In the Legislature of Pennsylvania, the law designed to suppress the cultivation of spiritual science by severe penalties, was favorably reported by a committee but prevented by popular indignation from passing. Yet the people were not sufficiently alert to prevent legislation in favor of that monopoly the Standard Oil Company, which is considered a betrayal of justice.
In Illinois a bill was passed in the Senate and came near passing in the House, which would have abolished all medical freedom and made it a crime for any one but a licensed doctor to help the sick in any way, even by a prayer. Verily the spirit of American liberty does not pervade American communities and American legislatures.
In Massachusetts the Old Puritanic Sunday Laws having fallen into “innocuous desuetude,” an attempt to give them a partial enforcement in Boston compelled a little legislative action and the result was what might have been expected in a State in which religious opinions are allowed to interfere with the credibility of a witness, and in which Diogenes, if he were here, would be struck with the vast inconsistency between the creed of Christendom and its practice, and the vast disparity between the progress of modern knowledge and the effete system of education in our Universities. He would wonder why modern colleges are more interested in the details of Greek life and letters than in the beneficent sciences of to-day of which the Greeks knew nothing.
He would wonder why the edicts of the Pagan emperor, Constantine, concerning the observance of Sunday are observed and enforced as a religious duty, while the Divine love inculcated by Jesus Christ, which forbids all strife and war, is no more regarded by Christian nations than by the rulers of ancient Rome.
He would look into the schools and universities professedly devoted to science and literature, and ask why they have even less freedom of discussion and thought than the schools of Athens, every professor being interested to discourage the investigation of novelties in philosophy instead of being ready to welcome original investigation.
Under the new Sunday law of Massachusetts, Sunday trains and steamboat lines are at the mercy of the railroad commissioners, who can stop every one of them; but boating, yachting, and carriage driving on Sunday are free to all who have the money to pay for them. But while outdoor frolic is free-and-easy, indoor enjoyment is prohibited. Everybody is liable to five dollar fines for attending “any sport, game, or play” on Sunday, unless it has been licensed, and private families never ask a license for their own amusements. But to be present on Sunday “at any dancing,” brings a liability to a $50 fine for each offence! What a terrible thing dancing is to be sure, that looking on should cost $50, while a frolic in boating and yachting is unexceptionably holy, and the fast young men may kick up a dust, kill the horses, and smash the buggies with impunity, or kill themselves by rowing in the hot sun, under whiskey stimulus on Sunday.
The laws for hotels and restaurants are even more absurd. Travellers, strangers and lodgers may be freely entertained, but if anybody else (who is he?) comes into the house, or remains on the grounds about it, on Sunday, the landlord can be fined as much as $50 at the first pop, $100 at the second pop, and at the third pop he is to be shut up and deprived of his license. Somebody else must be a terrible fellow on Sunday—and he is a dangerous customer on Saturday too, for if he comes in on Saturday evening, or even lounges on the grounds, it is a fine of five dollars for the landlord. But who is he? How is the poor landlord, or victualler to discover somebody else, who is neither lodger, stranger, nor traveller. The landlord cannot detect him, but all sheriffs, grand jurors, and constables are required to hunt for him! Vive la bagatelle!
Strictly private gambling is safe on Sunday, and our Chevaliers d’Industrie may ruin a dozen families, and provoke suicide and murder,—“plate sin with gold” and it is protected, and the swindling shyster is protected too on Sunday, for no civil process can be served on that holy day; the rogue who is bothered on that day can get exemplary damages by this law of Sunday asylum. But the poor keeper of a restaurant or of an inn, is the victim for old legislative boys to throw stones at. They have provided a hundred dollar fine for every innholder or victualler who keeps, or “suffers to be kept,” on his premises, any implements “used in gaming,” or which may be used for “purposes of amusement,” and does not prevent such things from being used on Sunday. So if he is not extremely vigilant throughout his house and grounds, he may be caught with a hundred dollar fine, OR be imprisoned three months in the House of Correction at the pleasure of the magistrate!! and for every subsequent offense may be imprisoned in the House of Correction as much as one year, and then required to give security for obeying the law. Under such a law a malicious young hoodlum may contrive to send a landlord to jail.
To open a shop, warehouse, or workhouse on Sunday is a fifty dollar offense, and it is fifty dollars also for doing “any manner of labor, business or work” on Sunday, unless the judge considers it a matter of necessity or charity; nevertheless, the “making of butter and cheese” is good Sunday work, if we do not open the doors which would bring on a $50 fine. So is the work of steam, gas and electricity, newspapers, telegraphs, telephones, druggists, milkmen, (bakers before 10 and after 4,) boat houses, livery stables, ferry boats, and street cars. But to catch a fish or fire a pistol on Sunday is a $10 offense, and to look on at a game of chess is a $50 crime. However, the law does not punish whistling on Sunday, unless the whistler has spectators, then it is a $50 business for all concerned. To read Longfellow’s Excelsior on Sunday to a parlor of company is a $50 crime. Reading Milton’s Paradise Lost, or the American Declaration of Independence would also rank as criminal business, being an entertainment, and a party of twenty playing a game of croquet may be fined a thousand dollars.
Verily, if it were not for such hypocritical and asinine legislation as this, we might forget the history of New England witchcraft, and the hanging of Quakers in sight of the spot where this law was enacted as an improvement on a still worse, but practically obsolete statute.