The prohibition of certain employments or undertakings on Sunday is purely statutory. Aside from such statutes, all contracts legal in themselves, are valid, though made on that day. 3 Statutes have, however, been passed prohibiting certain transactions on Sunday. These go back for their original to 1677 3a but the terms of modern American statutes vary and, though generally including all contracts and sales not of necessity or charity, are not always so wide. A statute forbidding secular labor and business does indeed make all sales and contracts to sell, as well as other bargains, illegal.4 But if, as in the

99 Allen v. Tumham, 83 Ala. 323, 3 So. 854; Butterfield v. Kidder, 8 Pick. 512.

1 See supra, Sec. 1630.

2 Roe v. Riser, 62 Ark. 92, 34 8. W. 534, 54 Am. St. Rep. 288; McDaniel v. Bank of Bethlehem, 22 Ga. App. 223, 95 S. E. 724; McGuire v. Campbell, 58 111. App. 188; France v. Munro, 138 Iowa, 1, 115 N. W. 577, 19 L. R. A. (N. S.) 391; Union Nat. Bank v. Eraser, 63 Miss. 231; Koehler v. Dodge, 31 Neb. 328, 47 N. W. 913, 28 Am. St. Rep. 518; Macomber v. Dunham, 8 Wend. 550; Cousins v. Gray, 60 Tex. 346.

3 Drury v. Defontaine, 1 Taunt. 131; Richardson v. Goddard, 23 How. (U. S.) 28, 42, 16 L. Ed. 412; Richmond v. Moore, 107 111. 429, 47 Am. Rep. 445; Prout v. Hoy Oil Co., 263 111. 54, 105 N. E. 26; Ward v. Ward, 75 Minn. 260, 77 N. W. 965; McKee v. Jones, 67 Miss. 405, 7 So. 348; Rodman ».

Robinson, 134 N. C. 503, 47 S. £. 19, 65 L. R. A. 682,101 Am. St. Rep. 877; Bloom v. Richards, 2 Ohio St. 387; State v. Thomas, 61 Ohio St. 444, 465, 56 N. E 276, 48 L. R. A. 459; Brown v. Browning, 15 R. I. 422, 7 Atl. 403, 2 Am. St. Rep. 908; Adams v. Gay, 19 Vt. 358.

3a 20 Charles II, c. 27.

4 Street v. Browning (Ala. App.), 80 So. 150; Towle v. Larrabee, 26 Me. 464; Pattee v. Greely, 13 Mete. 284; Cranson v. Goes, 107 Mass. 439, 441, 9 Am. Rep. 45; Durant v. Rhener, 26 Minn. 362, 4 N. W. 610; Varney v. French, 19 N. H. 233; Jameson v. Carpenter, 68 N. H. 62,36 Atl. 554; Nibert v. Baghurst, 47 N. J. Eq. 201, 20 Atl. 252; Northrup v. Foot 14 Wend. 248; Troewert v. Decker, 51 Wis. 46, 8 N. W. 26, 37 Am. Rep. 808. The appointment on Sunday of an agent to sign a contract for the sale of real estate was, therefore, held to confer no power early English statute, only business within a person's "ordinary calling" is forbidden a contract, or sale which is outside of such calling is not forbidden.5 So in some States only public sales and publicly offering to sell are forbidden.6 And still other statutes are directed merely against labor.7 So far, then, as the making of a particular contract on Sunday is within the local statutory prohibition it is unlawful, and moreover a contract made on a secular day to do an act on Sunday which the law forbids to be done on that day is equally unlawful, and no recovery can be had for such performance.8