THE MORALITY AGITATION. Great Parade and Huge Demonstration in Hyde Park.

Te Aroha News, Volume III, Issue 121, 26 September 1885, Page 4

THE MORALITY AGITATION. Great Parade and Huge Demonstration in Hyde Park.

London, August 22.—The morality demonstration at Hyde Park was a remarkable one. Contingents for the parade were all the morning converging at various points with banneis, bands, and numberless waggons loaded with women, all displaying the greatest enthusiasm. At 4.20 the Hyde Park meeting bad equalled in numbers the great assemblage j which gathered at the same place some months ago to make a demonstration in favour of the enlarged franchise bill. Thousands of women were in the crowd, and ten times as many were on the way in the procession to the park. One of the waggons j I in the procession carried twenty-four little i girls dressed in white. Thesegirlsheldalofta' [ banner bearing the inscription, " Shall the j innocents be slain ?" Another cart carried ] a large fac-simile of the Queen's letter to Mrs General Booth, approving theSaJvation Army's work in rescuing young girls, The East End contingent of the procession | started toward Hyde Park promptly at I [ 4 o'clock. This body had three bands and ! carried sixty banners, all having inscribed lon them such mottoes as, " Save Our i Daughters," etc. The cart which carried the enlarged copy of the Queen's letter was I given the middle place in the line of the East i End contingent. This body had in line no less than twenty four-horse waggons. With the exception of one bearing twenty-four girls under 13 years of age, and dressed in ■ white, the waggons were laden with women dressed in the deepest mourning, the I vehicles themselves all being heavily draped with black. Following the waggons were I about 2,000 men on foot. All traffic had co be ; suspended during the progress of the procession along its entire route. Ihe demonstration included the temperance societies, Good Templars, Band of Hope lodges, Salvation Army, and various j trade and labour societies, the Ladies' i National societies in waggons, and the Young Men's Christian Association from' ninesections of the metropolis, besides excursions from the provinces numbering many thousands. Bands headed each contingent, and numberless banners were carried Ten platforms were improvised around the reformers' tree in Hyde Park. A resolution was passed simultaneously at all platforms, pledging the meeting to assist in enforcing the provisions of the Criminal Amendment Act The weather was fine, and the affair was a decided success. A huge crowd was present, but the entire proceedings were [ orderly. It is estimated that one hundred and fifty thousand persons attended the morality demonstration in Hydo Park. j E !

Houses of Refuge. London, August 4. General Booth, of the Saltation Army, writes to the papers that he has a project for the formation of an office of help and inquiry, with head-quarters in London and agencies in the provimes and principal cities throughout the world. Men speaking different languages and familiar with the haunts of vice will be employed, ready to assist all girls who wish to reform, and who will aid the parents and guardians of missing children. In connection with the office houees of refuge will fee established in London and elsewhere, capable of accommodating 1,000 persons each, where girls will be provided for and taught means of earning a livelihood and be restored to respectability. In these homes the girls will be under restraint The establishment of such houses of retuge will especially meet the case of thousands of e:irlB who have been thrown destitute on the world through the raising of the age of consent. Keceiving-houses will be e&tab lished in Canada and the United States. Mr Morley has promised £2,000, and three other gentlemen have subscribed £1,000 each toward the fund.

The Charge of Abduction Against General Booth. LONDON, Aug. 9,—Kfforts are being made to Becure the return to her mother of a missing girl named liliza Armstrong, who, it is claimed, is illegally held by the Salvation Army. Mrs Armstrong accuaes General Booth, the leader of the Salvation Army, of sending an agent to decoy her daughter from home tor the purpose of making the girl a spectacle as a minor Fayed from a life of wickedness by the Salvation Army. The girl, who is 13 year* old, has been traced to the home started by the Salvation Army, and thence to the town of Loriol, in Drome, France, where she again disappeared. General Booth refuses to surrender the girl, and her mother has applied to the Courts for assistance in recovering her child. Hull, August 25. —General Booth arrived here on Sunday night for the purrjose of addressing a meeting of the Salvation Arniy. He was met at the depdt by the Salvation Life Guards and a large number of Salvationists belonging to the town, A hostile crowd had assembled, and the General was hooted, at and several attempts were made to reach his carriage. The police had great difficulty in preventing the mob from injuring Booth, and near the army barracks a stick was thrown which struck him. The reason for the attack was the belief in his having" abducted the girl Armstrong to make false evidence from it. London, August 21.—A meeting of the National Conference for the Protection of! Young Girls was held in St. James's Hall to-day, George William Erskine Eus:ell, Radical member of Parliament for Ay!*s bury, presiding. The conference resolved to form vigilance societies, eveiywhere throughout the country to enfotee the existing laws against immorality, £nd to labour for the improvements all legislation, designed fa repreee criminal vice,