Sunday Under Three Heads

Sunday Under Three Heads

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Sunday Under Three Heads, by
Charles Dickens (#27 in our series by Charles Dickens)
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Title: Sunday Under Three Heads
Author: Charles Dickens
Release Date: May, 1997 [EBook #922] [This file was first posted on

May 29, 1997] [Most recently updated: May 20, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: US-ASCII
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, SUNDAY
UNDER THREE HEADS ***

Transcribed by David Price, email [email protected]

SUNDAY UNDER THREE HEADS

DEDICATION

To The Right Reverend THE BISHOP OF LONDON
MY LORD,
You were among the first, some years ago, to expatiate on the vicious
addiction of the lower classes of society to Sunday excursions; and
were thus instrumental in calling forth occasional demonstrations of
those extreme opinions on the subject, which are very generally
received with derision, if not with contempt.
Your elevated station, my Lord, affords you countless opportunities of
increasing the comforts and pleasures of the humbler classes of
society--not by the expenditure of the smallest portion of your princely
income, but by merely sanctioning with the influence of your example,
their harmless pastimes, and innocent recreations.
That your Lordship would ever have contemplated Sunday recreations
with so much horror, if you had been at all acquainted with the wants
and necessities of the people who indulged in them, I cannot imagine
possible. That a Prelate of your elevated rank has the faintest
conception of the extent of those wants, and the nature of those
necessities, I do not believe.
For these reasons, I venture to address this little Pamphlet to your

Lordship's consideration. I am quite conscious that the outlines I have
drawn, afford but a very imperfect description of the feelings they are
intended to illustrate; but I claim for them one merit--their truth and
freedom from exaggeration. I may have fallen short of the mark, but I
have never overshot it: and while I have pointed out what appears to me,
to be injustice on the part of others, I hope I have carefully abstained
from committing it myself.
I am, My Lord, Your Lordship's most obedient, Humble Servant,
TIMOTHY SPARKS. June, 1836.



CHAPTER I
--AS IT IS

There are few things from which I derive greater pleasure, than walking
through some of the principal streets of London on a fine Sunday, in
summer, and watching the cheerful faces of the lively groups with
which they are thronged. There is something, to my eyes at least,
exceedingly pleasing in the general desire evinced by the humbler
classes of society, to appear neat and clean on this their only holiday.
There are many grave old persons, I know, who shake their heads with
an air of profound wisdom, and tell you that poor people dress too well
now-a-days; that when they were children, folks knew their stations in
life better; that you may depend upon it, no good will come of this sort
of thing in the end,--and so forth: but I fancy I can discern in the fine
bonnet of the working-man's wife, or the feather-bedizened hat of his
child, no inconsiderable evidence of good feeling on the part of the man
himself, and an affectionate desire to expend the few shillings he can
spare from his week's wages, in improving the appearance and adding
to the happiness of those who are nearest and dearest to him. This may
be a very heinous and unbecoming degree of vanity, perhaps, and the
money might possibly be applied to better uses; it must not be forgotten,
however, that it might very easily be devoted to worse: and if two or

three faces can be rendered happy and contented, by a trifling
improvement of outward appearance, I cannot help thinking that the
object is very cheaply purchased, even at the expense of a smart gown,
or a gaudy riband. There is a great deal of very unnecessary