Chapter VII: The Passing of the Puritan Sabbath

IN the course of the decades of which I am writing, London became the centre of a silent, gradual, irresistible, and altogether welcome revolution. It witnessed the passing away of the Puritan Sabbath and the evolution of the Rational Sunday. So quietly did the change evolve itself that no man could mark the hour or the year of its completion. But the historian of the passing moment, the working journalist of the period affected, had at all events a unique opportunity of noting the events which led to our gradual emergence from the national gloom generated in these islands more than three centuries ago.

London in the sixties and early seventies was the saddest and most gloomy capital in Europe. In the morning church bells clanged over empty streets. An expression of misery might be read on the faces of the few hurrying pedestrians. A curious silence pervaded the thoroughfares. At the hours for repairing to church or chapel, sad-faced men and women, and demure little hypocrites of boys and girls in stiff Sunday best, made dutiful marches. After church came the awful midday meal of roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, and apple tart. The afternoon was usually devoted to sleep.

The proletariat as a rule remained in bed until the public-houses opened. Crowds of soddened creatures, suffering yet from the effects of Saturday night’s carousals, clustered round the doors of the gin-palaces, eager to obtain “a hair of the dog that bit them.” When at last the portals did open, a clamorous congregation besieged the bars, and one beheld, perhaps, the origin of the phrase which tells of those who do “a roaring trade.” In the Seven Dials, in Clare Market, across the water in Southwark and Blackfriars, the “pub” proclaimed itself as the most popular institution in all England. It is quite impossible for the younger generation to picture the scenes that were witnessed on Sunday nights just before and just after closing hour at these houses of refreshment. At that time Great Britain might easily have boasted of being the most drunken nation in the world. As the doors of the taverns swung open to admit or to vomit forth a votary, one caught a glimpse of pictures Hogarthian in their stark and shameless debauchery. I can recall even now the gust of hot, pestilent air that issued out, and caught the throat and nose of the passing citizen; the clamorous boom of a hundred excited conversations pierced and punctuated by the shrill declamation and hysterical shriek of women—sometimes suckling their young in the mephitic miasma of a moral hell.

And who can blame them? They had no other resource. Here, at least, they might woo a temporary forgetfulness. By hereditary custom amusement was taboo for ever for them and for their children. So they slept on a Sabbath during the close time for publicans, and then they proceeded in droves to their favourite houses of call, there to make beasts of themselves. The streets of London on Sunday night, when the time arrived for the eviction of the publican’s customers into the night, presented a sad spectacle. In some parts of the Metropolis the scenes enacted were a disgrace to even what small civilization existed in those regions. Brawls, assaults, free fights, licence, “language,” brought to a lurid close the hours of the holy day.

Thus the proletariat. And the more favoured classes—how of them? Well, they were—or such of them as were acquainted with Fellows of the Zoological Society—at liberty to visit the Zoo! By a great many worthy persons even this educational diversion was regarded with extreme disfavour. And I have known a father of a family, a gentleman of position, a person of business aptitudes, and in the ordinary affairs of life accredited with more than his share of common-sense, refuse to permit his daughters to make use of Fellows’ tickets admitting to the Gardens on Sunday. Quite gravely—and quite honestly, I believe—he explained his action on the ground that a visit to the Zoo on Sunday was a breach of the Commandment which adjures us to “keep holy the Sabbath day.” How many fathers would adopt that course to-day? And supposing the paternal prohibition were uttered, how many daughters do you suppose would regard it? The fact that rest may also mean recreation has become an article of the Londoner’s creed. The parks are now provided with excellent bands. The environs of the city are supplied with golf-links. The lawn-tennis courts of the suburbs are used on Sundays by those to whom the Sabbath is, perhaps, the only day in the week on which they can be sure of a game. In the evening there are concerts. The innocent gaiety of Society is catered for at a hundred West End restaurants and hotels. While the bike and the motor have taken roving Londoners farther afield for their well-earned seventh-day cessation from work. The Puritan Sabbath has died the death. The Rational Sunday has come to stay.

