San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1897-07-18
SUNDAY IN TORONTO.
WHERE THE OLD TIME PURITAN SAB
BATH STILL SURVIVES.
The Experience of q wanderer From ''the
states"-sunday Closing Business at the
Hotels-Sundsy Arrests-Street Scenes
The Fight For Sunday Cars.
Ispecial Correspondenee.l

l
Especial Correspondence
TORONTO, June 21.-Sunday in To-
ronto invariably furnishes new expert
ence TO the wanderer from the States.
Nothing like it is TO be found in any
other city of its size on the North Amer
lean continent today. Nowhere else is
there SO .close survival Of what we
have all come to know as the old time
Puritan Sabbath. Whether the expert
ence is a pleasing one or not depends, of
course. on the individual. Toronto is
certainly not good place for the stran-
ger to attempt undue hilarity ON the
first day of the week.
Until few weeks ago the most no
ticeable thing about Toronto Sunday
was the absence of street cars. Now,
however, as the telegraph has told, they
are allowed to run, though only in the
most decorous fashion. The motorman
is allowed to mote indeed, but he may
| not disturb the Sabbath calm by clang-
| ing the brazen bell of warning, and the
| grind of the wheels and the bur-r.r OF
the motors are the only noises the Sun
day trolleys are allowed to make.
Hardly less noticeable than the silence
of the cars is the silence of the news
boys and bootblacks. No sooner do you
realize that these urchins, so vociferous
in every city in the States on Sunday,
are here voiceless, than you wonder
how they can do business without the
customary outcry. Then you observe
that there are neither newsboys nor
bootblacks in sight. Inquiry ELECTS the
information that they are absent by vir-
| tue of city ordinance, and when you
seek a tobacconist for a cigar, a drug
store for a soft drink or barber shop
for shave you find that the city laws
prohibit druggists and tobacconists as
we'll as newsboys and bootblacks from
doing business ON the first day of the
week. If you ask policeman where
you may buy cigars or soda water, he
A. u Yusuar vov as one did me:
"Ye're a stranger in town or ye
wouldn't ask such questions, and no
doubt ye're stopping at some hotel.
There ye can probably get what ye
want.
Hotels Escape the Sunday Laws.
And SO it is. The stranger in Toronto
is at the mercy of the Sunday laws only
when he strays away from his hotel.
Their potency does not extend beyond
its outer doors. In its bootroom indus
trious youngsters are busy more than
half of every Sunday, making the drum
mers' shoes to shine; in its barber shop
chins are scraped and too abundant
locks are trimmed; over its counter the
one Sunday paper of Toronto and the
Saturday papers Of the rest of the world
are sold; in its barroom you may get
drink the same as any other day. 1t
should be understood, however, that
the bar is .'closed' and that its bust
ness is done behind drawn curtains and
locked doors and with a tremendous
show of secrecy that, however, deceives
nobody. or
The theory upon which an exception
is made as to the Sunday laws in favor
of the hotels is, of course. that the trav
eler is virtually at home at his inn,
and therefore entitled to the same free
dom to eat and drink what he likes on
Sunday that the citizen is at his home,
SO long as there is no public infraction
Of, the law, and that the police can well
afford to wink at hotel sales. Chief
Constable Grassett is fond of denying
that there are any hotel barroom sales
on Sunday, though, of course" he
said to me a day or two ago, eff your
a particular friend of the landlord, /
suppose you could get drink of some
sort ON Sunday, especially if you should
chance to be i'll.
I looked hard at the chief while he
was saying this to see if he winked, but
his eyelid remained as immoyable as if