Again, we repeat that many employers refrain from taking advantage of their power; but nevertheless the fact remains, that a master who, through thoughtlessness or greed, overworks, under-pays, badly houses and badly feeds his employees, or dismisses them without a character, is at perfect liberty to do so, and is in no danger of being called to account for his actions! The Early Closing Association has done something towards procuring at least an amelioration of the shop-assistant’s condition, by seeking to establish a universal half-holiday. It works on the persuasive line, and in some parts of London and in many provincial towns has succeeded in securing this boon of half a day’s rest; but persuasion alone will never be able to treat with an evil so widespread; for, as long as the early closing is purely voluntary, so long it will be in the power of any one man to compel a whole neighbourhood to refuse or abolish the half-holiday. If his shop is open when others are closed, he will to a certainty obtain customers; and this is an advantage his neighbours dare not allow him; therefore, they must follow suit and keep open at his pleasure. In this one-man power lies the secret of the present abnormal length of hours; for it is a matter of experience that as long as shops are open, so long customers will continue to come; and hence competition has suggested lengthening of hours with a view to checkmating neighbours. Yet no method of doing business ever brought with it more disadvantage, for less gain. The public is certainly no better off than if shopping had to be got through in reasonable time; and beyond dispute, the shopkeeping class is not only no better, but very much worse off for this tyranny of custom, which compels even the unwilling employer to keep his assistants at work far beyond the ordinary limits of labour. And so deep-seated and established has the slavery become, that there remains nothing for it but an appeal to the State to interfere with an extension of the Factory and Workshop Act; and although we are by no means of those who believe in ‘grandmotherly legislation,’ this is a case, if ever there was one, in which the strong hand of the law alone can lift a whole section of society out of the misery in which it now lies, and from which, unaided, it can never escape. An extension of the Factory Act, although it would of necessity leave the shop-assistant’s hours longer than those of most workers, would at least protect him from unlimited labour, and would insure his work being carried on under fairly healthy conditions.