ANove£ler!mE'}      Debasing  Influence  of  Monotony.  515 
to  his  customers,  as  it  is  essential  to  the  proper  performance  of  his 
duty  to  safeguard  the  public  health. 
Aside  from  these  reasons,  however,  the  pharmacist  should  be  a 
law-abiding  citizen  and  endeavor  to  live  up  to  the  highest  ideals  of 
true  citizenship.  Recognizing  this  fact  it  is  unfortunate  that  we  can 
readily  prove  that  the  debasing  influences  that  the  average  pharma- 
cist has  been,  and  is,  subjecting  himself  to  would  appear  to  be 
directly  responsible  for  his  ignoring  one  of  the  best-known  and  most 
thoroughly  well-established  laws  of  our  State,  by  selling  many 
things  that  are  not  necessary  on  Sunday.  The  so-called  blue  law 
of  this  State  has  done  much  to  give  to  the  people  of  our  city  and  of 
our  State  a  generally  accepted  day  for  rest,  and  it  is  unfortunate  in- 
deed that  we,  as  pharmacists,  should  not  be  willing  to  take  advantage 
of  the  law  to  improve  ourselves  morally,  physically  and  probably 
financially. 
At  the  present  time  pharmacists,  by  taking  advantage  of  an  old 
tradition  that  gives  them  the  privilege  of  keeping  their  shops  open 
on  Sundays,  sell  many  things  that  are  not  directly  in  the  line  of 
medical  supplies  and  thus  take  an  unfair  advantage  of  their  com. 
petitors  in  other  lines  of  trade.  Practices  of  this  kind  tend  to  lose  for 
us  the  respect  of  other  trades-people  in  our  neighborhood  and  not  in- 
frequently incur  for  us  the  ill-will  and  enmity  of  neighbors  who  should 
be  our  friends.  There  is  an  old  saying  that  a  man  must  respect  him- 
self before  he  can  expect  others  to  respect  him.  If  the  average 
pharmacist  enjoyed  the  respect  and  esteem  of  his  neighbors  he  would 
not  be  subjected  to  the  many  petty  annoyances  and  impositions  that 
are  practised  on  him  at  the  present  time. 
Shorter  hours  and  Sunday  rest  would  give  the  rank  and  file  of 
pharmacy  more  time  to  study,  and  to  broaden  themselves  mentally, 
and  this  would  give  them  culture,  which  is  so  necessary  for  the 
proper  development  of  a  professional  man. 
Shorter  hours  would  also  enable  pharmacists  to  realize  the  sad 
condition  to  which  the  practice  of  pharmacy  has  come,  not  only  in 
our  city  and  State  but  throughout  the  whole  of  this  great  nation. 
Such  a  realization  would  tend  to  make  all  of  us  do  our  own  thinking 
and  not  allow  the  editors  of  pharmaceutical  journals,  controlled  by 
manufacturing  interests  or  patent-medicine  houses,  to  do  it  for  us. 
What  the  rank  and  file  of  pharmacists  of  this  country  need,  and 
need  badly,  is  the  ability  to  do  their  own  thinking.   One  of  the  most 
