DRUIDS IN DISTRESS.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 222, 19 September 1929, Page 10

DRUIDS IN DISTRESS.

TRAPPED IN OWN LIFT. A RESOURCEFUL ESCAPE. BACK PANEL REMOVED. Many people, and 15,000 New Zealand members of the order particularly, will be surprised to hear that the Cabinet of the Druidic Parliament of New Zealand was recently in jeopardy at Wellington. The executive had assembled in the seven-storeyed Druids Chambers in connection with the administration of funds that total over half a million pounds. After a continuous eight-hour last-day session, proceedings terminated at 10 p.m. in the sixth floor offices. The automatic lift was entered by the six officers, and the grand secretary, Bro. J. N. Grant, blithely touched the button to consign them to tli© ground floor. A floor lower he thought he saw a light in one of the rooms, and the sudden jolt when ho endeavoured to stop the lift,, evidently fused the transmission wires, the lift stopping a foot below the floor. So a group of prominent Druids temporarily was imprisoned. They were not want-

ing in resourcefulness, however. Efforts to open the lift door or pick the lock failed, as did the grand secretary's "brain-wave" by which he thought he could remove with a stick a roller at the top of the lift to release the lock. This desperate work continued for over ail hour, and all means of escaping from a serious predicament seemed to have been exhausted. Loud solo and choral efforts to get the attention of the police, lire brigade or general public of a noisy outside world also went unheeded. The Druidic Parliament was in a state of hopelessness suspended almost between two floors high up in a large city building, which would- not be opened until Monday.

Several members were becoming resigned to the situation, ancl the grand secretary had his boots off ready to spend the night. A wish that "Bio" (a well-known Auckland member of the order) was there to entertain them was expressed. Then the ' strained feelings were roused by the question, " What if a fire happened, wouldn't we be

trapped?" Grand guardian Bro. F. Mawhinney, and grand treasurer Bro. J. Laughton then became notably energetic. They seized upon the large oft by 3ft " caution board," which when removed revealed a twenty-inch central panel at the back of the lift. This had been screwed into a frame. With the aid of a threepenny bit and a pair of draper's scissors, it was eventually forccd off. Bro. Grant, after a terrific struggle, climbed through past the four downward wires and over the screen on to the stairway. He obtained towels, and the wires were tied back to allow the others individually to squeeze to freedom through an exit measuring only about a foot widp. It was a herculean task, wriggling inch by inch through the opening, the drop from which, between the lift and tho wobbly wire screen six foot high, to reach tho stairs, was five floors sheer down the lift well. By a quarter past midnight tho last of the sextet was safe and sound, the grand president, Bro. F. Jackson, of Palmerston North, thanking brother officers for a wonderful fight for true liberty. The vice-grand, Bro. G. 11. Lethaby, and junior past grand, Bro. Tom "Wilson, both of Auckland, being the bigger men, had the greatest difficulty in getting out. , , Subsequently it transpired that had the lock not been picked it would have been possible to operate ijie original roller idea, but as these Druidic yeomen now know, "We can all be wise after an event," but it is a curious fact that tho same executive was in a train derailment between Whangarei and Maungaturoto not twelve months ago.