Morning service over, an early dinner follows. Then everybody thinks of enjoying himself if the weather is fine, or of sleeping the afternoon away if the day is too wet to go out. The cars are filled with persons en route for the Park to pass a pleasant afternoon—the drives of that beautiful resort are filled with the elegant equipages of the fashionables, and the churches are comparatively deserted. Almost every livery hack, buggy, or other vehicle in the city, is engaged for Sunday, several days beforehand, and the poor horses have no mercy shown them on that day.
The low class theatres and places of amusement in the Bowery and adjacent streets are opened toward sunset, and vice reigns there triumphant. The Bowery beer gardens sell lemonade and soda water, and such beverages as are not prohibited by the excise law, and the orchestra and orchestrions play music from the ritual of the Roman Catholic church.
The excise law forbids the sale of spirituous or malt liquors on the Sabbath, and the bar rooms are closed from midnight on Saturday until Monday morning. The police have orders to arrest all persons violating this law. There is no doubt, however, that liquor can be obtained by those who are willing to incur the risk necessary to get it; but as the majority do not care to take this trouble, the North river ferries are thronged on Sunday, by persons going over to New Jersey for their beer, wine, and stronger drinks. There is no Sunday law in that State, and Jersey City and Hoboken are only five minutes distant from New York.
At night the churches are better attended than in the afternoon, but not so well as in the morning. Many ministers will not open their churches for afternoon service, because they know they cannot fill a dozen pews at that time. Their congregations are driving in the Park— the young men, perhaps, in Hoboken, after lager.
Sunday concerts are now becoming a feature in New York life. These are given at the principal halls of the city, and the music consists of selections of sacred gems from the master pieces of the great composers. The performers are known all over the land for their musical skill, and the audiences are large and fashionable. No one seems to think it sinful thus to desecrate God's holy day, and it must be confessed that these concerts are the least objectionable Sunday amusements known to our people.
The reason of all this dissipation on the Sabbath is plain. People are so much engrossed in the pursuit of wealth, that they take no time in the week for rest or amusement. They wait for Sunday to do this, and grudge the few hours in the morning that decency requires them to pass in church.
THE EXCISE TRIALS.
Scarcely a Sunday passes without numerous arrests being made for violations of the excise law. These cases are tried before the Board of Excise Commissioners, who, if the offence be sufficiently gross, take away the license of the accused party, or punish him according to the terms of the law. Some queer pictures of humanity are exhibited at these trials.