TRIALS FOR SUNDAY LABOR AT FORD'S STORE, MARYLAND.
By J. E. Jayne
W. A. MANSFIELD, who is a Seventh-day Adventist, and Millard F. Pierson and John E. Summers, whose wives are Seventh-day Adventists, were arrested, charged with fishing for crabs on "Sunday, commonly called the Lord's day." The writ13(Continued from page 12.) was made returnable before a magistrate in Queenstown, which is about three miles distant from Ford's Store, and the trial set for Wednesday, September 16. Because of the illness of the magistrate, the trial was postponed until the following Saturday evening. Just previous to the hour set for the trial a severe storm arose. Brother Mansfield and his friends attended court. The two other defendants and the prosecution failed to appear, and of course Brother Mansfield's case went by default. On the following Monday evening, the others arrested were called for trial, but again a member of the state's witnesses failed to appear and their trials were postponed until Thursday evening. At the trial the constable testified that he saw the defendants upon the water, watched them until they came ashore, then talked with some of them and saw crabs and crabberies in their boats. Cross questioning developed the facts that the men he claimed he saw at work were so far distant that he could not possibly recognize them, and that there were bateaux, skiffs, yawls, canoes, steamboats, etc., in large numbers in the same vicinity at the same time, and that he could not swear that he actually saw the defendants fishing or that the crabs in their boats were taken that day. Witnesses called would not state that they saw any one actually at work. During the trial a discussion occurred to which the Adventists and their friends were interested listeners, and in which the constable reproached the witnesses for "going back on him," and was in turn charged with making arrests for "the money there was in it," and it was brought out that before there were any Adventists in the neighborhood people did about as they pleased on Sunday without being molested, and that even now only Adventists and their friends were troubled, but that they watched them "like hawks" and caused their arrest. The magistrate conducted the trial in a very nice impartial manner. Many were morally certain that the defendants were technically guilty, but the evidence was not of a sufficiently positive nature to warrant the magistrate in imposing a fine. In rendering the decision the court did not say that the prisoners were not guilty, but, "Under the circumstances I shall have to excuse you this time." At his invitation, I spoke to the people briefly, reviewing the origin and operation of Sunday statutes and suggesting moderation and toleration as the better attitude for neighbors to assume toward each other. I sincerely hope that this experience will result in creating a better state of public feeling in this vicinity.—J. E. Jayne, in Atlantic Record.