OBSERVANCE OF EASTER

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27631, 12 April 1955, Page 13

OBSERVANCE OF EASTER

Fashipn Parades In New York, London

(Rec. 8 p.m.) NEW YORK, April 10. A record crowd, estimated by the police at 2,000,000, jammed the main shopping section on Fifth avenue for the annual Easter parade today.

There was little of the exhibitionism that has sometimes marked the parade. But one woman, in pink and orange sateen, paraded a poodle sporting a bonnet of artificial flowers and a basket full of jellybeans. As the day was warm, few furs were seen. of all hues, with no one tint predominant, were in favour for dress. Nearly all the women wore small, floral hats. The celebrities, who in past years have strolled down Fifth avenue, limited their appearances mainly to attending expensive parties for charity at various hotels.

The models, who used to compete for photographers’ attention in the parade, advertised their wares at those parties. In London, drizzling rain turned the annual Easter fashion parade in Rotten row, the famous horse-riding avenue in Hyde Park, into a mackintosh and umbrella 'affair. Scores of women shelved their Easter bonnets for plastic headgear. The only touch of colour came from an old-fashioned stage-coach packed with mannequins and showgirls wearing spring fashions. Easter holidaymakers gave it a big cheer—and then invaded the cinemas, cafes and restaurants.

Easter Day Services Churches throughout Britain reported large congregations. The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, the Queen Mother, and Princess Margaret attended the Easter Day service in St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle. Half the 3.000,000 citizens of Paris left the French capital for the weekend, while some 170,000 foreign tourists took possession of the city. About 15,000 Christian pilgrims from every corner of the globe crowded the narrow streets of Old Jersualem to take part in celebrations commemorating the Resurrection of Christ. Many foreign pilgrims were among a multitude of 500,000 which packed St. Pe.ter’s square in Rome to hear the Pope deliver an Easter message. Many Germans took their Easter food to church to have it blessed. fires were lit on some hilltops by peasants whgp believe that the fields over which the smoke blows will yield, good harvests.

Some 50,000 former concentration camp inmates from West and East Germany and foreign countries, met at Buchenwald, East Germany, to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the liberation of the notorious camp situated there under the Third Reich.