Sunday Closing in Toronto.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XX, Issue 6331, 12 August 1895, Page 1

Sunday Closing in Toronto.

The following letter appeared in the Voice, a New York paper, on 3rd January, 1895 :

In the voice of 13th December I find a communication from Toronto, Canada, ■which recalls an experience there and some observations of my own. I had gone there to address the Young Men's Prohibition Alliance on a Sunday afternoon, and had arrived on Saturday. Afc seven o'clock on Saturday evening, as I was walking down King street with my host, he stopped me and said—"Do you see that door closing V I saw it. "Do you hear that clock strike 1" I heard it. And then I asked him—"What is the relation of the door to the time 1" "It is a saloon door, you observe," he answered, " and with the stroke of that hour by that clock every saloon door in this ciry will closei" " How long to stay closed ? " was my inquiry. " Until six o'clock on Monday morning," he replied. "And if even a light appears in one saloon during that time, the keeper of it is compelled to prove that his place was not open for tha sale of liquor." We called upon the Chief Inspector of Police, at my suggestion, that I might get official statements as to Sunday closing and enforcement of the law.

"Is it true," I asked him, "that you really close the saloons of Toronto from 7 o'clock on Saturday night until 6 o'clock on Monday morning?" "It is," he answered.

" Are tliere no violations cf the law % " I continued. " Very few," he testified. "And you don't have much trouble to enforce the law?" "Nob much. The liquor sellers find it doesn't pay to fight it."

" Would it be harder to shut the saloons on the other six days of the week than ib is on Sunday 1" "It would be much easier," he said, with emphasis. "I would rather take the job of closing them all the other days than on Sunday ? " "Then you think you could enforce total prohibition as well as Sunday closing 1" I asked him finally. "I know it," was the answer. "I could do ib with three-fourths of our present force, and at much less than the present cost. And lam praying for prohibition." It may be fairly assumed that Sunday closing would come easy in any city to a chief of police who would sympathise enough with prohibition to pray for it. After we left the inspector, who told me ? much about the local situation which was of interest, and who distinctly asserted that tha high license of Toronto was not entitled to any credit for the behaviour or the number of the saloons, my hosb stepped in front of another place on the main street.

" Dp you see what this is ?" he inquired. I looked at the entrance, and then gazed within. Men and women were going in and coming out. " Seems to be a savings bank," I made answer. "It is," said my host. "We close our saloons on Saturday night and open our savings banks. The banks get just what the saloons would get if they were open. Don't you think ib a good arrangement ?'' Indeed I thought it very good, and worthy of adoption everywhere. And when I spoke next day to an organisation numbering more than seven hundred young men, I found ray audience in full sympathy with Prohibition doctrine. Sunday closing and the subjugation of the saloons also on Saturday nights had shown the people what can be done with the liquor traffic. A. A. Hoiland. Harriman, Tenn.