Untitled article | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · July 16, 1896

THE WORLD-WIDE SUNDAY MOVEMENT.

[N. Y. Independent, July 2, 1896.]

The International Federation of Lord's-Day Societies has made a report as to the work done in the year. Among the items of interest are the following: In France the Paris League for Sunday Rest has enrolled over 4,000 members. Many shops are closed on Sunday, including the great Magasin de Louvre. In the army Sunday is a day of rest, and contractors are not now obliged to work on that day. In Lyons there are more than 1,000 shops and stores closed entirely on Sunday. A commission has been sent to England from Germany to inquire into the laws applying to Sunday labor in factories and in workshops. There has been a marked advance also in Austria, owing to an enactment in December, 1895, that on Sunday all work, industrial and commercial, shall cease, except such as is absolutely necessary. In Switzerland Sunday laws have been passed in nearly all the cantons. The post and telegraphic service are reduced one half. No freight trains are run, and the freight depots are closed. Each employé on railroads, steamboats, street road cars, and in the post-office is allowed fifty-two days of rest, and seventeen of these must be Sundays. In Belgium, on account of the anti-religious feeling, the Sunday as a day of rest is not named in the law which guarantees one rest day in each week for women and children; but in practice it is thus observed to a very great degree, and in many departments of labor Sunday work has been reduced. In Holland there are no Sunday newspapers, the railway traffic is reduced, and Sunday hours of rest are given to public servants, though a whole day on each Sunday is an exception, not the rule. In Denmark shops are closed at 9 A. M., and also factories, except where work is essential. In such cases the employés get alternate Sundays. In Norway and Sweden factories and workshops close on Sundays, and no intoxicating liquors are sold from 5 o'clock Saturday afternoon until 8 o'clock Monday morning. There is not even bread-making on Sunday, and street railways are closed until afternoon. In the cities there is only

one postal delivery at 8 o'clock in the morning, and railway servants get every third Sunday. The movement has extended to Russia, where a new law as to Sunday is in preparation and where the post-offices are open only from 12 to 2, and public houses are closed until 11 o'clock in the morning. In Spain the Sunday work of young persons under eighteen years of age in factories is prohibited. In Japan, of the 600 newspapers and periodicals, not one is published on Sunday. In India the Christian Literature Society is active, and has accomplished considerable.