BOLTON has a drug problem worse than almost any other town in the country. Cannabis is freely available and is being smoked openly in pubs and coffee bars. Drug takers and pushers are in every type of local secondary school and further education establishment, inquiries by the Evening News have revealed.

EASTER sunshine continued in the South today in contrast to the North, where holidaymakers walked from the trains in pouring rain. At Bournemouth, sunbathers were on the beach, and crowds there are reported to be creating a record. Blackpool holidaymakers arrived in heavy rain - a contrast with yesterday's sunshine.

Long queues formed before breakfast at food shops at some of the resorts: for lunch, people took their stand outside restaurants at 11 am.

ONE of the celebrated troupe of Japanese acrobats and contortionists now making a tour of the provinces met with a serious accident at the Dewsbury Theatre Royal on Monday night. He was engaged in performing on a double bamboo trapeze suspended from the top of the building, which is a very high one, when, from some cause or other, a rope noose, which held one of his feet, suddenly snapped, and he was precipitated upon the stage footlights. One of the protectors entered his body, making a very serious wound. The performer, who is represented to be a very hardy, daring fellow, got onto his feet, and, making a bow to the audience, hobbled off the stage. He was promptly attended to by a medical gentleman, and was afterwards conveyed in a cab to his lodgings. The audience was very much alarmed by the sad occurrence, but the performance was continued.

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