It was evident that the agitation was rapidly subsiding, and two days later I was able to administer an additional sedative; my report of January 28th, showing the progress made in Sunday relief, being at length printed, I sent out five hundred copies in various directions, feeling sure that the statements therein contained, however unavailing to such as resolutely kept their eyes shut, would have no small effect upon the more candid.
A week later I record progress:—
“April 20th.—The returns are producing their effect. I have received numerous letters congratulating me on the result.”
I also began to conjecture as to the probability of formal retractation by those, so many in number, who had assailed and misrepresented our measures in tirades, whether from the press, pulpit, at public meetings, or otherwise. My recorded summary is “I don’t expect it.” Up to that time, so far as I am aware, there had been but two retractations. Lord Ashley, in a private letter to the Postmaster-General, had declared that the country was under the greatest obligations to him for the Sunday relief already afforded. Of the journals that had attacked me one had frankly acknowledged its error. Though, doubtless, many instances of such reparation may have occurred unknown to me, it is remarkable that neither record nor memory supplies me with a third instance either then or afterwards. The one paper thus honourably distinguished is the Leeds Mercury, which had been throughout a staunch supporter of postal reform, but had too hastily yielded credence to bold and plausible allegations. The Times, which, though it was sometimes mistaken in matters of detail, had, on the whole, given highly valuable support during the late trial, published on April 25th the following admirable exposition and defence of the whole proceeding:—
“Historians and essayists delight in flattering the self-opinion of their contemporaries by extraordinary anecdotes of popular delusion in less enlightened times. A kind of indefinite satisfaction appears to be derived from contrasting the inferiority of previous generations. The confidence with which for many years together 5,000,000 English Protestants believed themselves in bodily peril from 100,000 Catholics is a favourite instance of the kind. The ‘loss of our eleven days’ is another; when, upon a simple correction of the calendar, grave divines actually lectured from the pulpit on the blasphemous wickedness of interfering with the course of time, and denounced the profanity which brought every sinner in the kingdom nearly a fortnight closer to his end. Mr. Macaulay, too, informs us that the post when first established was the object of violent invective, as a manifest contrivance of the Pope to enslave the souls of Englishmen; and most books of history or anecdote will supply stories equally notable. But we really very much doubt whether any tale of ancient times can match the exhibition of credulity which occurred in our own country, and under our own eyes, within these last twelve months.
“We need not enter upon any narrative. Every reader’s recollection will carry him back to last Christmas, when, from one end of the kingdom to the other, there was a loud and steady outcry against a projected ‘desecration of the Sabbath.’ Mr. Rowland Hill was introducing ‘sunday labour’ into this decorous and religious country. He had succeeded in inserting ‘the small end of the wedge.’ He had asked for twenty-five additional clerks on Sunday, and a few months would see this pressed labour indefinitely multiplied, and all ideas of Sabbath observance contemptuously forsworn. Such was the belief even amongst intelligent people. Meetings were held in all great towns to record a protest against the iniquity; and, when the resistance proved unsuccessful, it was plainly asserted that the national character was for ever gone. As for the promoter of the measure, he was a forsaken reprobate, who looked only to the acceleration of day-mails, without the smallest heed to the fourth commandment. We have before us at this moment a sheet of letter-paper, headed by an engraving of ‘Rowland Hill’s new Chapel, St. Martin’s-le-Grand, under which title is depicted the General Post Office on a Sunday morning, with all the symbols of unholy industry and bustle. However, the measure in question was carried out, and we will now—from the official returns on the subject—inform the reader in plain unadorned language how it originated, what it contemplated, and what it has actually brought to pass.
