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Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 136, 5 March 1929, Page 9

A Wanganui delegate made a protest at the Methodist Conference against clerical clothing being discarded by 1 lany ministers (reports the “Sun”). He said there appeared to be a foolish and mistaken notion among some of the clerical members that the wearing of the ministerial dress was a bar to freedom of speech and action in certain classes of the community. He thought the dignity that attached to the ministerial calling was not increased by the omission of the official dress and by the looseness of attire of some of the ministers. The Church, he considered, was losing by /such an attitude. The Rev. Dr. C. H. Laws, principal of the Methodist Theological College, said he had no power to dictate what others should do, but it should be an unfailing rule that a minister’s dress should never be slovenly. He regretted having seen a member of the clerical profession standing on a Sunday evening in the city in hatless non-clerical dress. Dr. Laws added“l find a growing tendency among many ministers to join the hatless brigade.” Immediately after this remark by the principal, the Rev. A. N. Scotter (secretary of the conference) said that one of the lay members had lost his hut on Sunday, and wan perforce a member of the hatless brigade for the rest of the day. Loud laughter greeted this announcement. Serious damage to several seats at the Liberty Theatre, Christchurch, has been done in the last few weeks (reports the •’Times”). At least five of the seats downstairs have been ripped with a knife from corner to corner. The oficnees have become so sepjous and frequent that tlie management screens an announcement during the interval that “£2O will be pnm to anvone giving information which will lead to the conviction of the despicable person who is damaging swts in this theatre.”