Sunday Laws and the Poor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Oct 9, 1889

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 4, No. 37.

Sunday Laws and the Poor

THE Nation, not the Christian Nation, says:— “There is more happiness, better order and less crime among the poorer people of New York since cheap Sunday excursions enabled them to take a trip up the river or down the harbor, than when necessity kept them cooped up through the day in tenement houses.”

There is not the least doubt but that this is true. And yet the Sunday-law workers propose to stop every kind of excursion or journeying on Sunday, especially with the poorer people, because the rich can afford to own their own carriages and can take a ride or drive as they please. But under the proposed Sunday-law system all the poorer people will be “cooped up” through the whole day in their crowded tenement houses and narrow streets and alleys; which shows clearly enough that the Sunday-law movement instead of being a movement in favor of the poorer people is a direct discrimination against them.