COSTER BALL.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 237, 7 October 1933, Page 12

COSTER BALL.

GUESTS CLAMOUR FOR COATS

"UNSEEMLY BEHAVIOUR." (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, this day. Holding that the unseemly behaviour of guests at a "Coster ball'' held in the Wellington Town Hall on July 28 made it impossible for the cloak room attendants to carry out their duties properly, Mr. W. F. Stillwell, S.M., in a judgment delivered yesterday, found in favour of the defendant in a case in which a guest made a claim for £8 8/, the-value of an overcoat alleged to have been lost. The plaintiff was Dudley Bennett, and the defendant Hubert L. Nathan, sharebroker, and nominal promoter of the ball.

In reviewing the evidence, Mr. Stillwell said that when plaintiff went to get his coat about 1 o'clock in the morning he found a crowd of from 50 to 100 people in a queue, all clamouring for attention. Becoming impatient, many climbed over the barrier and got among the coats, each man seeking his own, and it was impossible for the attendants to carry out their duties properly. Confusion reigned, and coats were picked up and dropped. Plaintiff could not find his coat, aryi now alleged that the management was bad and that insufficient attendants were employed. He further alleged that one attendant invited a guest to come over the barrier, and this precipitated the confusion which followed. The magistrate said he thought that the attendants, eight, was a reasonable niynber to employ, and there was no suggestion that they did not safeguard the property under their care, at any rate until thebarrier was rushed. The loss of plaintiff's coat was not due to any neglect on the part of the attendants, but to the unseemly behaviour of the guests. A committee could not be held responsible for failing to contemplate extreme misbehaviour by a section of the guests. The committee had made reasonably efficient arrangements to deal with a normal carnival throng.