SHOULD PARSONS VISIT PUBS?

Greymouth Evening Star, 10 February 1934, Page 12

SHOULD PARSONS VISIT PUBS?

BISHOP’S “WHY NOT?” “Should parsons visit'pubs?” Asking the question in a booklet issued by the Northey Arms Hotel, Box, near Bath, of which Miss Maisie Gay, the actress, is the landlady, the Bishop of Malmesbury, Dr. R. E. Ramsay, answers, “Why not?” He continues: — “If the question had been “Should parsons visit lunatic asylums, prisons or hospitals,’ undoubtedly the answer would have been ‘Yes.’

“If I told a congregation that I had spent my previous evening Visiting one of the last-named institutions they would consider I had been doing my proper work as a parson. “What are we to do about pubs? If we could regard the inn as a place where we could meet many of our parishioners, and talk to them and discuss tilings with them in a manner otherwise almost impossible, why should we not regard it as natural that we should go to the pub as to any other place?

“Personally I look forward to the day when the ‘pub’ shall be regarded as a place of social intercourse, where a man may take his wife or sweetheart without any sense of shame, a place where the sale of intoxicating

drinks would be a very minor part of its real service to the community. “I believe this reform is .more likely to come if we enter into the life of the inns of our country, and ask the co-operation of those who control them, rather than attacking from outside and by repressive legisation.” ' The Bishop suggests that: “Those splendid old names, ‘inn,’ ‘guest house,’ or ‘rest house’ are more expressive than the word ‘pub.’ “All of these names ought to be symbolic of the character of the true hostel oi' hotel.”