And what were the causes—immediate and remote—which have led up to this very important and desirable result? It was not effected by any systematic preaching of a propaganda. Moral and social reforms are not secured in that way. Politicians, keen to observe the tendency of public taste, sometimes attempt to run with it, and then accept the honour of having created it. Perhaps in the whole history of legislation no more delightful instance of this has been afforded than in some of the enactments of the Administration. They brought in a measure of spoliation called a Licensing Bill, and they included in their Finance Bill a crushing tax on spirits. The avowed object of both measures was declared by their authors to be to stamp out the curse of drink. Chadband himself never rose to such heights of hypocrisy, or uttered, with Puritan unction, such atrocious cant. The moment selected by Mr. Asquith and his friends for making Great Britain sober was the moment when it had become patent to the world that Great Britain had grown sober on its own account!

The efforts of the Sunday League must not be omitted in any attempt to assign their places to the influences at work in the emancipation of the English from the slavery of the Puritan Sabbath. The League came forward at what is called “the psychological moment” to supply a demand which the growing intelligence of the people had created. The first great impetus given to the rational observance of a seventh day was given by the general adoption of the bike by the youth of both sexes. This easy, safe, quick, and inexpensive mode of transit gave almost immediate pretext for revolt against the ancient domestic enactments. The call of the long white roads sounded in the ears of the boys and girls. Wider vistas opened up before them. Inaccessible places were brought near. Even the attractions of the Sunday dinner of roast beef no longer allured those who wished to be early afield. The roadster triumphed. The old restrictions were swept away like cobwebs.

Another factor in the silent revolution was the lure of the Thames. This, indeed, began to call to the jaded senses of the overworked Londoner at an earlier date than that of the invitation of the bike. In the early seventies I have sculled from Kingston up to Sunbury Lock on a Sunday afternoon without meeting more than a dozen other craft. And during those same years I have idled between Marlow Bridge and Temple Lock without encountering a skiff on the whole reach. The fatuous fisherman, indeed, attached his unwieldy punt to the ripecks stuck in the river-bed, and invented fish stories while he waited for the infrequent bite. Save for him the upper reaches were deserted. The beauties of the river discovered themselves for him and for the swans.

To-day the Thames has become the River of Pleasure. Music floats from club lawns; every reach from Richmond up to Wargrave is joyous with the laughter from skiffs and punts and launches. The locks, ever filling and emptying, give entrance and egress to as many river craft on this one day as in earlier times passed in the whole three hundred and sixty-five. There is a line of house-boats on nearly every reach, and from beneath their awnings, white or striped or apple green, there come the strumming of the banjo and the pop of the champagne cork. On the lawns sloping from week-end houses to the stream happy groups assemble. The men in flannels, the girls in white and cream-coloured fabrics, make for the tennis-courts or for the flotilla moored to the landing-stage in which the lawn meets the river. Yes; in any attempt to assign the causes which were instrumental in banishing the Puritan Sabbath from London, the Thames must be accorded a place of honour. The Thames first showed the Londoner the way out. And the motor car continued and extended the exodus.

It must not be supposed that the old order was permitted to yield place to new without a word of protest here and there. Among other of the many remonstrants were the Reverend and Right Reverend Fathers in God forming the Upper House of Convocation. The action of this episcopal court brings me to the point at which the Press touches the question, and renders this matter of Sunday observance germane to the general scheme of my book.

Singular as it may appear, the original factor which set the Upper House of Convocation reflecting on the matter was an article by Mr. “Jimmy” Davis in his own paper, the _Bat_. That a gentleman of the Jewish faith should have succeeded in influencing the episcopal chiefs of the English Christians may, on the first blush of it, appear strange. But it is not more strange than the other fact that some of those very Bishops owed their preferment to a Jewish Prime Minister. The whole incident of Jimmy’s interposition, and its results, make an interesting story, though a long one, I am afraid. At this juncture, then, let me address you, who have followed me thus far, in the words that appear in the middle of the stodgy parts of Carlyle’s “Frederick the Great”: “Courage, reader!”

