TELEGRAMS TO WEDDINGS

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29239, 24 June 1960, Page 22

TELEGRAMS TO WEDDINGS

Suggestive Texts Deplored (New Zealand Press Association) HAMILTON, June 23. A motion that Synod condemn “the increasing practice of sending suggestive innuendoes in telegraph form to couples at wedding breakfasts and ask the PostmasterGeneral to take what action he could to enforce the regulations which prohibited the sending of indecent or grossly offensive telegrams” was proposed by the Rev. G. A. Butt at the Waikato Diocesan Synod’s final session today. Mr Butt said the question was a moral one and it was an important one. The 1928 Prayer Book stated that one of the purposes of marriage was to hallow the natural instincts of the parties concerned and it was distressing to find that after a reverent marriage service, at which sex was placed at its highest level, the guests should be required to listen to telegrams of a suggestive, and sometimes of a grossly indecent, nature which placed the object of marriage at its lowest level. Sometimes these messages produced loud laughter among some of the guests while others present were placed in a most embarrassing position, said Mr Butt.

Canon M. N. Richards seconded the motion which was carried unanimously.