INTENDED PROHIBITION OF STREET ASSEMBLIES. Petition to the Council. (From the " Auckland Star.") March 24.

Te Aroha News, Volume I, Issue 43, 29 March 1884, Page 3

INTENDED PROHIBITION OF STREET ASSEMBLIES. Petition to the Council. (From the " Auckland Star.") March 24.

From the pulpits of several city churches yesterday, announcements were made of an intent on the part of the City Council to put down street preaching, and the congregation, in each instance, were exhorted to si'^n a petition against this proposal as they retired from the sacred building. The cause oi this apprehensiou is disclosed in the following clause of the new by-law, which comes into force on Wednesday week, the second of April: — "Street obst ction : No persons shall assemble in any r : i eet, or congregate at the corner of anytii'eet, or where any streets intersect, and no person or persons shall collect or cause any number of persons to collect or congregate in any street, or conduct or hold any public meeting therein, so as to impede persons passing, or be guilty of any conduct calculated to annoy the public." The leaders of the Salvation Army consider that the clause is prompted by a desire to put down their open-air gatherings and processions, and they declare their determination to brave the authorities in this respect, and to persist at all hazards in the course they have hitherto pursued. Other bodies, however, as the Baptists and Primitive Methodists, for instance, also hold open air evangelical gatherings, and they likewise feel themselves aggrieved. The result is that the following petition has been drafted and was being extensively signed yesterday, viz. :—: — " To His Worship the Mayor and members of the City Council : We, the undersigned ratepayers and citizens of the city of Auckland, view with very great concern the attempt that is being made by your Honourable Council, by by-law, to stop the efforts of religious bodie3 from appealing to the people upon the public streets to turn their attention to matters of a spiritual nature. We feel sure that such a step is very unwise ; m hen you take into considei'ation that only 40 per cent, of the population attend any place of worship, and further remember that by the efforts already put forth in the direction indicated, numbers who were before a source of trouble to the authorities, have become useful and respected citizens. We appeal to you to eliminate the by-law now being consideied by the Council, dealing with the matter now under head of " Street Obstructions." And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray . " At St. James's Presbyterian Church yesterday morning the officiating clergyman inadvertently misled the congregation by informing them that a petition for the purpose of putting down street preaching lay in the vestibule awaiting signatures. At the close of the evening service in the Choral Hall the Rev. Thomas Spurgeon also drew attention to the petition, copies of which were in the anteroomandearnestly counselled his congregation to sign it, telling them that the object of the objectionable clause was to veto street preaching, and reminding them that Jesus himself was a street preacher. He further said that it would be extremely hard of the Council to shut them out from the open air — the best of all cathedrals. A large number of signatures were appended to the petition.

The God of Matrimony— Hymen, to wit — is always portrayed carrying a- torch. Can this really be in order to throw a light upon those little imperfections Love is blind to? Girls are very odd— some of them don't knoAv the names of their friends. Some even don't know what their own may be a year hence. The man who fights a duel must be the oddest of all odd men out, because, you see, hig first consideration is for his t»econ.d, At the end of 1883 the population of Victoria was estimated at 931,785, and of New South Wales 869,310. The increase in New South Wales was 51,842 during the year, oc <tou,W9 that Qi Victoria,