A Crime to Ride in the Air on Sunday by S. B. H.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 19, 1911

A Crime to Ride in the Air on Sunday

By S. B. H.

THERE seems to be a law against aviating on Sunday in New York. October 8 the sheriff and three deputies of Nassau County went to a certain aviation field to stop a proposed series of flights. Upon their arrival they proclaimed, “Any one who flies from this field to-day, being Sunday, will be arrested.” The air-men heeded the words of the sheriff, but a young woman, Miss Moisant, defied the proclamation. She at once soared into the air above the heads of the officers, who immediately began to plan for her arrest as soon as she descended. She escaped them, however; but upon learning of her whereabouts, at six o’clock the sheriffs went to the home of Justice of the Peace Gittens, at Hempstead, and asked for a warrant for Miss Moisant, the attempt to arrest her without it having provoked a small riot.

“What has she done?” asked the justice.

“She’s been flying in the air on Sunday,” was the reply. The justice refused the warrant, saying he could not see that riding in the air on Sunday in a machine was any worse than riding on the ground in an automobile.

This is but another illustration of the incongruity of Sunday legislation. Evidently, the supreme court of New York will have to decide why it is a crime to ride in the air in an aviation machine but not so on the earth in an automobile — on Sunday. S. B. H.