“More than two years ago the attention of the Post Office authorities was directed towards the means of abridging Sunday labour in the various offices, and inquiries were instituted with this object. While they were in progress, Mr. Hill succeeded to the secretaryship of a certain department, which brought the subject under his immediate care, and he promoted with all his efforts the advancement of the great end in view. Opinions were not altogether concurrent on the matter, but a step was at length taken, and on Sunday, the 6th of February, 1848, the post office at Bath was closed for money-order business on that day. The experiment succeeded, and on the 13th of August in the same year the regulation was extended to Leeds, and, six weeks later to Birmingham—still without inconvenience or complaint. Fortified by these results, the authorities conceived themselves competent to push still further their great object of abridging Sunday labour, and the arrangements above mentioned were, at the commencement of last year, extended to all offices in England and Wales, so that four hundred and fifty offices were relieved of a material portion of their Sunday duties in a single day. Three months more saw the same indulgence conceded to Ireland and Scotland, by which two hundred and thirty-four additional offices experienced the same relief.
“Pending these trials and successes, Mr. Rowland Hill conceived a plan for abridging Sunday labour still more considerably, and, indeed, to a great extent, abolishing it altogether. The duties hitherto suspended had been those of the Money Order Department alone; but a scheme was now entertained of greatly limiting Sunday deliveries, and of absolutely closing the offices between the hours of ten and five; or, in other words, from the commencement of the morning service in churches till the close of the afternoon. With this proposed limitation of deliveries was combined a regulation, long known to be desirable, for the transmission of a certain class of letters through London on a Sunday, which would, it was thought, by giving very considerable accommodation at a small cost of labour, tend to reconcile the public to the cessation of those Sunday deliveries which were now to be stopped. It was this proposal which caused the outcry. Mr. Hill asked but for the temporary service of twenty-five clerks as a present means of relieving twenty times that number; and he showed his reasons for anticipating that no measure could ultimately be more effective in abridging Sunday labour altogether than that now proposed. All this was in vain. He was, as our readers know, decried, denounced, and stigmatized as a Sabbath-breaker and apostate; although his very proposition was actually one of a well-considered series for diminishing Sunday labour throughout the kingdom.
“Now, let the results be marked, for certainly never was popular delusion more conspicuously displayed. To begin with the particular incident complained of:—Mr. Hill had always stated that the necessity for the extra labour would be brief, whereas his assailants declared that the expedient would inevitably tend to nationalize Sabbath-breaking and demoralize the whole State. On Sunday, the 28th of October, the additional force of twenty-five men was first employed; on the 6th of January following it was reduced to thirteen; on the 13th of the same month to three; and on the very next Sunday it was dispensed with altogether, having effected its objects within the space of three months. So much for the ‘evil’ done. Now let us see what good was brought by it.
“By the device and execution of these measures five hundred and seventy-six provincial post offices have experienced a total positive relief of about seven and a quarter hours each Sunday, and upwards of four thousand dependent offices have received a similar relief of about seven hours. Estimated in relation to individuals, the effect of the measures has been to give to five thousand eight hundred and twenty-nine persons an average Sunday relief of five and three-quarter hours each; that is to say, nearly six thousand people have been relieved from nearly six hours work every Sunday by the operation of a scheme which was denounced as a deliberate encouragement to Sabbath-breaking and profanity. Nor have the results ended here, for, as if to complete the exposure, the new arrangements have actually led to a discontinuance even of that existing labour which they were described as augmenting in perpetuity. The Sunday force regularly employed in the Post Office before the famous provisions of Mr. Rowland Hill’s scheme amounted to twenty-seven men. On the first day of operations under the new system this, to the scandal and horror of the public, was increased to fifty-two. To be sure some four thousand or five thousand were relieved in other quarters by the same regulation; but this little compensation was altogether overlooked in the great iniquity. But what followed? Not only was this additional force dispensed with in toto before three months had passed, but its labours had even contributed to lighten the lot of those who still remained. So well did the new arrangements act, that the work of the original force began gradually and steadily to diminish, and we are now officially told that ‘the whole Sunday force ordinarily employed in the London office will be reduced to five or six men, which, even with the addition of the ten clerks employed in the mail trains (and their duties will intrench but little on the observances of the Sunday), will make a total force of little more than half that employed before the 28th of October last.’ So that the very expedient which, notwithstanding its beneficial effects elsewhere, was obstinately condemned on the simple ground of its augmenting Sunday labour in a particular office, has actually resulted, not only in completely effecting all its proposed ends, but in diminishing by nearly one-half the identical labour which it appeared for a moment to augment.