Salvation Army Processions.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume XIX, Issue 1866, 4 August 1886, Page 2

Salvation Army Processions.

1 Salvation Abut processions, with the trumpets, brazen instruments, fifes, and big drums are often a great nuisance in the streets of a town. The procession, with its following of rag, tag, and bobtail, often interrupts legitimate street traffic, while the music is generally of such an execrable quality as to set most folks teeth on edge. Why noise and clatter, and the banjo and the big drum, should be iodiapeosibleadjnncts towards “ seeking salvation,'' we never could discover. Up Napier way, the Borough Council framed a by-law prohibiting the Salvationists from causing public annoyance by the processions. The Napier Beildent Magistrate declared that the by-law was ultra vires, and so the Borough Council took the case to the Court of Appeal. On Thursday Mr Justice Bichmond gave his judgment in the case. His Honor decided that such proa cession were subject to regulation by the local authorities, but thought that as the ease on which the appeal was based was a test one, the appellants would be satisfied with the imposition of a nominal fine, The appeal was therefore allowed, with costs £S 6s. Mr Chapman appeared lor the appellant corpora* tion. The effect of this decision is that the local bodies can so regulate those Salvation Army processions as to prevent them becoming a pnblio nuisance, which in effect means—seeing that they are always a public nuisance—that they can be abolished altogether. And a precious good job too.