Salvation Army Persecution

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 218, 6 November 1888, Page 3

Salvation Army Persecution

Sydney, Nov 3, Fight officers of the Salvation Army have been sentenced to three months’ imprisonment at Wollongong for street marching. In connection with previous cases the following Wollongoncr telegram appeared in the Sydney Herald of October 26 :—Before the Police Magistrate to day, John Faulks Tuckerman, a member of the Salvation Army, was charged with a breach of the bye-laws regulating musical processions, on the night of the 20th instant. The evidence showed that the defendent was parading the streets, playing a cornet and singing alternately ; he was followed by a great crowd, blocking the traffic. Henry Rich .rdson, another member of the army, was charged with a similar offence on the 22nd ; this defendant played a drum and sang alternately, and was followed by a crowd. Both defendants contended that as there was no other member of the army present it could not be termed a procession, and they did not consider they should be held responsible for the conduct of others in following them up and down the streets. In reply to the police magistrate, they admitted that they were aware that a bylaw was in existence prohibiting such processions, and that several members of tbe army had already been convicted and imprison vd for breaches of this bylaw ; defendants admitted that they had been told off to assis*. in Wollongong. The Police Magistiate stated that, so far as he k iew the meaning of the term procession, the number of persons constituting the same was not defined; his duty was to administer the law as he found it. It appeared that the members of the army intended to deliberately set the law at defiance under the contention that one person could not form a procession ; the evidence, however, showed that there was a considerable number of persons present on both occasions. He fined both defendants £3 each, or two months in gaol. Defendants said they had no means, and went to gaol. •

The Sydney Telegraph of the same date has the following:—A telegram in another column states that at present there is only one male member of the Salvation Army at large in Wollongong. ’ All *h others, seven in nu nber, are undergoing terms of imprisonment for violating a municipal bye law which prohibits musical processions in the public streets. Two ,f lieutenants ” were yesterday sent to gaol for two months for persisting in this practice or the Army. A musical procession, according to the police magistrate of Wollongong, may consist of one man providing he plays an instrument while marching in the street. So that if the remaining one male member of the Army in that district has the courage to walk down the street playing a penny tin whistle he will be sent to where hie seven comrades are pondering upon the liberty of the subject in a British community. It seems to us that it is high time for the Government to look into these peculiar prosecutions. The question of the legality of what has been done will probably be dealt with in the higher courts, But the broader question of whe'her municipal councils are fit bodies to frame laws relating to religious processions is worthy of general consideration . It seems to us i hat if the street parades of the Salvation Army are to be abolished, this should take place all over the colony under Act of Pa liament, and not here and there as borough legislatures may determine. The liberty of the subject is too sacred a thing to be exposed to risk through the blunderings of the aldermaniac mind. The. Government should oppose borough legislation of this sort. And it is extremely doubtful whether the musical processions of the Salvation Army ought to be put down by force of law under any circumstances. We know that they are objected to as a source of danger in the streets. But abundant experience of them has proved that there is not much in the objection. The real ground of the opposition is that they are nuisances. But it is in regard to the eccentric practices of sincere religionists that the British, definition of liberty is supposed to be a very broad one. As a matter of fact it covers the practices of the Salvation Army in almost every portion of the English speaking world. It might be just as well if the Government would devote a little attention to these prosecutions, and to do so before that last male processionist is run in by the police.