Blue Laws (The)

These were puritanical laws enacted in 1732, at New Haven, Connecticut, in the United States of America. Their object was to stamp out “heresy,” and enforce a strict observance of the Sunday. Many persons insist that they are apocryphal; but in October, 1891, the German American Lincoln Club protested against their enforcement by a democratic judge, and resolved—

“To call upon all right-thinking citizens to assist in an effort to have the laws repealed, by supporting and voting only for such candidates for the legislature as would pledge themselves to vote for their repeal.”

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.