p. 213 | Sunday Amusements

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 27, 1913

Sunday Amusements

A BILL introduced by Mr. Stilwell in the State senate last week so amends the law regulating Sunday entertainments in New York as to prohibit all “vaudeville” performances of any sort and all moving or stationary pictures, and provides for the punishment of any person supplying electricity or gas for use in such exhibitions. This is drawing the line very closely. Experience indicates that so stringent a law could hardly be enforced. It is to be noted that the amendment does not prohibit the performance of vocal and instrumental music, while it does prohibit perfectly harmless and edifying illustrated lectures on Sunday, such as those of Mr. Elmendorf and Mr. Burton Holmes. It is a question, also, whether it does not prohibit art exhibitions. The pictures in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, for instance, are “stationary.”

One difficulty in the enforcement of the law might grow out of the dubious meaning of the word vaudeville. This term has been appropriated in recent years to describe variety performances. They are called vaudeville in press agents’ English. But Mr. Stilwell uses the word as he uses tragedy, comedy, and farce. A vaudeville, according to Webster’s Dictionary, is, variously, a slight dramatic sketch, with songs; a pantomime; a popular French song, with refrain; a street ballad; a variety show. There seems to be a problem for legislators in this confusion. Mr. Stilwell’s bill is doubtless well meant, but there has been no scandal lately associated with such Sunday entertainments as we have, and we have no doubt that popular sentiment is against further restrictions.—The New York Times, Jan. 23, 1913.