SUNDAY LABOUR.
Sin—Overpowered by the assurance with which your correspondent "I. B." advances his charges against me, I have been studiously but vainly endeavouring to find out where my "ignorance if not cant" consists. In- deed I cannot fully understand what he means himself. Is it his object to assert that the bandsman, having "easy work and good wages," and being generally one of the . " population," younger part of the pulation," requires some inno- cent employment to keep him from the greatest of all contaminators— idleness "? If so, there is decided—I will not say wilful—ignorance on 3. B.'s part. For fourteen shillings a week for discharging all his military duties, can hardly be constituted the "good wages" of an experienced artist under martial law, and with little chance of any promotion ! The generality of bandsmen do not =slat of the "younger part of the population," but of men in the very vigour of their manhood. Being unable to support a wife and family (youths do not generally have such appendages !) on this pittance, they have to resort to theatres and places of amusement, where they often play every evening less or more from seven o'clock until twelve. This continued night-playing makes fearful in- roads on the constitutions of even the strongest men. And as they play se- lections from the classic masters nearly every day in the week, it is hardly necessary to repeat the dose on Sunday, even with the charitable view of im- proving their morals.
Where, may I ask J. B. is my "ignorance if not cant " ? Let him read his own letter again comparing the statements there made with the real facts of the case ; and I ink he will claim ignorance as his own due. Can there be " cant " in wishing bandsmen fellow creatures the same enjoyment of the "day of rest" as I possess myself ?—in wishing them to enjoy that
i sacred day n the bosom of their families, or in those friendly convivialities which keep up fraternity amongst the working classes ? Why, then, make them play at all on the "day of rest "? FAIR PLAY,
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