There is almost an Elizabethan touch in a bill which has been introduced in the Dutch Parliament, for it is designed to secure a better observance of the Sabbath throughout Holland. It does not force people to go to church on Sunday under pain of a fine, but it is clearly designed to secure that the seventh day of the week should be duly observed as a day of rest. The bill appears to have a religious and a social side and amounts to a revision of the antiquated bill of 815. Besides regulating the public service to prevent the desecration of Sunday, save where necessity is the reason, certain clauses of the bill forbid the holding of public performances on Sunday, taking part in them or. give facilities for them, the pro extending to plays, exhibitions, matches and games. As is very often the case. in these rather extreme measures, a loophole is provided in the permission given to local authorities to suspend the application of this law in the afternoon. This tends to lead to confusion, for some authorities will doubtless permit certain things to be done after noon, while others will not. The need for the bill is not readily apparent to everyone outside Holland, but the fact that both Roman Catholics and Calvinists are agreed in bringing the bill forward is indication that so far as the religious bodies are concerned that there is little dispute as to the propriety of introducing such a measure. From a social point of view the recognition by a state of the necessity of one day's rest after six of work by such an enactment is not only interesting but important.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.