present_ on Sunday "_at any dancing_," brings a liability to a $50
fine for each offence! What a terrible thing dancing is to be sure,
that looking on should cost $50, while a frolic in boating and
yachting is unexceptionably holy, and the fast young men may kick up a
dust, kill the horses, and smash the buggies with impunity, or kill
themselves by rowing in the hot sun, under whiskey stimulus on Sunday.

The laws for hotels and restaurants are even more absurd. Travellers,
strangers and lodgers may be freely entertained, but if _anybody else_
(who is he?) comes into the house, or remains on the grounds about it,
on Sunday, the landlord can be fined as much as $50 at the first pop,
$100 at the second pop, and at the third pop he is to be shut up and
deprived of his license. Somebody else must be a terrible fellow on
Sunday--and he is a dangerous customer on Saturday too, for if he
comes in on Saturday evening, or even lounges on the grounds, it is a
fine of five dollars for the landlord. But who is he? How is the poor
landlord, or victualler to discover _somebody else_, who is neither
lodger, stranger, nor traveller. The landlord cannot detect him, but
all sheriffs, grand jurors, and constables are required to hunt for
him! _Vive la bagatelle!_

Strictly private gambling is safe on Sunday, and our _Chevaliers
d'Industrie_ may ruin a dozen families, and provoke suicide and
murder,--"plate sin with gold" and it is protected, and the swindling
shyster is protected too on Sunday, for no civil process can be served
on that holy day; the rogue who is bothered on that day can get
exemplary damages by this law of Sunday asylum. But the poor keeper of
a restaurant or of an inn, is the victim for old legislative boys to
throw stones at. They have provided a hundred dollar fine for every
innholder or victualler who keeps, or "suffers to be kept," on his
premises, any implements "used in gaming," or which may be used for
"purposes of amusement," and does not prevent such things from being
used on Sunday. So if he is not extremely vigilant throughout his
house and grounds, he may be caught with a hundred dollar fine, OR be
imprisoned three months in the House of Correction at the pleasure of
the magistrate!! and for every subsequent offense may be _imprisoned
in the House of Correction_ as much as one year, and then required to
give security for obeying the law. Under such a law a malicious young
hoodlum may contrive to send a lan