PETITION.

To the General Assembly of Maryland:

To all practical minds the advantages of a modification of
the existing "Sunday Law" must be obvious. To the masses
or working classes of the community the benefits to be de-
rived are incalculable. The workingman's holiday is Sun-
day. 'Tis indeed his day of rest, relaxation from toil, his
few hours for enjoyment and repose; but since the introduc-
tion into our State of the "Connecticut Blue Laws," his few
privileges have been cutoff. In making laws are we to think
only of the comfort and convenience of the privileged classes ?
Is the happiness and comfort of the working classes—the real
bone and sinew of the country—to be entirely lost sight
of? Is the voice of one-third of the people sufficiently po-
tent to reduce the other two-thirds to the position of the Rus-
sian serf, or the miserable and unfortunate creatures em-
ployed in the manufactories and coal mines of England, or
the crushed and down-trodden peasantry of Ireland ? God
forbid it. And we, the friends of the working classes, con-
tend for a modification of the very stringent "Sunday Law"
so recently enacted, and also the running of the street cars
on Sunday. So far the results of the "Sunday Law" have
proven inimical or subversive to "law and order." Let us
now try an opposite course, a little more license, a little
more indulgence. We have parks, gardens and places of
resort generally, which during the week are visited by the
privileged few, who have them of their own, or can afford to
hire carriages. On Sunday too, these priviledged few are
whirled along to church in their luxuriously appointed es-
tablishments, animadverting upon and deploring with up-
turned eyes the dreadful wickedness of the "common people;"
little imagining or dreaming how much of this real and
seeming depravity is chargeable to themselves in their utter
disregard for the comfort of the working classes. True, these
godly and holy people go round and distribute tracts, and ask
why the children do not come to Sunday School, &c. Let us