p. 264, para. 1 | Untitled article

Untitled article

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · August 25, 1892

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 7, No. 33

A PARIS, Tenn., lawyer recently said to a reporter of the Chicago Tribune, that there is nothing in the law of Tennessee to say how a man shall observe Sunday, “except that he shall refrain from work, such as he follows during the week, and shall not make a nuisance of himself.” The use of the term “nuisance” in this connection is misleading. Private Sunday work is a nuisance only by a legal fiction. Under decisions of the Supreme Court of Tennessee it is not necessary to show that any one is actually annoyed by the work done; and the Attorney-General told the writer of this note that a man working on Sunday where he could be seen and heard only by persons who went there to see and hear him, would be as guilty as though the work were done in the most public manner. The “nuisance” consists solely in the fact that the work is done by those who dissent from the dogma that Sunday is a sacred day. So far as we are aware, this law has never been enforced against anybody but observers of the seventh day. It was invoked a number of years ago against a barber; but the Supreme Court held that barbering on Sunday, though finable, was not a nuisance, and so not indictable. But why not, if quiet farm work is a nuisance, and indictable? Simply because by his work the barber was not emphasizing his dissent from the dogma of Sunday sacredness. He was working on Sunday, not because he denied its sacred character, but simply for worldly gain; hence, according to the Supreme Court of Tennessee, the annoyance occasioned by his work did not amount to a nuisance. A wonderful thing is this nuisance law, truly!