church I asked the
Englishwoman, who had a strong sense of humour, whether she had slept
well. 'Yes,' she said, laughing, 'it did me a lot of good.' 'But why
do you go?' I said. 'Oh, my dear,' said she, 'what can one do? It has
to be on Sundays.'

"But this narrow Sunday observance is worse for the lower than for the
upper classes. At that time the great dispute was just beginning as to
whether the people should be admitted to the Crystal Palace, to
museums, and suchlike institutions. The question was discussed in
Parliament, and decided in the negative. It was feared that the
churches would remain empty, and that morals would suffer if the
people began to like heathen gods, works of art and natural
curiosities, better than going to church. At least, this is the only
explanation one can give of such a decision. The churches and the
public-houses remained the only public places open on Sundays. The
churches were all very well for a few hours in the morning, but what
about the afternoon and evening? Then the beer-house was the only
refuge for the artisan or proletarian bowed down by the weight of hard
work, unused and untaught to wile away the idle hours of Sunday in any
intellectual occupation, and having no friendly attractive home to
make the peace of his own hearth the best refreshment after the
exhausting week. And so it turned out: the public-houses were full to
overflowing, and the holiness of Sunday was only too often desecrated
by the unholy sight of drunken men and, more horrible still, drunken
women; but this was not all, for so strong was the temptation thrust
upon them, that the workman's hardly earned week's wages went in
drink, and the children were left without bread and not a penny was
saved to lighten future distress. The coarse animal natures of the
only half-human beings became coarser and more animal through the
degrading passion for drink that only too often has murder in its
train, and murder in its most terrible and brutal guise!"

There is not one idea or argument in this passage that I have not
heard over and over again from the lips of every German who has
anything to say about our English Sunday, and every German who has
been in England or heard much of English life invariably attacks what
he considers this weak joint in our armour.

"What is the use?" he asks, "of going to church in the morning if you
get drunk and beat your wife at night?"

"But the same man does not usually do both thi