5 16       Practical  Experience  with  Sunday  Closing.  {^oVembefS™* 
important  steps  in  this  direction,  it  seems  to  me,  is  this  very  ques- 
tion of  shorter  hours. 
Shorter  hours  will  allow  us  to  get  out  of  the  monotony  of  our 
present-day  existence,  will  allow  us  time  to  interest  ourselves  in 
what  is  going  on  about  us  and  will,  above  all,  permit  us  to  enlarge 
on  our  general  fund  of  information  and  to  increase  our  field  of  use- 
fulness. 
When  we,  as  pharmacists,  have  arrived  at  this  stage,  then,  and 
not  until  then,  will  pharmacy,  true  pharmacy,  professional  pharmacy 
rise  to  the  high  and  exalted  position  that  it  should  occupy  in  this 
great  country. 
PRACTICAL  EXPERIENCE  WITH  SUNDAY  CLOSING. 
The  difficulties  in  the  way  of  closing  drug  stores  wholly  or  in 
part  on  Sunday  seem  more  imaginary  than  real — while  local  condi- 
tions and  individual  preferences  must  largely  control,  yet  the  fact 
remains  that  those  who  have  adopted  lesser  hours  on  Sunday  uni- 
versally speak  in  favor  of  the  plan.  Their  experience  is  that  their 
business  has  been  little — if  any — perceptibly  lessened  when  the 
year's  business  has  been  summed  up.  So  that  they  are  enthusiastic 
to  continue  the  practice  and  to  urge  it  upon  their  neighbors,  because 
they  are  fully  convinced  that  its  benefits  are  far  greater  than  the 
possible  loss  of  a  few  sales  of  merchandise. 
The  most  plausible  argument  used  against  lessened  business  hours 
on  Sunday  is  that  that  asks  "  what  are  those  who  are  taken  suddenly 
and  seriously  ill  to  do  if  their  wants  cannot  be  supplied  ?"  As  a 
matter  of  fact  the  number  who  are  suddenly  and  seriously  taken  ill 
during  the  few  hours  the  store  would  be  closed  are  remarkably  few, 
and  in  these  days  when  nearly  all  physicians  carry  pocket  cases  of 
medicines  for  immediate  use,  this  argument  loses  much  of  its  force. 
It  is  often  very  hard  to  do  things  we  are  not  anxious  to  do — and 
remarkably  easy  to  do  those  things  we  want  to  do — and  this  applies 
to  Sunday  closing  with  as  much  force  as  it  does  in  other  matters. 
After  35  years'  experience  with  partially  closing  the  store  on 
Sunday  I  am  decidedly  in  favor  of  continuing  it.  The  only  regret  I 
have  had  is  that  I  did  not  increase  the  number  of  hours  closed. 
C.  A.  Weidemann. 
