SUNDAY FUNERALS

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 151, 23 March 1938, Page 10

SUNDAY FUNERALS

Banned In Most Towns In New Zealand IN LINE WITH BRITISH PRACTICE Wanganui is the latest town to ban Sunday funerals, as the result of a decision by the Ministers’ Association and the Funeral Directors’ Association. The ruling against Sunday funerals now applies to nearly all towns in the Do-, million, including the fout main centres. Exceptions are some of the towns in farming districts, tv here attendance at funerals on days other than Sunday might cause disorganisation of work, particularly in the busy seasons, such ns shearing and harvesting time. , Wellington did away with Sunday funerals in October, 1936. “There have been no complaints worth mentioning, as the result of the decision,” the president of the New Zealand Federation of Funeral Directors, Mr. W. A. Wii'son, said yesterday. “In exceptional cases, such as where the Health Department, the police or a doctor order immediate burial, no difficulty is made about conducting funerals on Sundays; the same, applies in the case of persons of the Jewish faith, which requires burial as soon as possible. When it is essential for relatives from distant parts to return home quickly the ruling is not enforced.” New Zealand, Mr. Wilson pointed out, is only keeping in line with the practice in Britain. “Loudon, with its millions, can do without Saturday afternoon and Sunday funerals,” he said. “Huddersfield has not had a Sunday funeral for 20 years. Liverpool, Birmingham, Bradford and Nottingham—all these cities and scores of large towns realised long ago that it is unreasonable to assume thab you are protecting the interests of anyone by depriving another section of the community of proper facilities for rest and recreation.”