SUNDAY IN PITTSBURG

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Aug 26, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 33.

SUNDAY IN PITTSBURG.

SUNDAY in Pittsburg and Allegheny City, is thus described by the New York Times:—

“Probably no other given community of 330,000 people in this country is restrained more by the laws governing the observance of Sunday than Pittsburg and Allegheny City. Every legalized saloon and hotel bar is closed tight, and one can get no intoxicating liquors of any kind from these. The 120 drug stores will sell nothing in their line save medicines on prescription. The traveler who may want tooth-picks, tooth-brush or tooth-powder, or any other toilet article or necessary thing, must wait until Monday. The doors of the barbers' shops are locked, and the man who has not had time for a shave on Saturday must shave himself or go to church, or elsewhere, with stubbles on his face. The sizz of the soda water fountain is hushed, and in but three places in the two great cities is it possible to get soda, lemonade, sarsaparilla, milk, or other soft drink to quench the thirst and cool the suffering citizen. The thousand stands and stores where cigars and tobacco are dealt in six days of the week are silent and deserted on the seventh, and the man who has forgotten to provide himself with a Sunday supply of these comforts must do without or borrow from his neighbor.

Children can get no candy in Pittsburg on Sunday, housewives no groceries or meat, lovers no ice-cream, readers no newspapers unless they catch a boy in the forenoon, for the news stands do no business on Sunday. Only the street cars, the newspapers, the hotels and restaurants, and the churches carry on their affairs unobstructed. The hotels and restaurants serve meals, but do no bar business, and sell no cigars even for after-dinner smoking.”