Common Labor

This is a term used in some of the states in statutes intended to secure abstention from ordinary week-day affairs on the Sabbath — statutes commonly called Sunday observance laws. The more usual phrases, such as "labor, business, or work," "secular labor, business, or employment," are more comprehensive and leave the citizen legally at liberty with respect to few of the ordinary acts of life, save acts of necessity or charity, of which the statutes generally make express exception. The general question and, these wider phrases are elsewhere noticed (see Labor, Business, etc.; Secular Labor, etc.; Sunday Observance). But as to the phrase "common labor," which is here in question, this has been held to mean, of course, ordinary manual labor as contradistinguished from merely intellectual. 2 Ohio St. 403. It is, however, of wider import, and is held to comprehend acts of ordinary secular business, such as buying, selling, bartering, etc. 15 Ohio 241. The making of ordinary contracts, the executing of promissory notes, penal bonds, etc. 7 Blackf. 480; 4 Ind. 620; 127 Ind. 44; but it does not extend to the