PUBLICAN AND PREACHER

Shannon News, 15 March 1927, Page 4

PUBLICAN AND PREACHER

SERMONS IN PERPETUITY. A paradoxical position has arisen in Bradford, England, where a hotel licensee ha s endowed annual temperance sermons to be preached in pefeptutiy at St; Stephen’s Church, Bowling. The man responsible is Mr. Albert Cowling, a well-known publican, whose' hostelry has been licensed for 10 years, and ha s bewh in the hands of his family for over 70 years. The endowment fund, which totals £loo, has been handed over to the church authorities, and it is 'estimated that it will produce £5 a year, which will go to the vicar of the church as a fee for preaching the sermons. There will be two. each year at the morning and evening service on a given Sunday shortly before Easter. The term of the deed provided that the preacher shall treat of “temperance in all things,” and it is understood that tho Bishop of Bradford (Dr. Perowne) has acquiesced in the arrangement.

“Are not the sermons calculated to damage your business?” an interviewer asked Mr. Cowling. “Not at all," he replied. “What we want in the public house is a man who will come and take a drink or two in a reasonable way and go out sober. People who get drunk are no good to our trade. They are a nuisance on the premises, they are a nuisance in the home, they lower the reputation of the business, and they endanger our licences.”