A MILD MAFFICK.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 154, 5 August 1914, Page 8

A MILD MAFFICK.

STUDENTS' PATRIOTISM. A patriotic demonstration was held yesterday evening, but it attracted the attention of few other than those homefarers who were waiting for their cars to come along. The demonstrators were some thirty (or there may have been fifty) students determined to show their loyalty. Exactly what they were demonstrating about was not clear to most of these tram-waiters whose curiosity was aroused by the two rather debo'shed flags and the shifting group of young men, and perhaps the young men themselves were not altogether clear on the point. However, they grouped up in the Square, just behind the Cathedral, and after one or two cheers, a few bars of "Rule Britannia," and a brief address from one of the students, who was hoisted shoulder high for the occasion, and who appealed to everyone to "make as much noise as possible" for this display of patriotism, the group moved off to Victoria Square. The numbers grew as they marched along, cheering and singing,-for'the inevitable small boy trailed behind and the curious male, wanting to know what it was all about, also drifted alongside in numbers. There must have been almost two hundred persons' gathered about the Queen's Statue at a quarter to six, and they there learned from one of the young men elected to speak the sentiments of the demonstrators that though there was no further war news

to be imparted the demonstrators were prepared to be excessively patriotic under all circumstances. After that declaration, which was spread over many words, and was interspersed with cheers, the cheerful patriots marched back to the Cathedral and made another little stop outside the tram shelter, where more singing and more cheers were given, for the benefit of the six o'clock homefarers this time. They were mildly interested.