Melville Fuller

“ By the original statute all labor was prohibited, excepting the works of necessity or charity, which included whatever was needful during the day for the good order, health, or comfort of the community. As the supreme court said, if keeping a barber shop open on Sunday for the purposes of shaving and hair cutting was not a work of necessary or charity, within the meaning of the statute as it originally read, the amendment did not change the law. ”

“ We recognize the force of the distinctions suggested and perceive no adequate ground for interfering with the wide discretion confessedly necessarily exercised by the states in these matters, by holding that the classification was so palpably arbitrary as to bring the law into conflict with the Federal Constitution, Orient Ins. ”

“ It is, perhaps, as much a necessity as washing the face, taking a bath, or performing any other act of personal cleanliness. A man may shave himself, or have his servant or valet shave him, on the Lord's Day, without a violation of the act of 1794. But the keeping open of his place of business on that day by a barber, and the following his worldly employment of shaving his customers, is quite another matter ”