Now, I ask, is it not ridiculous, on the face of it, that an Act of Parliament should be set aside, because a bachelor finds, once upon a time, the door of his favourite hotel shut in his face; or because a Templar says he can’t dine till near the time for evening service, – though, for the life of me, I can’t see why he cannot; or because the father of a family finds his beer is flat: yet this is all the complaint I find, even in the Daily News. We are told the working men are robbed of their rights. I don’t find the working men complain, – why should they? They know better than that. The law, as it stands, allows the working man to get all the beer he wants; and if you turn to the evidence lately given before a Committee of the House of Commons, you will find that the working classes are in favour of the change, and that many of them, even the most drunken and dissipated, feel that it would be a good thing if the public-houses could be closed altogether on Sundays. Many of the most respectable publicans in the metropolis gave similar evidence before the same Committee. All the moral and decent people in the country are of a similar opinion. The Provost of Edinburgh shows that when Forbes Mackenzie’s Act came into operation in Edinburgh drunkenness and crime decreased; that when the magistrates allowed it to fall into abeyance, drunkenness and crime increased. Evidence was read before the Committee, by the Rev. Mr. Baylee, to show that some years since a great reformation had been effected by the partial closing of public-houses, and Mr. Balfour showed how the metropolis had improved in this respect within the last few years. The question is, Is this improvement to be continued? No one expects to make men moral by Act of Parliament; no one expects the policeman to take the parson’s place; but when we see a great good done, – when we see a fruitful source of crime and poverty and disease arrested, are we to pause because a Templar cannot dine till evening service, or because the father of a family complains that his beer is flat? I forgot the publicans: are they to stop the way? I trust not. It is nonsense to say the working-man is deprived of his beer; he is not. All the beer a man needs he can buy now. The public-houses are allowed to be open sufficiently for that purpose. It is clear what the publicans are fighting for; the welfare of the working-man is a mere pretence, – the rights of Englishmen is a mere pretence, – they want to sell more beer, – to sell the beer that shall intoxicate; all that the new Bill seeks to do is to prevent a man sitting all Sunday night in a public-house, spending his last shilling there, and thus robbing his wife and family of that which should feed and clothe and maintain them during the week. The publicans themselves confess the Sunday trade is an abominable one. More than one publican, examined before the Committee, confessed this to be the case. The evidence of Mr. Wayland, the Marylebone City missionary, and others, all went to show that it is the Sunday drinking that does so much harm, and that was the effect of the late hours at which public-houses were allowed to be kept open.