M. Rosset; a chemist who carries on business at St. Mande, one of the eastern suburbs of Paris, has been demonstrating the difficulty of mak-{ing laws without injustice. A year or two ago, it was decreed that chemists' shops were not to open fon Sundays, the main object being the excellent one of reducing Sunday labour, This was all very well, but it ignored the rights of ins dividual chemists to work seven days a week if they feel inclined for compelled by circumstances 80 to do. So that the public should not be entirely deprived of medicines and first aid on Sundays, the chemists were asked to make their own arrangements so that one oF two of their number, in turn, should keep open.
'M, Rosset's shop is situated on a market square, and it so happens that the market at St. Mande is held on Sundays. He bought the business before the Sunday closing regulation was made, and he paid on the basis of a full year's He found that the reulation deprived him of his best ay's trading and threatened him with bankruptey. He accordingly defied the law and kept his shop open on Sundays. He was sam. moned and ordered to pay a snvall fine, with the alternative) of "1+ day's imprisonment. He refused, fas a matter of principle, to pay the fine. Hadi his ease occurred in England, country which has brutally expeditious ways of administering the law, he would have gone to gaol at once, and the whole affair would have been finished long ago, but they manage these things better in France, A respectable offender such ax M. Rosset is allowed time to think it over and to appeal if he considers it worth while, A week lor two later he receives a_ polite letter, reminding him that he is under sentence of imprisonment and inviting" him to present himscl€ and undergo the punishment. then calls st the Public Proscettor's office and is provided with an official document "authorizing" the g0- vernor of the prison to admit him: for the stated number of days. He
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