HOW TO SAVE THE HOLYDAY.
PEOPLE are just now tantalized with some little speculations about holydays lost and to be won. First, Christmas-day falls on a Sunday, and that is clearly a bolyday lost. But then there is some hope of getting it back by bargain with all the several dis- pensers of holydays, from the Privy Council to the charity- schoolmaster and the master-tradesman. The case of the work- people is hard : they look for this chiefest of holydays, sacred to family reunions, as a right—but now it is merged in a common Sunday. It is proposed to give them the Monday instead. They are to have it in the dockyards ; and if it is not the custom in the Government offices generally, it should be, for the sake of the example. But Government have it in their power to settle the question in a very summary manner. It is said that there is to be a holyday in celebration of the peace with China ; and a corres- pondent of' the Times suggests that it should be fixed for the Mon- day after Christmas-day. That would determine the matter for the present. The question will not recur for eleven years; by which time, possibly, people may have learned that holydays among an overworked people do not always hinder business, and that just as much work may be got through as the country needs, though a holyday is not withdrawn on an average every six years.
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