A FEW OF THE MANY INSTANCES.
It is reported from New Jersey that "the Millville churches will wage a united warfare against the Sunday sellers of confectionery." A resolution to enforce the Sunday-closing act was passed by the town board of Hurley, Wis., on March 1. "The fight of the Cincinnati barbers' union against the alleged violation of the Sunday-closing law will be taken up by the Cincinnati Methodist Ministers' Association," says the Cincinnati Post. "A resolution was passed by the ministers requesting the city authorities to take such steps as will prevent the violation of the barbers' Sunday-closing law, and to prosecute the violators to the full extent of the law." Acting on the orders of Police Captain Ferris, the detectives of the Tremont Police Precinct in New York City, on March 12, "devoted their detective instincts to ferreting out small delicatessen and grocery store-keepers who were selling goods." When a half dozen of these small dealers were arraigned before Magistrate Baker the next day, he rebuked the detectives, saying to them: "I will have to fine these men, as they have violated the law, but I do not approve of this kind of thing. Instead of you men hunting out poor grocery-keepers, it would be more manly and much more like a detective to round up the crooks which are about the neighborhood. Your captain shows poor judgment." The dealers were fined $3.00 each. For selling liquor on Sunday, the proprietors of the European Hotel in Rockford, Ill., were arrested on March 5, and in the police court the next day were mulcted in the sum of $50 and costs, and the fine was paid. Should another like offense occur the license of the hotel will be revoked. The Sunday law is to be enforced strictly. Attorney-General Young, of Minnesota, has decided that "it is no part of the duty of the state labor commissioner to enforce the Sunday-closing law." The labor commissioner has received petitions from retail clerks' associations in all parts of the state, asking him to enforce the law and prevent their being obliged to work seven days each week, and had requested of the attorney-general an opinion as to his duty in the matter. The attorney-general holds that "the enforcement of the Sunday-closing law is the business of the local administrations." The Boston Traveler, of March 8, reported that "the Rev. M. D. Kneeland, secretary of the New England Sabbath Protective League, addressed the members of the Boston Central Labor Union against the passage of the bill in the legislature which allows the picking of cranberries on Sunday, and in favor of the passage of the bills for the stopping of Sunday shows in the theaters, which are run in the guise of concerts for the benefit of charitable institutions." Representative Mannix, of Minneapolis, "tried to put a resolution through the lower house" of the Minnesota Legislature "requesting the capitol commission to keep the capitol building open for at least a part of each Sunday." He explained that "to the Minneapolis working people practically no opportunity was given to see the interior of a building which stood unequalled in the list of public buildings in the West," and that by its Sunday-closing the people were denied the pleasure and benefit of viewing its interior architectural beauties and the art treasures contained in the building. But the resolution did not prevail, and the state capitol is still closed to visitors on Sunday. It is said that there have been many applications for its Sunday opening. Charged with the violation of the Sunday law, six barbers of the Denison Hotel shop in Indianapolis, Ind., were fined $1.00 and costs by Justice Smock in that city on March 5. The barbers' union is back of the enforcement of the Sunday law, and this is one of several prosecutions which the union has conducted. In this case it introduced witnesses who said they had been shaved by the men Sunday morning, having been sent to the shop by the union for that purpose, no doubt. The men fined were the proprietor of the shop and his five employees. The next day the barbers' union filed affidavits against six other Indianapolis barbers, alleging that they shaved their patrons on Sunday in violation of the law. "All stores in Perth Amboy are now closed on Sunday by police order, and a similar movement has been started in New Brunswick" recently, says the Hoboken, (N. J.) Observer. "The same influences that prompted Sunday closing in Jersey City—that of journeymen connected with trades-unions—seems to be behind it. The Jersey City enforcement lasted three or four Sundays and then petered out. Chief of Police Murphy's instructions to the police to see that the law is obeyed have not been revoked, but are more honored in the breach than in the observance. Public sentiment, notwithstanding sympathy for the employees who instigated the crusade, is against Sunday closing, and even the authorities are forced to recognize the fact. That's why Chief Murphy's orders are a dead letter."