AN EXCITING CHASE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 68, 19 March 1908, Page 4

AN EXCITING CHASE.

ENTERTAINER'S LIVELY EXPERIENCE. A kinematograph entertainer and his two assistants had rather a lively experience at Brooklyn, on Saturday (says the "Dominion"). During the week handbills distributed throughout the district announced that on Saturday afternoon a matinee exhibition of kinematograph pictures would be tendered to the public, and the entertainment woluld be further enlivened with items by the company's talented comedian, etc., etc. The prices were 6d. and 3d., and against this combination of attractions the juvenile population of the community was not proof, for when the day and the hour came the local hall was packed with children. There was also a handful of grown-ups present.

Everything pointed to a successful performance, and the entertainment was just about to begin, when part of the mechanism -which operated the films broke down.

The " management" was not prepared to treat with its patrons on a cash basis, preferring that they should in the meantime, regale themselves with, a feast of comedy, which the talented exponent engaged by the company was ready anfl willing to distil ad libitum. Nest week, continued the management persuasively, the Wichine would be repaired and the exhibition would be given.

This was enough; the audience as one man—or rather as one child —rose up, and in a few seconds pandemonium raged in the hall. Boys jeered at the speaker, and tumbled the chairs and forms in an abandon of juvenile wrath. Unpleasant epithets were hurled at the unhappy " management," who, with his colleagues, had finally resolved, to quote an Americanism, "to get busy and chase themselves to the tall timber." They hastily gathered up their paraphernalia and departed, pursued incontinently Dy a yelling mob of boyat

Tho local policeman was sent for but he was at that moment at the Mount Cook Police Station, engaged upon His Majesty's business, and was, therefore, not available for an appeal to Caesar. The company meanwhile, having got dear of the hall, proceeded at a brisk trot towards the tram. It was their sanctuary, and they reached it just in time, the pursuers, hot and perspiring, reaching the tram steps hot on the heels of the pursued.