MARTYRS TO MODESTY.

Auckland Star, Volume LI, Issue 73, 27 March 1920, Page 19

MARTYRS TO MODESTY.

PROBLEM. OF SIX WOCTJD-BE MASONS. One n-lgiit in early January, though the thermometer registered 10 deg. of frost, snow was falling steadily, and an icy wind i from fhe north swept the city, sis men stood in their shirts on the roof of a building ln Brooklyn. tho chief Long Island auburb of >"ew York, and refused to descend, says the "Daily "Mail" correspondent. Two storeys beneath them flame 1 * and smoke revealed the presence of a fierce blaze which was quickly consuming tne entire structure. The iron Are escape offered an avenue of 'escape, but although the firemen shouted to nthem to hurry, the shivering six refused to budge. The reason was to be found in the I countyard below, on which opened the I emergency exits of the assembly rooms on the ground floor, where a dance had been j la progress. In the courtyard were 100 women and girls who 'had been hastily sent out into the yard when the fire broke out, and the ordeal of descending the fire escape in the fa-ce of dozens of upturned feminine eyes was too much for the chilled out truly ■modest occupants of the roof. They were not health cranks, but candidates for admission to the Ridgewcod Lodge of -Masons. They had .been ordered to strip to their shirts for the initiation, and were • I awaiting a summons to the presence of | mem-bers of the lodge when che fire alnrm 'I was given. Forgetting bath ceremony and . clothes, "the six rushed to The roof to escape • tne names. i Their predicament ended when a plant < -was pushed across to them from tne next i "building. Orer this taey escaped witb complete decorum.