REMEMBER THE SABBATH DAY. Christopher D. Ringwald laments the passing of New York's prohibition of liquor sales on Sundays. Some history: "While the modern mind imagines coerced observance to be the only kind, many colonists found rest and renewal on Sunday. Eventually, New Englanders congratulated themselves for keeping the best Sabbath in all Christendom.

Drinking was a particular target, even in the less religious, and more profit-minded, Dutch colonies along the Hudson River. Kieft first prohibited immorality and immoderate drinking on all days and then restricted Sunday liquor sales, which provoked unrest and led to his recall. His successor, Peter Stuyvesant, further limited sales to between mid-afternoon and 9 p.m. But Dutch colonial authorities, and later English ones, found their zeal tempered by New Yorkers' resistance to moralizing. Religious ideals and popular appetites seesawed for centuries."

Now, for the rest of the story. Mayflower Compact signer Stephen Hopkins was probably the first resident of North America to be fined for selling beer in Plimoth on Sundays. But in order for Stephen Hopkins to sell beer on a Sunday, there has to be a backslid Puritan who wants to buy beer on a Sunday.