Untitled article | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · January 19, 1893

They “Did Whip the Dog.”

A CORRESPONDENT writing from Marietta, Ga., gives us the following, illustrative of the practical workings of the Sunday law of that State:—

Two colored boys have just been tried in the Superior Court of this, Cobb County, for hunting on Sunday. The facts as brought out in court, and related to me by the foreman of the jury, were substantially as follows: The boys were delivering milk on Sunday. While passing through an old field, a dog which they had allowed to follow them found a rabbit to which he gave chase, and which he presently caught. The boys took the rabbit from the dog and carried it home. For this they were indicted under Section 4580 of the Georgia Code, which provides that “Any person or persons who shall hunt any kind of game with gun or dogs, or both, on the Sabbath day, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and, on conviction, shall be punished as prescribed in section 4310 of this code.”

Section 4310 provides a fine not to exceed $1,000, imprisonment not to exceed six months, work in the chain-gang, etc., and these boys escaped conviction only because certain members of the jury would not agree to convict them, because, as they said, they had all done the same thing.

In discharging the prisoners the judge reprimanded them, and gave them a few words of caution, when the boys assured him that they “did whip the dog for running the rabbit on Sunday.”

And thus the dignity of the State of Georgia and of the “American Sabbath” was maintained, and justice satisfied!