Sunday Fishing Excursion.

Auckland Star, Volume XVII, Issue 233, 4 October 1886, Page 2

Sunday Fishing Excursion.

TIIKRE has been a good deal of comment upon the propriety of the Sunday fishing excursion to which tho New South Wales footballers were invited while here, an nvitation that was extended to any of tho public who chose to pay half-a-crown a head. Tho Rev. K. Sommerville yesterday referred to the subject from the pulpit of St. Peter's, and there can be no doubt that the proceeding has given very great pain to many who are anxious to preserve the sanctity of the Sunday observance. Wo are unaware who were responsible for the excursion, but we have no hesitation in saying that whoever they were they committed a very grave blunder. Football is a game especially for the young, and it is an unwise proceeding for the lenders in that game to set an example which will tend to alienate youths from parental control, or make them restive under salutary restraint. The proper observance of Sunday is a matter which must fee left to every man's conscience ; but whon bodies aro representative they owe a duty to public sentiment. It was upon the ground of their representative capacity that tho footballers claimed and obtained the proclamation of a publicholiday for their match, and there is no doubt that the support whioh was given by many people to secure that concession would have been withhold if they had forseen the sequel. Tlio protest which Mr Sommerville bus entered on behalf of the very wide section of tho community who dissent from the course pursued in relation lo this excursion is, we think, fnilv justified.