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In 1819 in New York there were loud complaints of the violation of the
Sabbath, as we see by an account taken from the "Salem Gazette."

NEW-YORK, JULY 14.

_VIOLATION OF THE SABBATH._


A few weeks since, a meeting of the citizens was called, to
devise some efficient means to suppress the violation of the
Sabbath. A committee was appointed to report a plan for that
purpose. I wish to inquire what that committee have done, and
when another meeting is to be called to receive their
report.--The evil still remains, and is certainly accumulating
under the most aggravated forms.--Our churches are nearly
deserted on the Sabbath, while every place of amusement and
pleasurable retreat is thronged. Good authority states the
numbers that frequent Brooklyn every Sabbath, at from ten to
twenty thousand, and a proportionable number may be computed to
visit every other island and place of resort in the vicinity. We
have forty-five churches, and a population of one hundred and
twenty thousand; admitting one thousand to attend each church, it
follows that seventy-five thousand violate that command of the
Apostle which requires Christians "not to forsake the assembling
of themselves together." Let the citizens organize societies to
suppress the violation of the Sabbath and all other vice and
immorality.