Notwithstanding our desire to aid the assistant drapers in any reasonable movement, we cannot encourage them in the foolery which, according to a prospectus of the Metropolitan Assistant Drapers' Company, they seem to contemplate. They are coolly asking the public for £150,000 in 15,000 shares of ten pounds each, to start a model establishment, in which the assistants shall be their own masters, choose their own work, take their own time, and seize "every opportunity for indulging in all healthy pursuits and reasonable enjoyments." The prospectus then goes on to state, that the assistants will become "free and happy, as they should be." If a linendraper's shop is to be turned into a state of "freedom and happiness" all day long, it may suit the shop-boys well enough, but it will not be quite so agreeable to the customers. Holding it to be his duty "to smash humbug of every description," _Punch_, after an examination of the financial proposals of the "free and happy" linendrapers, pronounces them guilty of very gross humbug in putting forward their prospectus. The control of industry by the workers formed no part of his schemes for bettering their condition. [Illustration: A View in Hyde Park, showing the proposed site for the Exhibition of Industry.] [Illustration: SPECIMEN OF MR PUNCH'S INDUSTRIAL EXHIBITION OF 1850 (TO BE IMPROVED IN 1851)] In the period under review Sunday was, speaking broadly, the only holiday of the working classes. _Punch's_ views on their recreations, therefore, were necessarily governed by his views on Sunday observance, Sunday trading and Sabbatarianism generally. Let it be noted at the outset that he was no advocate of the Continental Sunday: he was all for keeping Sunday quiet, even dull. But against any legal or other restrictions, which thwarted poor people's innocent enjoyment and recreation, he ranged himself as an uncompromising adversary. As we have seen, he indignantly resented the fining of boys for playing cricket, or children for selling sweets, on Sunday. He supported the opening of museums and picture galleries on Sundays as early as August, 1842, and, in recording the defeat of the motion in the Commons, ends his comments on "The Pharisees' Sunday" with the remark: "The Museum and the National Gallery are, for the present, closed on Sundays; so for a time there are left for the people--the Eagle Tavern and the Red House at Battersea." _Punch_ vehemently assailed the snobbery which sought to exclude working men and poor children from the parks. He welcomed the opening of the Zoological Gardens to the public in 1848 at a low charge, without a "Fellow's order," _plus_ a shilling. But of all the movements which inspired him with hope for the future, none offered brighter prospects than the great Exhibition of 1851. It was Douglas Jerrold who coined the name of the "Crystal Palace." _Punch_ had some misgivings as to the