SUNDAY ENTERTAINMENTS.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 16, 14 October 1907, Page 11

SUNDAY ENTERTAINMENTS.

'. .:.- •■■: . e-r-: —♦ ■■ ■ - ~ AN IMPORTANT JUDGMENT. ■', : ' A BISHOP'S VIEWS. ' . 'Last week the Commonwealth High Court \ delivered judgment upon the appeal of E. Etsliino Scott against the decision of Mr. Justice Chomley in inflicting on him penalties of ,£650 for having conducted Sunday entertainments in Fitzgerald's Circus Building last year. Proceedings by the police were taken I under tho Act 21, Georgo 111., relating to 'Lord's Day Observance. - The Chief Justice said that admission, to tho building was free.but a small charge was made for admission to an enclosed place with chairs. In .Engaud it had , been held that an entertainment for which tickets were marked, "Admission free; reserved seats , Is," was not within tho prohibition of tho Act, and wo were told that such ontortainments had received the sanction of the Royal presence.. Cases might arise in which tho part to which' admission was freo.was so small as to bo il'lusory; blit that was not so here.'The appeal ■must bo'allowed. . . ' Mr. Justice Barton and Mr. Justice O'Connor concurred, but dissenting judgments were 'read by Mr. Justice Isaacs and Mr. Justice Higgins. Mr. Justice Higgins, in giving judgment, said:—lt is gravely urged that Royalty has ; . beon present at such ontertainments. This alleged fact does not appear in evidence, and wo'should not, I presume, take judicial notico of it. Rather than admit the possibility of His Majesty doing oven so much wrong as would ■ be involved in helping people to break one of his own laws, it might be proper to presume that, as in the drama of " Euripides," tho : real Holen'was not carried away to Troy, but some wraith or simulacrum of the lady, so tin King himself was not present in propria persona at the Queen's Hall on a Sunday. In any case, as Lord Coke informed His Majesty King James the First, the King does not ex- ! pound tho law personally, but through the mouths of his faithful servants the judges.