Sunday labor

“ Should the early stoppage of all Sunday work be considered for any reason difficult if not impossible to bring about, the committee trust that it will at least be practicable to lay down the principle that Sunday labor is a serious evil which should be steadily and systematically discouraged and restricted. ”

“ It may be a more potent argument that the conversion of Sunday into a day of pleasure is likely to injure those who work hard during the week, by forcing or tempting them to work on Sunday as well. There is no doubt as to the increase of Sunday labor during recent years, and it is very largely attributable to the increase of Sunday amusements. ”

“ Parsons work on Sunday; so do their servants, and all who are engaged about their gospel-shops. Why should it be so hard then for a railway servant, a museum attendant, an art-gallery curator, or a librarian to work on Sunday? Let them rest some other day of the week as the parson does. They would be happy if they could have his "off days" even at the price of "Sunday labor."
Churches and chapels do not attract so many people as they did. There is every reason why priestly Protective laws should be broken down. It is a poor alternative to offer a working man—the church or the public-house ”

“ On the part of large industrial concerns, it is said that want of continuity would often be a cause of serious loss, while without Sunday labor repairs could never be carried out, even night-work being no adequate substitute. The number of associations which recommend the absolute prohibition of Sunday labor is small in proportion to those which advocate partial prohibition. ”

“ It is not easy to see where Christians got the right to disregard the direct command of God, to labor on the day he sanctified, and keep as sacred, a day upon which he commanded men to labor. The Sabbath of God is Saturday, and if any day is to be kept holy, that is the one, and not the Sunday of the Christian. ”

“ The former is enforced by the state, on grounds of public and general utility; the latter is enforced by theological influences for reasons claiming to be religious, and stands upon an ecclesiastical basis. The secular Sunday—the Sunday of rest from labor—is an institution aiming to promote the social welfare, appealing to the sanctions of reason, and is enforced with the discretions of commonsense, and under limits which recognize the admissibility of a certain amount of labor for the general benefit. ”

“ The importance for man and beast of the prescribed weekly rest, the sacred rights of Christian soldiers and sailors, a becoming deference to the best sentiment of a Christian people, and a due regard for the divine will demand that Sunday labor in the Army and Navy be reduced to the measure of strict necessity. ”

“ Day”; and if you are a blacksmith, you will not dare to lift a hammer for fear of conscience or the police. All of which is an admission that we regard manual labor as a sort of necessary evil, which must be done only at certain times and places. ¶ The orthodox reason for abstinence from all manual labor on Sunday is that “God made the heavens and the earth in six days and rested the seventh day”; therefore, man, created in the image of his Maker, should hold this day sacred. ”

“ Father was not niggardly of labor-saving implements, and a clotheswringer and washer and a barrel churn came along and they helped a little, but work never “lets up” on a farm. There are always three meals to get and the dishes to wash, and each day is like another so far as duties are concerned. Sunday brings little rest for housewives even in winter.
[12]
BUT into those monotonous days some pleasure came. The neighbors dropped in of a summer evening, and each Sunday we drove away to church. ”

“ He speaks of “deferring even our businesses;” but this does not necessarily imply anything more than its postponement during the hours devoted to religious services. It falls very far short of saying that labor on Sunday is a sin. But we will quote Tertullian’s next mention of Sunday observance before noticing further the words last quoted. Thus he says:—
“We count fasting or kneeling in worship on the Lord’s day to be unlawful. ”

“ Sunday Movie Theaters disregard the rights of labor.... Canon William Sheafe Chase has aptly said, "No man has the Christ spirit who wants a better time on Sunday than he is willing to give everyone else."... ”

“ Six days shalt thou [111] labour, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son.'"
"WE WORK ON SUNDAY TILL DINNER-TIME."
Vol. i. page 110.
"Why, yes, Sir; that's plain enough to be understood; but such poor folks as us can't afford to rest from labour on a Sunday."
"Do you think that God would command poor people to rest from their labour on the Sabbath, unless He knew that it would be for their good? And, besides, do you think that poverty will be admitted as an excuse for a neglect of duty? ”

“ You felt that, so far as they were concerned, Sunday began at seven o'clock Saturday evening, in front of the cashier's little lamp.
One must have lived among workingmen to realize the full charm of that one day's rest and its solemnity. Many of these poor creatures, bound fast to unhealthful trades, await the coming of the blessed Sunday like a puff of refreshing air, essential to their health and their life. ”

“ The acorn is not more obviously the parent of the oak than those two institutions of New England the parent of such masculine virtues as distinguish her sons.
Regarded merely as a day of rest from labour, the Sunday has been of great value to us. Considering the intense character of the nation, our tendency to material things, and our restless love of work, it seems as if a Moses of the nineteenth century, legislating for us, would enact two rest-days in the week, rather than one. It is a good thing that a man once a week pauses from his work, arrays himself in clean garments, and is at rest. ”

“ I and Friponnet, who are diamond jewellers, work ten hours only. My friend Cornichon, who is a goldsmith, works as long as a painter or a smith. Sunday labour used to be very general in France, but extended seldom beyond the half day; which was paid for at a higher rate. In Paris seven in eight of us used to earn money on the Sunday morning. That necessity could not be pleaded for the act, is proved by the fact, that often we did no work on Monday, but on that day spent the Sunday’s earnings. ”

“ The absolute discontinuance of Sunday work was strongly advised. “The arguments in favor of a weekly period of rest ... apply with special force in the case of boys and girls; they are less fitted to resist the strain of unrelieved toil, and are more quickly affected by monotony of work.... It is greatly to be hoped that all Sunday work will shortly be completely stopped.” ”

