MONKS STRIKE FOR TROUSERS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 1135, 19 August 1913, Page 4

MONKS STRIKE FOR TROUSERS.

Unrest has at length found its way into the monastery, and all the monks of St. Michael, near Maikop, in the Caucasus, are out on strike. They demand more food, more leisure, and a supply of trousers. The trouble has arisen, says the St. Petersburg correspondent of the Daily Citizen, owing to the possession of “ fixed ideas ” by Father Ambrosio, who is the head of the convent. His ideas do not stop at the customary fulfilment of the monk’s obligation to be devout, chaste, and temperate; he has. an impression that devotions are the best substitute for daily bread. And so the worthy father lengthened the prayers and shortened the rations. But a denial even worse than those already indicated was inflicted upon the long-suffering monks of St. Michael. The supreme shock came, says the correspondent, when Father Ambrosio refused to supply trousers to the dwellers within the convent walls, the dictator ruling that those articles of apparel were a luxury. The latest curtailment caused much discomfort, and the cold-weather parades were endured for a month or so, but a particularly cold day arrived, and the strike weapon was resorted to. While working, in undignified circumstances, in a field, the brethren of St. Michael struck. The monastery authorities are still holding out in the matter of trousers.