Commonwealth v. Nagle

• Decision Date: 13 February 1875
• Citation: 117 Mass. 142
• Parties: Commonwealth v. Patrick J. Nagle
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

117 Mass. 142

Commonwealth v. Patrick J. Nagle

Supreme Court of Massachusetts

February 13, 1875

Suffolk.Indictment on the Gen. Sts. c. 84, § 1, for keeping open a shop on the Lord's day.

At the trial in the Superior Court, before Lord, J., the evidence tended to prove that the defendant kept his shop open for traffic on November 15, 1874, being the Lord's day; and that it was a liquor shop and bar room.At the conclusion of the evidence on the part of the government, the defendant's counsel inquired of the judge whether he should rule that the jury might find, from the nature of the business, that the keeping open the shop was not a work of necessity or charity, or whether the government must introduce evidence on the subject other than the nature of the business.The judge replied that he should rule that the phrase in the statute"except works of necessity and charity" had no relation to the clause of the statute under which the defendant was indicted; that the purpose of the statute was to forbid the ordinary pursuits and traffic of business upon the Lord's day; to compel shops of traffic, warehouses and storehouses to be closed on that day that the phrase "except works of necessity and charity" qualified only the clause "or does any manner of labor, business or work," and had no reference whatever to either of the other branches of the statute, to wit: the keeping open shop,...