The Bay State Monthly — Volume 2, No. 4, January, 1885Various
History
The Bay State Monthly — Volume 2, No. 4, January, 1885
Various
Massachusetts -- Periodicals; New England -- Periodicals
In Feital vs. Middlesex R.R. Co., 109 Mass., 398, plaintiff was injured
while returning from a Spiritualist meeting in Malden, and counsel for
defendant maintained that the meeting was attended for idolatry and
jugglery, and while it might be the right of the plaintiff to be an
idolater and to attend shows, yet she could not do so in violation of
the Statute, which was intended to protect the conscience of the
majority of the people from being offended upon the Lord's day. But the
Court ruled that it could not be said as matter of law that travelling
for such a purpose was not within the exception, and that it must be
left to the jury to say if the plaintiff was in attendance in good faith
for devotional exercise as matter of conscience.
In How vs. Meakin, 115 Mass., 326, the court held that it was not a
violation of the law to hire a horse and drive to a neighboring town to
attend the funeral of plaintiff's brother.
But it was held in a later case that plaintiff, who had been to a
funeral on the Lord's day and was returning therefrom by a somewhat
_circuitous_ route for the purpose of calling upon a relative, was not
entitled to recover for damages sustained by reason of a defect in the
highway. This was the opinion of a divided court as has been the case in
several decisions where the question of "necessity or charity" has been
a close one.
Such are a few of the interesting cases which have arisen in our Courts
involving discussion of the law originally framed in 1636, and which
still makes it a criminal offence punishable by a fine of ten dollars to
walk or ride upon the Lord's day, save from necessity or charity, while
our cities furnish free concerts and license all sorts of performances
in places of public amusement under the guise of "sacred" concerts, upon
the day which our fathers thought and meant should be set apart for
moral reflection ... on the duties of life ... and for public and
private worship of the Maker, Governor, and Judge of the world.
* * * * *
ELIZABETH.
A ROMANCE OF COLONIAL DAYS.
BY FRANCES C. SPARHAWK, Author of "A Lazy Man's Work."
CHAPTER VI.
THE STAB IN THE BACK.
A brighter morning for a wedding never dawned. The house was alive with
merry voices and the echo of footsteps hurrying to and fro. The most
fashionable society of the city was to be present at the ceremony which
was to take place at noon. Then would come the festivities, the feast,
the dancing, and after that the drive of the newly-married pair to the
beautiful house three miles away, that Stephen Archdale had built and
furnished for his bride, and that had never yet been a home.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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