Stray Notes Print E-mail
Whitehaven Gazette - Thursday, April 22, 1897
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STRAY NOTES continued......................

If I like to have a lash at the police in a general way, it must not be said
that I grudge them a word of praise when they deserve it.  On Tuesday last I
heard of a policeman who gave a helping hand in the lifting of some heavy
articles from a cart that had broken down in the Market Place to another.
He certainly did a kindly act.

If the policemen who are entrusted with certain duties effecting the public
safety are lax all the year round, this cannot be said with regard to
another section of the community who have our souls to look after, for just
about this season our priests generally go in for a little overtime.

There was a time when the squabbling of our priests was a noticeable feature
in Whitehaven, and it is a remarkable fact that since the day the "Gazette"
was re-produced, and an intimation given in its columns that their sayings
and doings would be well looked after, there has been a change for the
better.

It is over nine months since the residents have had any clerical rows or
squabbles to gossip about, and whether this improvement is due to the
"Gazette" or to any other cause, it is something to be pleased at, as
Whitehaven has been a horrid place for acts of clerical smallmindedness.

Well, all our local clergy have been preparing for Good Friday and Easter,
and their industry has been rewarded by larger congregations.  The scene
presented on the Coach-road when the "kirk scaled", as they say in Scotland,
after the noon service at the Catholic Church on Good Friday was
extraordinary.

Why one would imagine that half the population of the town had come out of
that place of worship, but how they managed to stow away such a crowd in the
building is a puzzle that is well worth solving.  To see the folk come out
was a treat, and they did not look as some of their Protestant brethren do,
as if they were leaving a theatre.

But there were fairly good congregations almost everywhere on Good Friday
and Easter Sunday.  It is, I think, becoming quite the correct thing to
attend service on those days, although the attendances at church on ordinary
Sundays is decreasing all over the country year after year.

Some of the customs of the season are also getting out of date, and I really
don't think that the "hot cross bun" is as popular as it used to be years
ago.  I did not hear so much about them this season, but I saw and enjoyed
some of MISS RIGBY's baking, and considered them real good.

I managed to carry out my intention of attending the three hours service at
Christ Church on Good Friday, and on this subject, I must state that this
service has been conducted here for over six years in its present form, and
for a considerable time longer in various other shapes.

It is, however, the first of the kind that I ever attended, and it
interested me very much.  In the first place, I was astonished at the
extraordinary preponderance of the female worshippers over the male.  Why, I
guess it was at the rate of a dozen to one, and you had to look through a
forest of pretty bonnets and hats to find the bare head of a man.

I popped in about half an hour before the conclusion of the service, and at
first sight I thought I had made a mistake, and that the arrangements had
been made especially for ladies, and in order to tone down my offence in
intruding I took a seat afar off, in fact as far off the ladies as possible.

The service was a very simple one.  It consisted of a series of addresses,
intermingled with singing and praying, but with all its simplicity it must
have been pretty hard work on the REV. MR. CUNNINGHAM, who, without the aid
of manuscript or note, gave the whole of the addresses, which in some parts
were most poetic.

The singing was something extra, and that of the last hymn was particularly
good.  Indeed, it was something of itself to remember the service by its
association.  I can just close my eyes this moment and fancy I hear the
organ and rich voices of the male choir mingling with those of the fair sex
present.

Some folk might be disposed to find fault with the vicar's fad in altar
decoration, and the draping of the big cross with crape, but, for my part,
although I view a cross as a very appropriate ornament in a place of
worship, I think a good deal of the gimcracks that we see in churches are
simply baby work.

However, I have no objection to crosses, lighted candles, ribbons, tassels,
and fal-lals of any kind.  If they amuse others, they don't hurt me.  I can
put up with a lot of padding of the sort, but I must say I like a good
sermon and to hear good reading as well, but to attend church where there is
"more tablecloth than pudding" is an abomination.
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