While freedom was thus making for itself wider boundaries, Jimmy Davis was very much in the movement. And being in the movement, he would naturally take an interest in the Pelican Club, which was the most advanced, unconventional, and at times rowdy, protest that had so far been made against the tyranny of Mrs. Grundy. Although I was a member of the Pelican Club myself, I do not remember whether Davis was. Nor need I take the trouble to make inquiries, as the fact does not affect my narrative. Probably he was _not_. For the institution was founded by a gentleman who had at one time been in his employ in an inferior capacity. Certainly I never met him on the premises.

The Pelican Club was founded by Mr. Ernest Wells—familiarly known as “Swears-and-Swells.” Its membership was composed chiefly of rapid men-about-town, and its principal functions were given on Sunday nights. These were concerts at which the comic element preponderated, and boxing contests conducted in a properly-appointed ring. Suitable premises were secured in Denman Street, a shy thoroughfare close to Piccadilly Circus. The place had formerly been used as the factory of a carriage-builder. The ground-floor was very spacious and very lofty, and in every way was adapted to its new purposes. There was a gallery above, off which opened card-rooms, bedrooms, and other apartments. A bar was fitted up close to the entrance, and the whole place was soon transformed into an extremely bright and cheery institution. Having secured the premises and decided on the lines on which the institution was to be run, there remained for the enterprising founder the important question of obtaining members.

Mr. Wells called in to his assistance Mr. “Willie” Goldberg. A word or two concerning that remarkable little man may not be out of place. John Corlett and Reggie Brooks were taking a walk one day in the neighbourhood of Maidstone, when they came on the encouraging spectacle of a small man sitting by the roadside, and sniggering over the front page of Corlett’s newspaper. The sight was so agreeable and flattering to the wayfarers that they stopped to inquire into the exact source of the stranger’s mirth. The conversation thus commenced ended in the engagement of the small man on the staff of the _Pink ’Un_. And it turned out to be one of the best engagements that Corlett ever made. Goldberg was a ’Varsity man, his career at Oxford having been, if not brilliant, at least much more than respectable. When he left the University, he obtained a Government appointment, which, in his own phrase, he “chucked.” When encountered by Corlett on a Kentish highway, he was just idling along. He was a born Bohemian, and he idled along until the day of his death.

Now, when Goldberg joined Corlett’s staff, the paper to which he was called upon to contribute was the favourite periodical literature of what constituted the rapid section of Society. And Goldberg not only catered, in his way, for the literary thirst of men-about-town, but he became personally identified with that contingent out of doors. The “Johnnies,” the “mashers,” the “rowdy-dowdy boys,” the “sports,” of the joyous days made much of him. Indeed, they made so much of him that he went to his grave a good quarter of a century before there was any absolute necessity for making that journey.

Here, then, was the man for Ernest Wells. Goldberg was in a position not only to introduce members, but to “boom” the enterprise in the Press. “Willie” at first showed himself coy. But the offer of a share in the concern proved an irresistible lure. An agreement was drawn up, and the Pelican Club became the joint property of Ernest Wells and William Goldberg. The latter gentleman at once set himself to the task of collecting members. And the collection which he succeeded in making as a nucleus certainly promised something in the way of clubs that the West End had yet seen. There were Major “Bob” Hope Johnstone, “Hughie” Drummond of the Stock Exchange, his brother Archie Drummond of the Scots Guards, Captain Fred Russell, “Billy” Fitzwilliam, the Marquis of Queensberry, “Kim” Mandeville (afterwards Duke of Manchester), Arthur Roberts the comedian, and the brothers Horn—not the boxers of that name, but a couple of rich young men.

From such a start the club naturally grew in numbers, and made for itself exactly the sort of reputation which the proprietors desired. Denman Street became the liveliest comer in the swagger end of London. Boxing contests on a Sunday night hit the imagination of the town. A certain general curiosity was excited. Membership, which was restricted, was eagerly sought. The shekels came rolling in. The Pelican, it was believed, had come to stay.

