The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1882-07-08
The Sunday Law.

(From The Daily Pacific Commsrciai -Aioe, tiser.)
rejected by an overwhelming majority i'm
the Assembly on, Monday. 80 far as We
can gather thisr result was caused by Il con-
victiOn that the bill was inadequate to effect
the reforms which are all but universally
admitted to be necessary, and noe because
honorable members fail to recog-
niZe the necessity for some considerable
amendment of the aw. We hope that the
result of this abOrtive attempt at amend
ment will not be that the House will dis
perse without doing anything for us in this
matter. Nothing can be more depiOrable
' than to allow a law to- remain on the
statute books against which the conscience
of the nation revOlts, and which is there
fore Systematically broken by high and
low, rich and poor, the worldly and the
religious alike.
There is II saving clause in this rigid law
in favor of works of necessity" but the
Acknowledgement was perfectly correct
when he said on Monday that it was no easy
matter to define what should be deemed II
work of necessity. As the matter stands,
however, there is no need for any nice dis
tinctiOns to be made. Everybody, inciud-
ing the most prominent members OF our
churches, constantly break our ultTa-puri-
tanic Sunday law by doing things OH Sun
day which can by no tricks of ~casuistry be
construed into works of necessity. The
Government of the country must itself be
put down at the head of the list of sinners.
Our chief island mails usually come i'm On
Sunday morning. Many of those who re-
ject all ultra-Sabbatarian views will join
with US in saying that the letters which
thus come to hand would very well keep
till fonda especially as their distribution
not only obliges the Post Office officials to
break the law of the Kingdom and desc
crate the Sabbath by work, but also gives
the opportunity, and actually creates an in
centive to the recipients of the letters to do
likewise-aS we see numbers of them doing
by retiring to their offices to read their
business letters, and arrange about their
being promptly attended to the next day.
The distribution of letters, however, is per-
haps "A minor matter compared with that
of newspapers and magazines when mails
arrive from the Coast on Sunday. What
ever excuses may be made as to the pos
sible urgency of the contents of letters, no
defence can he set up for this other p, ac-
tice. The bad example of law-breaking -
naturally ollOwed by those who deal in
these articles. From delivering they eX-
tend their Sabbath breaking to selling.
The practices thus ~engendered by the
example of the GOvernment-which ought
to be the enforcer instead of the breaker of
- created a habit of disregarding
the Sunday laws which pervades all So
ciety, and is especially conspicuous amongst
those holding the highest positions
amongst US, so that on Sunday last we even
saw the Bank open for business at an hour
when the usual evening services in our
churches were going on The law is in
deed never enforced except when some one
puts it in motion from motives of spite;
but those who do not think their social
position strong enough to secure impunity
for them obey 1t, and look on with envy
and anger whilst others break it. This is
a deplOrable state of things, and it is the
manifest duty of our Legislators to remedy
it. To have the law enforced in all its in
tegrity would be simply intOleTable. To
have il remain on our statute book, and
permit it to be systematically ~disregarded,
is q disgrace.