequent domestic operations, which should have got themselves done on the Saturday, having now to be done on the Sunday, there was no time for religious services, and with multitudes of workers, especially in our great towns, the day [of rest became from this cause alone a day desecrated by listless inaction and self-indulgence. •\ hoever it was that first commenced the crusade for a Saturday half-holiday, he must, we imagine have gone blindly to work — for if he had looked all the obstacles in the face, it scarcely conceivable that he would have dared ito assail them. For our part, we can remember the ridicule the measure provoked when it was flrat proposed. Nobody b lasting any practical knowledge had any faith in its success. When the assumed advantages were explained to employers " they could'nt see it," but they saw something very different, as they imagined, in the shape of certain and serious lobs. Even the working men themselves looked on the idea at first as something Utopian, and though they gladly gave in their adherence to the plan, they did so with a don't-you-wish-you-may-get-it sort of an air, and a smile, rather of incredulity than of encouragement, sufficiently expressive of their private opinions. But, nevertheless, they began to think about it, to turn it over in their minds as they stood behind the counter, or wrought at the frame or the bench, and to draw pictures in fancy of running streams, and umbrageous woods, and cricketbats and wickets, and floats bobbing at a bite, &c. and at lengtb, as such pictures grew familiar, they began to wonder whether there really was any reason why Saturday should always be a day and a half instead of a day, and whether it might not be just as sensible a thing to knock off five or six of its working houra in lieu of sticking as many additional ones on . By-and-by the plan grew to be discussed in the workshop and behind the counter with a larger measure of faith, and notions of.^s practicability; began to be entertained and to spread. The chief reason of this was, that the Early Closing Assoc?*.

tion, which has always persisted in looking at obstacles through the wrong end of the telescope, had been •• pegging away " with its characteristic pertinacity, and had succeeded in driving its half-holiday heresy into the heads o . some of the London employers who were known to be anxious for the welfare of tbeir " hands," and in persuading them to give at least a trial. The (rial was made — in a sort of fractional way at first, by releasing a few hands for a few hours earlier on the Saturday evening. It was found that no harm came of it to the employer, while to the worker the benefit was manifest and undeniable ; his holiday made him the fitter for work, and he was a better man during the week for the holiday that came at the end of it. Thus that venerab'e implement, " the thin end of the wedge," got itself fairly into the old knotty trunk of prejudice, and ever since then, the Early Closing Association, and many good people besides, have been hammering away at it to drive it home. The wedge is not driven home, yet — it will take a good deal more hammering to do that — but it is bound to get driven home in time, and meanwhile we may congratulate ourselves on tbe good that has been done. What has been done is this : in hundreds of working establishments where not very long ago the men and lada were accustomed to labour up to the very skirts of midnight, they now leave off at 6 o'clock, 5 o'clo-k, 4 o'clock, 3 o'clock. 2 o'clock — and in not a few, but a good round number, the working week finishes on the Saturday at the workingman's dianer-hou'", and he has all the rest of the day for amusement and recreation. There is no waiting for wages, because he is either paid on the Friday, or, better still, on the following Monday, so that he can be off at once to enjoy his holiday — to " bathe his eyes in green " in the pleasant country side — to cricket, to angling, to swimming — to the museum, the picture galleries, the gymnasium, or to anything else (except shopping, as some do 1 ) thus crowning the week-, hard labour with a chaplet of pleasure, in preparation for the reasonable rest and improvement of the Sunday. But the practical question arises — How does the Saturday half-holiday system pay 1 Well, we are in a position to affirm that, taking all things into consideration, it pays even pecuniarily better than the old system of " all work and no play." We learn from those who have long tried it, that quite as much work is got through in the week on the new half-holiday plan, both by men working by the piece, and men working by time, as waß got through on the old plan — that the men earned as large a wage as they earned on the old system, and the master makes as large a profit, while his expenses are to some small extent less than they were on the old plan. The explanation would seem to be — and it is a perfectly natural one — that, with the half-holiday in view, men will make increased exertions, which, indeed, the effect of their holiday upon their health and spirits enables them to make. And it should not be forgotten, in connection with this matter, that the Saturday half-holiday generally puts to death that old enemy of the employer, Saint Monday. We do not insist here upon the moral and religious advantage derivable to the worker by giving him a clear Sunday untroubled by the cares of the week, which it was impossible for him to enjoy under the late-hour system described above ; but we commend this consideration to the conscience of every employer.