"By Independent."

Horowhenua Chronicle, 3 April 1913, Page 2

"By Independent."

Cabled News From Abroad. (Sydney Sun Special.) RELIGION NOT DECAYING. LONDON, March 22. GooiT "Friday in London was wetand miserable. The streets were de'sorted, but at the many religious" services the churches were crowded, j notwithstanding recent assertions regarding the growing decay of the 'saoredness of the day. There wero 5000 people at Westminster Abbey. An amazing .scene of the holiday was the free distribution of thousands of hot-cross buns at Wimble"don, a suburb of London. I The poor of South London • were also given a big treat. Four thous'and children, most of them ragged and bootless, many blind, many crippled and diseased, were infants carrying smaller infants, and all the tiny flotsam and jetsam of the slums, waiked miles to the feast. They were heartily repaid for their trouhlt with many good things. i A Church of England procession at Birmingham, headed by the Bishop, the clergy, and the choirs, extended for miles. There were 20.000 in the line, with many processional crosses. I At the London Bocks a pictuiiosque scene marked the day. Thousands of Roman Catholics, carrying draped crosses and pictures of the stations oP the Cross, marched singing through tlio streets, and the hymns

were taken up liy the people in their houses. THfi TIMEB OX DRTNTCIXG. LOX:DOX. March 22. Great .Britain's drink hill last year amounted to £101.553,330. a decrease on the previous year's figures >f £.1,231,899. The expenditure per head of the population was £3 10s 9d. J The Tini<\s in a leading article points out the remarkable, increase in the drinking of whisky with monls as a result of the .advocacy of this form of drinking by the medical profession. i "Tt is impossible to dogmatise on the drink r|iir\stion." save the Times. /'The present race of Englishmen aro the descendants of many generations of moderate drinkers : English men t are therefore what moderate drinking has nuade thorn. The world's teetotal races always have fared badlv whenever thev have come into " "ollision with moderate drinkers/' ! PREFER COMPANY CONTROL. J LONDON, March 22. I At a conference of telephone workers in Glasgow yesterday, representing 10,000 employees, a motion to affiliate with the Labour party was lost, only eight supporting it. The president declared that the State control of the telephone system had signally failed, and that the majority of the male workers preferred the former regime. i The National Telephone Company, which carried by far the largest number of hands, was recently merged in tlio post office, or Government system. Vjv£« •*&*"**■*■ , .»•