Canada's Rigorous Sunday Law.
THE new Sunday law of the Dominion of Canada, passed at the solicitation of the religious champions of Sunday observance at last year's session of the Dominion parliament, and perhaps the strongest measure that has been enacted in any country in Christendom in the last half century, went into effect on March 1. It is said to penalize "every kind of secular, commercial, and industrial activity, except the running of drug stores, livery stables, and boat-houses." "Severe penalties for violation of the law are prescribed against persons who direct Sunday work to be done as employers, as well as against those who do it. While it is intended to discourage Sunday passenger trains, work in connection with the transit of passengers and mails and the operation of ferry lines and drawbridges is classified with the supplying of gas, water, and electricity, the maintenance of fires and power plants, and carrying perishable products, and the making of maple sugar as 'works of necessity and mercy.' The Dominion railroad commission may on application authorize Sunday work in connection with freight traffic, and crews may handle cars in yards certain hours. But all excursions and entertainments which charge an admission fee outside of churches are forbidden. The operation of street-car companies is left to be governed by provincial or municipal legislation. "The discrimination against Sunday newspapers is so severe that one is inclined to suspect this to be a main purpose of the law. There are few Sunday newspapers in Canada, most of those read there being imported from the United States. This importation is prohibited as well as the sale and distribution of domestic Sunday papers, and no work can be done on the Monday morning issue before 6 P.M." The penalty for the violation of the provision relating to newspapers is a fine of $250 or two months in jail. A meeting of Canadian newsdealers was held in Toronto on March 9 to see what plan, if any, could be devised for handling American Sunday newspapers, but "the legal advice was that no loophole existed by which the papers could be paid for in advance or on Monday and given or delivered in rooms or at the homes of customers on Sunday." It is doubtful if there will be a literal enforcement of the law, at least for any length of time. It is said to be "full of loopholes and contingent exceptions." The most important and significant of these is "the curious provision that no prosecutions shall be begun under the act without the consent of the attorney-general of the province in which the prosecution is to be made. This gives that functionary power to enforce the act in full, in part, or not at all, as he may elect."