Article January 14, 1928 Issue

Signs of the Times

with contributions from Kenneth C. M. Sills, John F. Dunstan, Benjamin Goodfield

[From the New Outlook, Toronto, Ontario, Canada]

Evidently England is not yet prepared to forgo her day of rest for the Continental Sunday. In order to test the feeling of its constituency on the question the Manchester Evening News issued voting papers in a recent number, and in addition provided the cinemas and the churches of the city with copies of the voting sheet. The questions submitted ran: (1) Are you in favor of Sunday games in public parks at times not interfering with the hours of divine worship? (2) Are you in favor of the opening of cinemas on Sunday after the hours of divine worship? In filling up his sheet every voter had to give his name and address, otherwise his paper was disqualified. Nearly a quarter of a million papers were sent in. They produced this surprising result: after deducting spoiled papers, out of upwards of 235,000 votes cast, only 37,609 were in favor of Sunday games, and 30,028 in favor of the opening of cinemas. That is to say, the voting was more than five to one against Sunday games and nearly seven to one against Sunday cinemas. The Evening News confesses to much surprise at the overwhelming majority in favor of the maintenance of the English Sunday, and contents that municipal councils ought not to ignore the strong sentiment to which the vote gives evidence, and that advocates of the introduction of the Continental Sunday will now know that the voice of the people is against them. It is believed that a similar sentiment to that expressed in Manchester prevails in other parts of the country, and that it will be a long time before the British people will be prepared to surrender its inherited day of rest for its games and theaters.

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