San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1892-04-26
Legality Of Sunday Advertising


Legality Of Sunday Advertising.
New York Sun.
Some surprise has been expressed
in various newspapers at q decision
recently announced oy Georgia
court 10 Atlanta to the effect that q
bill tor advertising on Sunday is not
legally collectable. The question
arose in q suit brought by George r.
Rowell & Co. against the Walter
Taylor Drug Company 70 recover al
amount alleged to be due uron con.
tract to advertise the business
of the defendant corporation in
q number of Western newspapers
The proceedings in court dlsclos, d
the fact that part of this advertising
was to he done in journals published
on Sunday; and the presiding judge
held that the portion Of the claim re.
lating 10 such advertising could not
be recovered.
1t is probably not generally known
that until few years ago the same
rule of law g has been laid down by
the Georgia tribunal prevailed here in
the state of New York. The Revised
Statutes prohibited all servile labor or
work on Sunday, except works of
necessity and charity, unless done by
those VINO kept sunday as holy day.
and whose labor did not disturb other
persons in the customary observance of
the first day of the week. The Revised
Statutes also for babe the public sale ON
sunday OF any wares, merchandise,
fruit, herbs, goods. or chattels, except
meats, milk and fish, and these could
DO sold only before 8 o'clock in the
morning. About thirty years ago
suit was brought in the supreme court
in this city by the proprietors of he
sunday Courier against one of their
advertisers to recover the amount
agreed upon in a contract for publish
ing an advertisement six months.
The case was tried before the late Mr..
Justice Roosevelt, who dismissed the
complaint on the ground that the
agreement for Sunday advertiser g was
q violation OF the statutory provisions
10 which we have referred. ..
This judgment was sustained by
the General Term of the Supreme
Court aud by the court of Appeals n
an opinion by Judge William F.
Allen in which all his associates con-
CURED. There was no evidence that
the contract for the advertising WAS
made on Sunday, and even If II had
been, that fact alone would not have
rendered it void. Judge Allen de-
clared that "a ontract made on Sun
day for the publication of an adver-
tisement in NEWSPAPER pub
lished on the ordinary bushes days o.
the week is not prohibited, aud would
ue valid" He also pointed out that
the contract could not be vitiated upon
the ground that the work OF setting up
and printing the paper was to be done
on Sunday, inasmuch as that labor
might have been done, and in fact WAS
done, in whole or In part on the pre-
vious day. The conclusion OF the
court that the agreement was illegal
was based distinctly upon the fact that
both parties contemplated the public
sale on Sunday OF the newspaper in
which the advertis ment was printed
The law as it then stood did not per-
NIT the sale of newspapers on sun
day, and the court declared that 1t
would be difficult to prove that the
sale of the most uDexceptionable re.
ligious newspaper was an act OF ne
cessity or charity.
The law, however, has been greatly
altered in this respect, and now ex-
pressly allows newspapers TO be sold
in q quiet and orderly manner at any
time of the day on sunday. This
change in the statute, which was
made nearly ten years ago, does away
with the effect Of the decision TO
which We have referred. and no ques
ton can now be raised as to the le
gality of contracts for Sunday adver-
Using in the state of New York.