17 JANUARY 1931, Page 3

As the Manchester Guardian remarks, the object of most of

those who attack the obsolete laws is to establish the right to open places of entertainment on Sunday. This matter is governed not by the Act of 1667, but by an Act of 1780, which was directed primarily against public debates on theology. If a debate on a text from the Bible was arranged between "persons unlearned and incompe- tent to explain the same," and a fee was charged for admission, the originator of the debate, according to the Manchester Guardian, could be fined 1200, the chairman 1100, and the person who took money at the doors £50. That would surely be a much more heroic prosecution for the ironists to stage than anything ending in the anti-climax of an "admonition."