A SANITARY MEASURE by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 26, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 21.

A SANITARY MEASURE.

By Editor

THE Supreme Court of Michigan in passing upon the constitutionality of the barbers' Sunday closing law, passed at the last session of the Michigan Legislature, delivers itself of the following bit of wisdom. We quote from the Michigan Christian Advocate of March 3:—

"The better reason for maintaining the power to prohibit citizens from engaging in secular pursuits on Sunday is the necessity of such regulation as a sanitary measure, as to those employments which are noiseless and harmless in themselves and conducted in a manner not calculated to offend those who, from religious scruples, observe Sunday as the Lord's day. This necessity appears to be the only valid source of legislative power, and this is based upon the fact that experience has demonstrated that one day's rest is requisite for the health of most individuals, and not all individuals possess the power to observe a day of rest of their own volition."

A sanitary measure. "Sanitary" means "pertaining to health or hygiene or the preservation of health; hygienic; healthy." (Century Dictionary.) It therefore follows that whatsoever is conducive or beneficial to the health of the people is sanitary. But does that make it a "valid source of legislation"? Because a certain amount of time spent in a certain way is necessary for the preservation of health, is it therefore a matter for legislation? To be deprived of the proper amount of sleep is injurious to health. Overeating is unhygienic. Certain kinds of food are injurious to health in any quantity; while too much of others is detrimental to health unless properly combined. The wearing of high-heeled shoes, of thin shoes, and of corsets are responsible for an untold amount of disease and misery and death, and many of fashion's dupes do not "possess the power" to observe hygienic laws "of their own volition." Idleness is unhealthful and unhygienic. Right habits of sitting and walking are requisite to health. And so we might go on. Should we therefore have laws regulating man's sleeping and waking hours, times of work and rest, food and diet, thin shoes, French heels, corsets, habits of sitting and walking? Why not? Every intelligent sanitarian knows that there is much greater loss of life and suffering entailed on the race because of the above-mentioned things than there is on account of all the Sunday labor of every character. But laws regulating man's waking and sleeping hours, his diet, the dress of the fairer sex,

would not be tolerated a day. Yet they are more consistent as sanitary measures, and much more demanded, because of the sadder and more extended consequences which follow, for it is yet to be demonstrated that the men who work Sunday are not as healthy as those who observe the day. China is a good example of this. With all the ignorance of hygiene and sanitary measures, the people will compare favorably healthwise with those of other countries.

"This only valid source of legislative power" is absurd, and far-fetched, and unworthy of any court of justice. In fact, it is a miserable, transparent subterfuge to make it appear that the law is not religious and does not have a religious basis. But the disguise is too thin. The very exemption clause of the law proves its religious character. Sunday laws are always religious in character, from the pagan decree of Constantine in 321 to the present time. All other claims are evasions, whether designedly so or not. The whole thing is based on religion, but not the religion of the Bible. The Bible neither knows the Sunday sabbath nor the right of civil government to interfere in behalf of any Sabbath. Such laws are unsanitary, unequal, unscriptural, unchristian.