SUNDAY MOTOR TESTS

Taranaki Daily News, 29 August 1930, Page 10

SUNDAY MOTOR TESTS

CLERGYMEN’S OBJECTION. COURSE FLAGS REMOVED. Sunday, August 8. The Sunday sport question has been raised in Sydney again by an incident that occurred outside the Methodist Church at Castlereagh last Sunday. An automobile club in Sydney had marked out a road, which passed the front door of the church, for a reliability test, and officials placed flags along the street during the early hours of the morning. Rev. D. C. Hughes, the superintendent minister of the circuit, told, the police that he found one of the flags denoting the course planted in the road outside his church. He moved it and instructed church officials to remove all the flags in the street. Later, when the motorists reached that part of their course, there was considerable confusion owing to the absence of the flags, and a fresh set was placed in position. At this time the church service was in progress, but Dr. Hughes suspended it while he remonstrated with the officials of the motor club. There was a heated argument in the street, in which congregation and motorists joined. Finally the police intervened and. ordered, the removal of the flags from the street. The motorists, after a stormy gathering outside the church, decided to remove, the scene of their contests to another street.

Subsequently Dr. Hughes and the trustees of the Castlereagh Methodist Church protested to the Chief Secretary against any further motor reliability contests being held in that district on Sundays.