LEAVE. FIRST READING. (Hansard, 19 February 1867)

§ MR. THOMAS HUGHES

, in asking for leave to bring in a Bill to amend the Laws relating to Selling and Hawking Goods on Sundays, said, the law affecting Sunday trading was universally admitted to be in a most unsatisfactory state. The present law was passed in the 29th year of the reign of Charles II., and was an attempt to make people perform their religious duties by Act of Parliament. It prohibited the selling of all goods on a Sunday, with the single exception of milk. Of course, there were many other perishable articles that it was necessary to sell on a Sunday, but they were omitted. The result was that the law had became a dead letter. The penalties were forfeiture of the goods, and a fine of 5s. for the whole of the day's sales; but as the goods were mostly meat and vegetables, and were generally consumed immediately after they were sold, the forfeiture could not be exacted, while the penalty of 5s. was so small that it was totally disregarded by those who made a profit by vending goods on the Sunday. There was a very strong desire throughout the country for some legislation upon the subject that would place the law on a more satisfactory footing, and he had that evening received a petition to which 10,000 signatures were attached, asking the House to legislate on this question. Before bringing forward the present Bill, he had felt it his duty to go to different places in the metropolis where Sunday trading was rife, and he had found that in the New Cut, Clare Market, Petticoat Lane, and Moorfields there were regular markets for the sale of goods. In proof of the fact that the goods exposed for sale were not restricted to perishable articles, he might state that in Moorfields he had been offered a pair of bull pups, which, he thought, could hardly come within the ordinary acceptation of the term perishable. In fact, Sunday trading was increasing considerably, and if the House thought it worth while to keep the Sunday, regarding it merely as a civil institution, and not from a religious point of view, as a day of rest, it was high time legislation should take place on the subject. The provisions of the Bill he asked to bring in were two-fold. He had endeavoured to specify those trades the carrying on of which it was desirable to allow upon the Sunday, as well as the hours during which 654 certain articles might be sold on that day. The Bill did not touch a question which had been agitated before—the sale of liquors on the Sunday, and its operation would be confined to towns of a population of 10,000 and upwards. A clause imposing on the police the duty of carrying out the provisions, which was supposed to make the measure less desirable than it otherwise would be, had been removed from the Bill.