CURIOUS CASE.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2597, 4 May 1877, Page 3

CURIOUS CASE.

The Ballarat correspondent of the Australasian relates (he following :— " A curious and interesting scene has just been enacted within and without the City Police Court. Mr Martin Bade, tobacconist, Sturt street, was summoned I under the 30th section of the Police Offences Statute, 1865, for that he, on the 4th inst, not being an apothecary, chemist, butcher, baker, pastrycook, or confectioner, did sell on that Sunday one plug of tobacco. Mr Culkin, inspector of police, appeared to prosecute, and Mr O'Dee defended Mr Bade. Mr O'Dee took objection to the prosecution, because, according to his reading of the clause, " the local authorities," to whom was entusied the ( carrying out of the cection, should have been the parties to lay* the information, but the police magistrate overruled the objection. Mr O'Dee then denounced the conduct of the Government in sending police about the city in plain clothes to entrap unwary citizens, and then to enforce the law rigorously against them. ; He also denounced the law against Sunday trading as a most iniquitous measure as carried out \n the colony, being partial in its operation and tyrannical in the spirit. He contended that if a strict observance of the Sunday as a sacred holiday was to be the law, let it be universal in its application, and apply to all classes of men and women= alike ; a confectioner, a baker, Or a pastry cook had no more right to be privileged than a tobacconist. His arguments were /of no avail; the Bench could not see its way to do otherwise than to fine Mr Bade ;£!s and costs. Within an hour of being fined some anti-Sabbatarians collected the;amount, and waited, on Mr Bade with a request that he would accept it. He thanked them most cordially^ for their sympathy, but said that.he was quite able although not willing to pay the: fine, and should therefore decline their kind offer. JEIe also told them that for a number of years he haxl been a regular attendant on Sundays, either personally, or by members of his family, at the Knglish Church, and paid regularly for his sittings, but until the church party would condescend to take a more liberal view of the Sunday question he would stop his contributions, and from that ; source he, meant to take the money to. pay his fine and costs; and that he had already sept: word to his clergy, man that he need expect bo more fees till he had made up that amount by with-; holding them from the church. Mr Bade argues that the church should lend its influence to prevent these objectionable; extremes.being carried into effect, where no one suffers by the breach of the law. There is not a clergyman, he says, that he knows that does not A work his servants and his cattle on Sundays ; there is not a livery-stable that is net open on Sunday; there is not a steamboat, a sailing boat, or a vehicle of any kind that cannot be hired on a Sunday, and.cabman ply'their calling all Sunday long, and make a great noise over it too ; and yet the lawsays that her-a respectable tradesmenshall not accommodate his customers by supplying them for money, with a cigar, a piece of tobacco, or a postage stamp."