A Comprehensive Reply

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Jul 10, 1907

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 33, No. 28.

A Comprehensive Reply

A Comprehensive Reply.—A law-abiding citizen sent to the attorney-general in Michigan the following query: “Is there any law in Michigan against fishing on the Sabbath day?” The attorney-general referred the question to Mr. Chapman, the game-and-fish warden. The warden thus replied: “There is no express Michigan statute. The only prohibition against any kind of Sabbath-breaking is in Exodus 20, which is unrepealed.” So declares the Detroit Journal of April 29, 1907. Exodus 20 contains the Ten Commandments. The fourth commandment is the expression of the Sabbath law. There is not one single State in the United States that has a law to enforce that. All the so-called sabbath laws pertain entirely to another day, that is, Sunday, the first day of the week. Mr. Chapman’s statement ought to take hold upon every loyal heart, “The only prohibition against any kind of Sabbath-breaking is in Exodus 20, which is unrepealed.”

Owing to carelessness of a door-keeper, who left a door open so gas could accumulate in the workings of a coal mine at Priceburg, Pa., two violent explosions took place June 18. At least eight were killed.

Despatches from Valparaiso dated June 16, state that recent earthquakes affecting the territory extending from Valparaiso to the Magellan Straits resulted in the death of thirty-four people and considerable loss of property in Valdivia, a Chilean city of twenty-three thousand inhabitants.

Missouri will make a practical test of the two-cent passenger rate on the railways of the State. A three-months’ trial will be given, and if at the end of that time it is found to be unremunerative, action for its discontinuance will be brought into the courts by the railroads.

The Cotton Crop.—The Atlanta Constitution of June 19, states that the cotton crop of the State of Louisiana and the southern half of Mississippi is forty days late. Unusually late rains, boll-weevil, worms, lice, and troublesome grass, together with a scarcity of laborers, will reduce the crop seventy per cent. in some places.

Czar Nicholas issued an imperial ukase, June 16, which dissolved the douma, the Russian Lower Parliament, and ordered that an election for new members to another douma be held November 14. It is hoped by the czar and his advisers that better electoral laws may be framed, tho the action is criticized by many, including delegates at the Hague Peace Conference. A number of bombs have been thrown and many persons have been assassinated.

I. R. Hicks, astronomer and weather prophet of St. Louis, has announced what is said to be the largest sun-spot discovered in many years. It is stated that the sun appears to be in a state of terrific eruption, the lines showing a large area which seems to be under a tornado-like whirl. The big spot is heart-shaped. Mr. Hicks declares that thruout the storm-area of the United States the public may look for terrific electric storms, accompanied by high winds, which are due at their maximum at this writing.

We once knew a colored man who, offended at his neighbor A, told neighbor B that He would “thrash” neighbor A the next time he met him. Neighbor B in a spirit of fun told neighbor A. The next time that A and the colored man met, A said to him, “Well, Jim, I heard that you were going to ‘thrash’ me. Now is a good time.” With great heat the colored man replied, “It is a wicked lie. I never said so. B told you that, didn’t he?” The San Francisco pleas of innocence recall the incident. Such plea of innocence is to the ordinary mind pretty close to an unmeant confession of guilt.