A 'Comic' Recitation

New Zealand Tablet, 8 July 1909, Page 20

A 'Comic' Recitation

An esteemed priest, of New Zealand birth, writes to us condemning in terms of refreshing vigor a coarsegrained recitation that is, unfortunately, sometimes heard at Catholic entertainments. We refer to the one which depends for its alleged ' humor ' on the baptism of tha infant child of Irish Catholic parents, with whisky. It is not easy to conceive how Catholic audiences could tolerate this effort to invade the Sacraments of the Church in search of a very poor joke, and to drag some of the most sacred rites of our faith into the spasms and jumps of the ' stage Irishman.' The line should be drawn — with voice or vegetables, or both.