The Amish and the Law

There are only two kinds of people in northwestern Pennsylvania's Lawrence County—the "English" and the "Dutch." The first category includes nearly everybody—Wasps, Italians, Jews, Irish, blacks. The second category covers only the Amish. To say that the Amish are different is merely to state the obvious. They are followers of a sect that originated in Switzerland back in the 17th century and, in search of religious freedom, fled to England and Holland in the 18th century and moved to America in the 19th. In this day of home computers and space travel, the Amish eschew zippers as decadent, electricity as unnecessary...