MARYLAND CRIMINALS by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Dec 11, 1893

MARYLAND CRIMINALS.

By Editor

THE Times of this city of December 1 has the following editorial note:—

A man in New York has spent $750 and eighteen months of time in trying to find out whether he has a right to fish on Sunday in the Empire State, in a pond reserved by an anglers' club to which he belongs. A year ago last summer he was seen sitting in a boat trolling for pickerel, by a pious man whose veranda gave a view of the pond, and the Puritanical spirit prompted his arrest for breaking the sabbath. His case is now before the Court of Appeals. In Maryland a Seventh-day Adventist is in prison because his interpretation of the Bible teaches him to make Saturday his Sabbath, instead of Sunday. This all occurs in the evening of the nineteenth century, when civilized people supposed persecutions like these were past.

There are three Seventh-day Adventists in prison in Maryland to-day, one for plowing his field; one for setting out tomato plants in his garden, the only witness against him being the constable, who went there to catch him, and who, by the way, was his own son; the third for chopping wood in his own dooryard, the witnesses against him being two men who "spied" him out on purpose, and who had threatened to arrest him if he worked Sunday. Worse than all, the sheriff refused to permit the friends of the "criminals" to bid them good-by at the jail—a privilege accorded the worst of criminals and their friends. Or is it true, as Archbishop Ireland states, "The violator of a Sunday law is the worst of criminals"?