CONSIDERED A FELONY

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 73, 27 March 1930, Page 24

CONSIDERED A FELONY

COUGHING M CHURCH

The inauguration of a system of fines for people who go to church suffering from bad colds and are a "human menace" to public health is strongly advocated by the Rev. Baail Bourehier, who has just,taken up his new living at St. Anne's, Soho. "Any one who goes to church with a really serious cold," said Mr. Bourehier to a "Daily Express" representative, "should literally find the heavy hand of the law on his or her shoulder. Human menaces to public health find their way into the churches, and the only way to convince them that they should keep their germs away from their fellows is by inflicting heavy penalties. "Some people forget the rules of health. They even forget the golden rule of 'doing unto others' when, they go to church. "The offender's name and address should be taken the moment that the loud and disagreeable symptoms of the cough or cold are repeated. He, or she, should be arraigned, proved guilty of felonious conduct, .and mulcted with the utmost rigour of the law —a law which I regret has not been passed. "I am vindictive enough," he went on, "to demand still greater penalties. "The guilty one should be compelled to pay the doctors' bills of all the innocent people who can prove that they became germ-infected through sitting in the same atmosphere. "I am convinced that in any company of fellow-beings, in the church, in the theatre, or the train, the person with a bad cold is a potential foundation for one cf those disastrous epidemics which sweep over England. His action in going among his fellows is an un-Christian act. He shows no consideration for his own well-being and still less for theirs. "Then there is the pulpit view of the common cold," continued Mr. Bourchicr. "I believe that Shakespeare mentioned the occasion when 'coughing drowns the parson's saw.' Now the saw may be, or may not be, worth hearing, but it is a most distressing experience for any preacher to find his orations, over which he has burned much midnight electricity, lost in a barrage of coughing. "A large number of people come to church to listen to enjoy divine service in that unworldly atmosphere of peace which is the divine right of churches. Incessant coughing and sneezing is, therefore, a grave offence. I believe that churchwardens should be empowered to' deal with all these people in the same way that they deal with any other disturbers of the peace."