Saturday or Sunday ?

Manawatu Herald, 14 July 1898, Page 2

Saturday or Sunday ?

m The following petition set forth the troubled position certain of the a ttlers find themselves in, all owing ti the longitude. We cannot find whether parliament has done anything to comfort the afflicted. PHTITVON FOB THE OBSERVANCE OF IHJE PR' PEB SUNDAY IN Tr« COOK ISLANDS. To the Chairman and memberi pf the Oook Islands Parliament, now assembled. We, the undersigned petitioners, for and on behalf of ourselves, and at the request of many of the residents of the Cook Islands, do beg nimbly to put before your honour* able Parliament the following petition : — We would reßpeotfully request that your Parliament now assembled would deliberate and adjust with all due care the day for the observance of Sunday in the Oook Islands. We would respeotfally bring to your notice that at the present time the day appointed as Sunday is an er/or. As the Cook Islands are in west longitude, the present Sunday, as observed in these islands is, in i truth, Saturday, consequently the present Monday should, in truth, be Sunday. It might be well to point out that during the earlier years of the introduction of Christianity in the Paoific, Tahiti, Samoa, and other islands bad fallen into the samt error as the Cook Inlands, but as the course of civilisation advanced it became necessary that the correct day should ba kept, and the day was changed accordingly. It m»y also have been observed that all of Her Majesty's ships visit* ing these islands keep the Cook Islands Monday as the correct Sunday, as is obligatory in west longitude. This custom leaves the Cook Islands the only Christian country < in the world (with minor exceptions) in whioh the observance ofSonday is kept on Saturday. And your petitioners wop'd now

humbly pray that your honourable Parliament will, during this session, give due consideration to this grave question, and enact that the correct day should be observed as Sunday in the Cook Islands, so that we are not isolated in this observance from the rest of the civilised world. And your petitioners will ever pray, &c.