RAIDS ON HOTELS

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 485, 15 October 1928, Page 13

RAIDS ON HOTELS

SALVATION ARMY CAMPAIGN GATHERING UP DRUNKS “Raids” on hotels on Saturday afternoons are promised by the Salvation Army in Melbourne, which has evidently not yet deserved a "sin parade.” "A rut is only a grave without ends," says Brigadier Slattery, "and the Salvation Army’s aim in this special effort to mark the centenary of General Booth's birth, is to startle men from their complacence and false sense of security; to catch their attention and turn it toward religion. Australia's greatest danger is a smug complacency and a disregard of all but material things. Our slogan for Melbourne during this special effort is; ‘Every announced follower of Jesus Christ to be a pronounced campaigner to turn men toward religion.’ We don’t care what denomination they turn to, as long as it wakens them spiritually,” he declares. Brigadier Slattery’s charge with the Salvation Army is the spiritual welfare of the whole of Melbourne division. Gather Drunken Men As well as the open-air meetings the Salvation Army intends conducting Saturday afternoon raids on the hotels. “So few of the churches actually visit the hotels,” the Brigadier explains, “and one finds some really fine fellows there, on the downward track for no other reason than that they are lonely, and the hotel bar offers companionship.” With the band playing, members of the Salvation Army bear down upon the hotels in conveyances suitable for carrying off drunken men. The men are packed into the cars and driven off to a Salvation Army hall, where women workers are ready with a good supply of hot coffee. The raiders then play the Good Samaritan to those who have fallen by the wayside. Police Relieved When the drunken ones come to, they find themselves in a different kind of spiritual atmosphere from the one they have left! The Good Samaritans talk to them gently, persuasively, understandinglv. And from the platform they are addressed, not by someone immaculate, but by some man who has been, perhaps, even worse then thev. but who has man-an-ed to recover himself. “ There are several men living hauuilv to-day In Melbourne whom we took up in one of our raids two or three years asro.” Brigadier Slattery tells. "The whole aspect of their life has chan red for the better. It Is necessary you see, sometimes to startle a man out of the rut!” 1 So successful were these raids that one Saturday the police rang S.A. headquarters to know whether they were sending out a patrol. “Because if you are we shan’t need to,” was the reason given. Brunswick and Collingwood are *he suburbs on which the raiders are "bout to concentrate.