Defenders of slavery in the antebellum South had one ready answer for scoffers from the North: that the "wage slavery" conditions of Northern factory workers were just as bad. Some of them even went on long jags about how cruel factory owners could just discard workers who were too aged and infirm to stay on the job, whereas benevolent slaveowners could not.

All bullshit, of course, but every so often there's a reminder that we put up with intrusions from employers which people of a prior age might not. This week's: due to the slip of a legislative pen, Virginia has restored the right of numerous workers to claim Saturday and Sunday off as a religious day of rest, a right which was once on the books.

(I have to say I don't know if the law ever granted slaves a similar privilege in Virginia, by the way. But somehow, I really, really doubt it).