A NATIONAL 1Ff A IF-HOLYDAY FOR EXERCISE.
A FRIEND who is endeavouring to organize a -Rifle Club in the -Korth of England encounters a difficulty, which the promoters of other clubs must also feel—he cannot at once discern the fitting time for weekly exercise. Anciently in England the time for manly exercises was the Sunday, when the village folk col- lected, in their leisure, on the green ; and it was thus that the 'ce of archery was kept to the standard of public emulation. it is thus too that the national exercise of rifle-shooting, which is at once the amusement, the business, and the independence of Switzerland, is kept up to the standard. But in our country- and our day the Sunday is tabooed against such uses. Religions scruples first forbade it to secular purposes, and now our customs and habits are so formed as to put it out of the question. On the other hand, among large sections of our busy people Sunday is the only day of leisure. What time, then, to choose for a purpose so laudable, so necessary, and in more than the classic sense so pious? It has been proposed to cut the gordian knot, by restoring the active uses of the .Sunday on the strength of the necessity and the piety ; for the art of defence would be employed in shielding our Protestant institutions as well as our persons and property. It was thought that the middle of the day, after Divine service, might have been thus used. But—though pitched battles, by sea and land, have been fought on the Sabbath-day without scruple— it would be impossible to obtain authoritative sanction for peaceful exercise and training • nor does it seem to us needful. There is one portion of time which is already in part disengaged—the latter half of Saturday. "Short time " has set it free in factory districts ; commercial men have made great strides in returning to the example of our schools and making it "half-holyday" ; and no purpose to extend the observance of that secular half-holyday could be at once so useful and so fitting as the manly exercise of -militia or volunteer corps. There would be manifest advantages in fixing a general day for the exercise ; and if it would help to fix the holyday as a national custom, so much the better. Another change in our customs, though a slight one, seems ne- cessary to render this restored practice complete—the payment of wages on Friday evening instead of Saturday. Needy employers might throw some difficulty in the way of that change ' • but the ,:steady example of the better class would compel the others to fol- low. The transfer of pay-day is recommended by all who are in- terested in the sobriety of the Sabbath, or in the improved economy of the working classes ; for it would place the wages of the work- ing man in the hands of his housekeeper before the suspension of work had subjected him to a Saturday night's temptations. We 'believe that these, as well as other considerations for the con- venience of the working classes, have already induced many em- ployers to effect the transfer, which would be necessary to get the latter half of Saturday perfectly free. Two other modes in which the Saturday afternoon practice is likely to give a healthier tone to the manners of the working classes are—the providing an amusement of a creditable kind, in which emulation before the assembled elders and belles of the dis- Viet may make our young men feel a happy pride in bodily vigour and excellences not of a deliesing order ; and the presence of the sentry as sharers and leaders, not simply in the way of a patron- tam& and didactic benevolence, but in the way of real business and participation. The contemplated practice-holyday might be made to restore to our social intercourse some of the happiest feelings and incidents of a national recreation." •
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