SABBATH OBSERVANCE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9181, 2 September 1908, Page 5

SABBATH OBSERVANCE.

EFFECTIVE LEGISLATION. THINLY ATTENDED RACE MEETING. Received September 1, 8.40 a.m. NEW YORK, August 31. Governor Fort's threat to send militia to enforce Sunday closinghas caused the liquor sellers of Atlantic City (a pleasure and health resort) to comply with the liquur laws. The Stakes was run at SheepsJicacl Bay without a single book being made upon the course. A few hundred spectators were present, as compared with forty thousand last year.

On December Bth last year the police enforced the "Blue Laws" to make Sunday a day of rest and to abolish sacred and other concerts and nerformar.ces by' arresting at Kansas City 141 actors and actresses on the stage, and arranging them in their motley stage dresses for violation of the law. New York's cosmopolitan population, accustomed from childhood to the "Continental Sunday," took the new order humorously, believing that the police, bv fallowing the strict letter of the law. were trying to reduce it to an absurdity. When people arrived at the Metropolitan Opera House on December Bth, in the hope of enjoying the regular Sunday concert, consisting of selections from the great oratorios, they were informed by policemen stationed outside that there would be no performance. The box office clerks were not permitted even to return the money for tickets which hundreds had purchased earlier in the week. One effect of this rigid enforcement of the Blue Laws was crowded saloon bars, with no police to see that the liquor law 3 wera observed. The enforcement of the letter of the Sunday laws was in accordance with a judgment a tew days previously by Justice O'Gorman designating all public entertainments on Sunday as illegal. At midnight on the Saturday the police closed every dancing hall and theatre in New York. Even the sacred concerts, including those arranged by religious societies for charitable purposes, were inhibited. The leading musical impressarios, such as Mr Conned and Mr Hammerstein, framed amendments of the laws to be submitted to the Board of Aldermen, while the Federation of Ohurchei and Christian organisations, fearing a violent reaction resulting in the opening of all theatres, urged the aldermen to steer a middle course and appoint a Sunday Public Concert Commission. About a fortnight later it was announced that the Sabbatarian restrictions had failed, and tha f . Sunday entertainments at the theatres and dancing halls had besn resumed.