When the success of the new institution was at its height, “Jimmy” Davis contributed to the columns of the _Bat_ an article on “The Sunday Amusements of the Rich.” Of course, the whole thing was conceived in a mood of extreme cynicism, and Davis wrote the article with his tongue in his cheek. It was strange enough that Davis should write such an article. For what, after all, could it matter to a Jew how the Gentiles amused themselves on a Sunday? But it was still more strange that an article appearing in the columns of a paper which did not enjoy the very sweetest of reputations, should have vexed the righteous minds of the Episcopal Bench, and caused the subject of “Jimmy’s” article to be debated in the Upper House of Convocation.

And it was strange, too—in its way—that, when the debate was set down for hearing, I, a member of the Pelican Club, should have been deputed by the editor of an evening paper to attend Convocation, and write a more or less graphic description of the historic debate. My experience of the Upper House of Convocation, while assuring me that its members possessed quite a respectable amount of debating power, also convinced me that their deliberations were academic merely, and that the Bishops were terribly out of touch with actualities. The conditions under which the “House” sat were not conducive to those illusions which the laity should cherish regarding the episcopacy. Their lordships met in a dining-room on the first-floor of a house in Dean’s Yard, Westminster. A striped wall-paper was adorned at gaping intervals with engravings from Millais and Landseer. The furniture was mid-Victorian. A long telescope-table filled the middle of the room. Round this board sat the Bishops, presided over by the Archbishop of Canterbury, who took his place at the top of the table. Had their lordships not been robed in billowing white, with lawn sleeves, doctors’ hoods, and decorated with episcopal signets, the idea conveyed to the mind of the casual observer would have been that of a group of commercial travellers assembled in the commercial room of a country hotel waiting for the one o’clock ordinary. In the embrasure of a window looking out on to Dean’s Yard a table was placed for the reporters. The general public was, of course, rigorously excluded. Arrangements were made only for a certain number of reporters—six, I think, was the limit. And it had been necessary to arrange for the absence of one of these gentlemen, so that I, who unfortunately have never mastered shorthand, might be present. From my coign of vantage in the embrasure I could see some Westminster schoolboys playing in the enclosure. Their shrilling shouts punctuated the earlier deliberations of their lordships. Besides ourselves of the Press and the members of the Upper House of Convocation, the only other person present was Sir John Hassard, the courteous Registrar. His chief duty seemed to be that of ushering the gentlemen of the Press in and out of this hopelessly bourgeois Upper Chamber. And this was a ceremony of frequent occurrence. When their lordships considered that the trend of the debate made it desirable that strangers should retire, the Archbishop looked over to us, smiled benevolently, and observed: “If you please, gentlemen.” It reminded me of Ponsford’s early morning admonition to customers supping late at the Albion. We rose. Sir John preceded us to the door, opened it, and bowed us out. Presently—their lordships having concluded their private colloquy—he came out to us in the passage, and ushered us in again.

To me the surroundings, coupled with the irreverent and openly familiar attitude of the chief of my colleagues, came as a shock. I had anticipated that the Upper House would have sat in some gilded chamber of their own, or perhaps in one of the chapels of the Abbey. I had imagined myself, as the representative of the profane vulgar, sitting hidden away in some lofty gallery. But here I was hobnobbing with the Bishops, as it were. It was a sense of unsolicited intimacy that possessed me. And when I reflected that I was one of the very persons whose conduct was under debate, I had the further sensation of being a spy in the camp. Mr. Basil Cook, the chief of the staff reporting in Convocation, was disturbed by none of these scruples, and when he noticed that a Bishop was speaking from a written document, he went up to the venerable orator at the conclusion of his speech, and boldly asked him for his notes. In one case, indeed, the intrepid man seemed to collar the ecclesiastic’s notes by force.

Of the debate nothing remains in my memory save the speech of the Bishop of Winchester. Tall, gaunt, marked down even then by Death, Harold Browne proved himself intellectually as well as physically head and shoulders above his brethren. His words were weighty, well chosen, impressive. His message was one of grave reproval. He deplored the introduction of the topic. He warned Convocation of the danger of registering its views in resolutions of the House. Resolutions which were foredoomed as inoperative, he argued, must stultify them as a high deliberative assembly. But the warnings of My Lord of Winchester fell on deaf ears. Their lordships were out after the Sunday amusements of the rich. They were not to be balked of their sport. They passed their resolutions. And from that hour the rich have gone on extending the scope and scenes of their Sunday amusements.

