DEATH SLIDE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 221, 19 September 1938, Page 7

DEATH SLIDE.

DANCER AT BALL.

FALL FROM BANISTER. TRAGEDY KEPT SECRET. (From Oar Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, September 15. While 1300 dancers in the Empress ballroom were enjoying themselves on the fifth floor of Mark Foy's department stores, one of them crashed to his death. The dance was held to celebrate the winning of the first grade premiership in the Rugby League competition by the Canterbury -Bankstown team. Shortly before midnight one of the dancers, John Fitzpatrick, aged 24, apparently in a playful mood, climbed on to the banister intending to slide down merely to the next floor. A commissionaire, realising the danger in which Fitzpatrick had placed himself by perching over a drop of well over 00ft right down to the basement, dashed over in an effort to prevent his descent. Fitzpatrick saw him coming and the commissionaire just missed saving him by two or three inches. When he had slid down the banisters to the fourth floor, Fitzpatrick was unable to stop, overbalanced on the enrve of the banister, /fend fell down! the stairway well to the basement. He suffered terrible injuries, but never felt them, as he was instantly killed. The news was kept from the dancers *nd also from the girl whom Fitzpatrick had taken to the ball.

A calendar for the guidance of Chinese farmers and giving instructions on the rotation of crop* was published v\ about 4000 years ago.