There is a penalty for keeping open, houses of entertainment. Now,
suppose the bill had passed, and that half-a-dozen adventurous
licensed victuallers, relying upon the excitement of public feeling
on the subject, and the consequent difficulty of conviction (this
is by no means an improbable supposition), had determined to keep
their houses and gardens open, through the whole Sunday afternoon,
in defiance of the law. Every act of hiring or working, every act
of buying or selling, or delivering, or causing anything to be
bought or sold, is specifically made a separate offence--mark the
effect. A party, a man and his wife and children, enter a tea-
garden, and the informer stations himself in the next box, from
whence he can see and hear everything that passes. 'Waiter!' says
the father. 'Yes. Sir.' 'Pint of the best ale!' 'Yes, Sir.'
Away runs the waiter to the bar, and gets the ale from the
landlord. Out comes the informer's note-book--penalty on the
father for hiring, on the waiter for delivering, and on the
landlord for selling, on the Lord's day. But it does not stop
here. The waiter delivers the ale, and darts off, little
suspecting the penalties in store for him. 'Hollo,' cries the
father, 'waiter!' 'Yes, Sir.' 'Just get this little boy a
biscuit, will you?' 'Yes, Sir.' Off runs the waiter again, and
down goes another case of hiring, another case of delivering, and
another case of selling; and so it would go on ad infinitum, the
sum and substance of the matter being, that every time a man or
woman cried 'Waiter!' on Sunday, he or she would be fined not less
than forty shillings, nor more than a hundred; and every time a
waiter replied, 'Yes, Sir,' he and his master would be fined in the
same amount: with the addition of a new sort of window duty on the
landlord, to wit, a tax of twenty shillings an hour for every hour