Of my own descriptive account of the proceedings, of course, I say nothing. But Sala made it the text of one of his inimitable essays. His comments, I remember, concluded with these words:

“It may interest these Reverend and Right Reverend Fathers in God to know that the resolutions which they have just registered will have about as much influence on the Sunday amusements of the rich as a similar set of resolutions passed by the Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes.”

Very soon indeed the Church discovered that, there being no hope of stemming the tide, their only chance was to make things easy and agreeable for those who were borne along by it. Accommodation for bicycles was announced here and there by a far-seeing Vicar—temporarily characterized as a “crank.” And in villages down by the banks of the Thames, Rectors began to intimate that visitors in flannels were welcome to worship. Sunday clubs multiplied on the banks of “Sweete Temmes.” Sunday golf clubs were established on a thousand links. The introduction of the automobile has precipitated matters. The word “rest” has had appointed to it the only reasonable interpretation. And the twentieth century Anno Domini has definitely declined to be bound any longer by an enactment forced on a nomadic and unruly crowd by a Jewish leader who “flourished” nearly twenty centuries before Christ.

It is interesting to note that this consummation was helped forward by the ill-advised action of a bench of Bishops. And it is amusing to remember that their lordships were acting on the initiative of a man-about-town, of Hebrew extraction, who personally did not care a cent for the observance either of the Jewish Sabbath or of the Christian Sunday.

The Pelican Club was not a very long-lived institution. The founder had not taken into account the gradual nature of all processes of evolution. He had gone too fast and too far. There was, indeed, a growing feeling in the public mind that the observance of Sunday as ordained was irrational. But the vast majority of those who confessed to that frame of mind would contend that to watch boxing contests and listen to comic songs in a hot and crowded arena was a still more irrational manner of keeping the Sabbath. The movement was toward outdoor exercise, healthy recreation, fresh air, and the open road.

When the Pelican Club ceased, it was for a short space reincarnated as the “Barn Club.” The constitution, ownership, and membership, were practically identical with those of the earlier venture. Here, however, the building was erected by Wells. He was free from the demands of a landlord, which in Denman Street had increased in exact proportion to his own growing prosperity. The new premises were in Gerrard Street, Soho. And I understand that the founder made rather a profitable deal when he disposed of the building to an electric lighting company or to a telephone company—which was it?

The name of the Pelican Club still persists in the title of a theatrical paper conducted by Mr. Frank Boyd. Never before, I should imagine, was a journalistic success achieved at so small an expenditure of either brains or capital. But Frank was ever a canny man; he understood the small public for whom he catered, gave them, at small cost, what he considered good for them, became that enviable personage the owner of a paying newspaper property, and so continueth even unto this day.

Boyd sanctified his association with the stage by marrying Miss Agnes Hewitt, a well-known actress who is understood to supply her husband with his Society gossip and his latest fashions. His original ties were rather with the Church than with the Stage. He was the son of Dr. A. K. H. Boyd, of St. Andrews, author of “The Recreations of a Country Parson”—the “Boyd that writes” of Carlyle’s famous sneer.

The passing of the Puritan sabbath has conferred benefits also on those who are entirely out of sympathy with the new order of things, and who still patronize the institution of public worship to the extent of attending church or chapel twice or even thrice on Sunday. The priests and the pastors have awakened to the fact that if they would retain their congregations they must give them bright, cheery services, and sermons which, if not eloquent or convincing, shall at least be interesting and intelligent.

Huxley flung a gibe at the “corybantic Christianity” of General Booth. But “corybantic Christianity” has held the proletariat by substituting one sort of excitement for another. And the great middle classes can only be kept in leash for a while longer by music and oratory of a kind which, a century since, our militant Protestant forbears would surely have regarded as, in themselves, grievous acts of Sabbath-breaking.

Sabbath-breaking, quotha! The Sabbath set up by the dour, morose, uncharitable religionists of my childhood has been broken into bits, nor will all the skilled science of enthusiastic collectors ever piece it together again.