UPON the subject of enforcing in our day the Sunday law enacted in the reign of Charles II., the Melbourne (Australia) Age, of date August 11, comments at length. The occasion of the comment was the arraignment of a man in Sydney for laboring on Sunday, and his sentence to payment of a fine, with the alternative of being "set publicly in the stocks for two hours." We copy as follows:— He has refused to pay the fine of 2s. 6d. imposed upon him by the court, which is thus faced with the dilemma of having to find a pair of stocks in which to place him as a punishment for infringing a law made a couple of centuries ago. The difficulty demonstrates the absurdity of the position, and illustrates the fact that the law is as much out of date as is the penalty for its infraction. Under this law we may presume that all engaged in the production of Monday morning's paper are technically liable to be placed in the stocks, and it would go hard with the Chinese cabinet maker who works seven days a week, sometimes on the manufacture of the seats and fittings of Christian churches. Quite recently the extreme Sabbatarians in England took proceedings against Sunday lecturers in Leeds, who broke the law, not by giving their entertainment, but by charging for admission thereto. We are told that the incident is likely to end in the repeal of the ancient statute which makes so fine a distinction. Here in Melbourne every Sunday variety shows are given at some of the theaters, which differ very little from the weekday entertainments except in the fact that payment is nominally optional. It is called a rational concert, though how far the epithet is deserved by a program which contains such lyrical gems as "E Don't Know Where'e Are," and "Daddy Won't Buy me a Bowwow," it might puzzle its promoters to show. Apparently the public appreciate the amusement offered, and do not refuse to gratify the expectation that they will contribute a shilling or a sixpence, according to the seats they occupy. It may be lamentable that such a way of spending Sunday evenings should be thought legitimate, but it is a matter of taste rather than one of morals that a man should refuse to go to such a concert, and see no harm in a political lecture disguised as a sermon, or a magic lantern entertainment consisting of views of the Holy Land. It is certainly inexpedient to bring the law to bear on the point, for nothing can be more certain than that to endeavor to make illegal that in which the vast majority of the people see no harm, only tends to bring the law and its administrators into contempt. The same society that permits the running of railways and tramways upon Sunday can hardly refuse to the individual the liberty it accords to a corporation or a State department without making itself ridiculous. The law that permits such an anomaly can only remain on the statute book on condition that it is never enforced in such a way as to press its existence upon public attention. It is another matter when an ancient enactment is exhumed for the purpose of gratifying personal or sectarian spite, as seems to have been the case with the unlucky Seventh-day Adventist in Sydney. By no stretch of imagination can it be supposed that when a man voluntarily occupies himself on Sunday at some work for his private gratification, he puts any pressure, direct or indirect, upon other people to compel them to do the same. Under these conditions the prosecution of the offense is simply the persecution of opinion, and with anything of that sort our generation has made up its mind to have nothing to do. There can be no doubt but that this statute of Charles II., if put to the vote in our day, would have as little chance of being passed as would any of the famous "Blue Laws" of the State of Connecticut, one of which is alleged to have made776it a punishable offense for a mother to kiss her child upon Sunday. Thus, as always happens when the law is completely out of touch with public opinion, the victim of it becomes in some sort a martyr, one to be imitated rather than shunned, and the effect on the public mind is exactly the reverse of what the framers of the law anticipated. On this same subject the Sydney Telegraph comments as follows:— Is it really worth while to go on setting the creaky old laws of the late Charles the Second in action for the harassing of persons who do not believe that Sunday is the Lord's day, and who, instead of remembering to keep it holy, follow their ordinary occupation rather ostentatiously? To capture a sturdy little man who for his conscience' sake will go to the stocks rather than appear to acquiesce in what he thinks a mistake, is intrinsically foolish. The police could find quite a considerable number of more recent Acts of Parliament that are being infringed every day, and with much greater ill effect. A man who doesn't think that the right day has been fixed upon as the Lord's, and who cannot afford to keep two days a week holy in the sense of refraining from work, does not interfere with the public if he sets a few bricks and mixes some mortar in a lone-hand sort of way. They may not like to see him doing so, but good Protestants do not like to see brother Christians going to Roman Catholic churches, and both sects, as a rule, object to the big drum of the Salvation Army. If the laws against betting, gambling, and Sunday rum drinking were put in force, and the persons who have unusual ideas on the Sabbath question given a little more rope, the net result would be better.