LONE PREACHER

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 278, 20 August 1938, Page 10

LONE PREACHER

Post Office Square

Incident

His only audience the mbtormen and conductors of No. 7 trams waiting to depart, a negro preacher held forth in Post Office Square, Wellington for the best part of an hour before midday yesterday. A complaint was made by an officer of the tramways department working, or doing his best to work, in the Customhouse Quay office, and apparently in response to this a constable arrived. But the-preacher, who has handled a similar situation before, was not to be restrained, and spectators were entertained by his efforts to project his voice alternately to the right and left of the man in blue. Soon the constable left him to it, and his harangue lasted another five minutes. He closed with a powerful exordium, passed his handkerchief over his forehead, and retired, master of the situation. Some weeks ago the Wellington City Council imposed a ban on open-air meetings in Post Office Square, which proved an annoyance to workers in offices near by. Existing permits were suspended and no fresh ones issued. The ban has not been absolutely effective, for at least one religious body has conducted meetings in the lunchhour since, and the lone negro has taken his stand in the square as many as four times in one day. Although his voice carries some distance, the noise of the traffic drowns the actual words, and bis message is conveyed more by the earnestness of his gesticulation than by anything else. But his voice is powerful enough to penetrate into nearby offices and distract those at work.