“ The secret of it is, that they leave the six working days outside the Sabbath as far possible; but they take as much as they can of the Sabbath lessons into the week days' work to cheer them onward.
Leaning against the door-post of the next shop is the too industrious master of it. He cannot spare himself the Sunday, and, though he puts up part of the shutters during morning hours, as a sort of compliment to the day of rest, you can see all the goods in tempting array within. ”

“ Eat, work and sleep is the ancient trinity of slavery. The modern life demands leisure; the opportunity for enjoyment and self-improvement. How it is best to be secured is a question about which there is a variety of opinions. One of the plans to give the workingman more time for himself is that of the Saturday half-holiday. We see no particular advantage in this over the eight-hour-for-a-day's-work plan.
It seems to us that if laborers worked eight hours a day and had Sunday for a holiday instead of a holy day, all their requirements would be better answered than in any other way. ”

“ Sunday, with its immunity from work, was devised for slaves who got out of all the work they could during the week. ”

“ We have preserved our Sabbath through all the persecutions and sufferings which we have endured in the past centuries. Our Sabbath is as dear to us as life itself, and now it is endangered by the laws of this free land. We cannot afford to close our stores on both Saturday and Sunday. Sunday used to be one of the best days of the week for business. It is the first day of the week with us. It is the day after our Sabbath, when every household needs a new supply of food. ”

“ Nearly every poor man’s market does its Sunday trade. For a few hours on the Sabbath morning, the noise, bustle, and scramble of the Saturday night are repeated, and but for this opportunity many a poor family would pass a dinnerless Sunday. ”

“ Every day, that is, but Sunday. On Sunday morning a smell of cooking floats round the corner from the half-shut baker's, and the little feet trot down the street under steaming burdens of beef, potatoes, and batter pudding—the lucky little feet these, with Sunday boots on them, when father is in good work and has brought home all his money; not the poor little feet in worn shoes, carrying little bodies in the threadbare clothes of all the week, when father is out of work, or ill, or drunk, and the Sunday cooking may very easily be done at home,—if any there be to do. ”

“ If the Sunday employment exceeds three hours, or prevents the workpeople from attending Divine worship, a rest of 36 hours must be given to such workpeople every third Sunday, or they must be free every second Sunday from 6 a.m. ”

“ Wednesday and Thursday, day work only. On Friday morning till Saturday night, the same labour repeated, with the same intermissions as endured on Monday, Monday night, and Tuesday; only the labour of the last day closed at five, when the poor wretches were dismissed. The ensuing day, Sunday, must, under such circumstances, be a day of stupor, to rouse the children from which would often only be to continue their physical sufferings, without the possibility of compensating them with any moral good. ”

“ Many workmen are not even given the night for sleeping, for in many factories the night force succeeds that on duty in the daytime. We may read in the holy Scriptures that a day has been set aside for rest, but this does not prevent Sunday from being a day of work under the capitalistic system, even though we are supposed to be living in a Christian society. ”

“ Tell men the Sunday is made for man, and they will use it for its highest use. Tell them man is made for it, and they will war on it as a tyrant. I should be sorry to see the Sunday devoted to common work; sorry to hear the clatter of a mill, or the rattle of the wheels of business on that day. I look with pain on men engaged needlessly in work on that day; not with the pain of wounded superstition, but a deeper regret. I would not water my garden with perfumes when common water was at hand. We shall always have work enough in America ”

“ Most of the men, however, lie in shirt and trousers on their beds and read the Sunday paper; while some are driven forth—for they hinder the housework—to loaf, and await the opening of the beer-shop round the corner. Thus goes Sunday in this street, and every Sunday is the same as every other Sunday, so that one monotony is broken with another. For the women, however, Sunday is much as other days, except that there is rather more work for them. ”

“ Cleanliness might do much, but they are too crowded together, the streets are too narrow, and the rooms too small, to admit of their ever being rendered desirable habitations. They work very hard all the week. We know that the effect of prolonged and arduous labour, is to produce, when a period of rest does arrive, a sensation of lassitude which it requires the application of some stimulus to overcome. What stimulus have they? Sunday comes, and with it a cessation of labour. ”

“ Well, perhaps every subject is a wide range; but if there are any exceptions, it’s on subjects not known to a busy man like me, who is occupied from morning till night every week day. The only worldly labour I do on a Sunday is to take my family’s dinner to the bake-house, bring it home after chapel, and read Lloyd’s Weekly. I’ve had Bibles—the backs are taken off in the waste trade, or it wouldn’t be fair weight—Testaments, Prayer-books, Companions to the Altar, and Sermons and religious works. ”

“ There is the eternal bugbear of religion to oppose this scheme, but that is all. The minister, who under free trade on Sunday would be obliged to close up his business, is in favor of a Sabbath law of protection for sermons and prayers, but why should a few clergymen who have six holidays in the week and only one work-day, be favored against millions of toilers, who work six days in the week and are liable to be arrested if they do not go [pg 206] to church on the seventh day? Not a Saturday half-holiday but a Sunday whole-holiday is the first rational step towards justice to the working-man. ”

“ The labour of the men who depend entirely on 'the slaughter-houses' for the purchase of their articles is usually seven days a week the year through. That is, seven days—for Sunday-work is all but universal—each of thirteen hours, or ninety-one hours in all; while the established hours of labour in the 'honourable trade' are six days of the week, each of ten hours, or sixty hours in all. ”

“ The workingmen owe their work to the establishment which pays them; it is as much their interest as their duty. [Pg 165] The result of laziness and intemperance is misery. We cannot enough deplore the use of what is called the Mondays—a day of rest over and beyond the legitimate and necessary Sunday. It is certain that one day of rest in a week is absolutely a necessity. No man can nor ought (except in circumstances unavoidable) work without interruption the whole year through. ”