EXIT 1929

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 83, 2 January 1930, Page 9

EXIT 1929

street Scenes in the cm FALSE NOSES AND RATTLES / MIDNIGHT IN POST OFFICE / SQUARE

(By

E.A.A.)

The old year was thoroughly frightened off the premises in Wellington on New year’s Eve with the din of innumerable rattles and the singing of every song, known and unknown, in the repertoire of music. As soon as the shops put up their shutters the crowd, reluctant to go home, broke, up into little knots, drifted here and there, and hung about the streets. Soon the groups as if on a concerted sign, drifted up and down the side- / walks. False noses and whiskers were adjusted, masks and squeekers toy baloons and paper fans came out from goodness knows where. Groups of youths arm in arm took possession of the streets. The raucous whirr of rattles rose in one. long blatter from the streets, and sidewalks. Squeakers ■ grunted, and, blending with the shouts, songs and laughter of the crowds, contrived to drown the last trams as they rumbled past to their kennels. Small boys drilled each other with the enthusiasm of those who have never been drilled by a real sergeant-major. ’, Still the crowds drifted aimlessly to and fro, little purpose in their movements. Now and again a bevy of girls, arm in arm swung parallel to a fashion, shop, and gazed critically into its illuminated window. • ' Masks and false noses took possession of the pavements. It was almost indecent not to be wearing one. The curiously gay, expectant atmosphere that invades a school on the last evening filled , the streets. There was a feeling about that something out of the ordinary was going to happen. The crowds Increased when th£ kinemas ended and the general air of expect- ’■ ancy grew with them. In Post Office Square. There w’as an instinctive tendency to look at the time. By half past eleven the Post Office Square was full up from pavement to pavement. All eyes were on the clock floating translucent and unsupported above the Post Office. Once a year this clock comes into its own. What it said “went.” , Minute by minute its hands crept towards the New Year. Here and there, as the hour approached, sporadic choruses broke out; only to die as suddenlv as they started. A gang of youths cheered. The din of tin trumpets and rattles strove to drown them. “Only another minute,” a girl whispered to her sweetheart. “There she goes.” The clock gave its preliminary warning chimes. In reverence to the old year, whose time had come, a hush almost fell on the crowd. ' But the first boom of twelve was not allowed to die'- away. Pandemonium broke loose in a river of noise. Ships’ syrens and motors lent a background to the nearer discords of humanity, hoarse with their squeaks and catcalls. “Auld Lang Syne” drifted down from somewhere. The Boys’ Institute Band thrilled out the tune, and it was taken up by everyone at the tops of their voices. Hands were linked and circles formed. The well-known song that has come to us down through the centuries echoed from the wharves and was flung back by the solid walls of masonry that fringe the thoroughfare. The old year lay dead—in the gutter—to be swept away that very morning by the dustmen. The New Year, a little bewildered, clanged its first quarter on the Post Office clock. In ones 1 and twos the crowd dwindled to their homes, hooting and squeaking as they went, in their turn a little bewildered by all .that they had done and why they had done it. Good Luck to It. Remorselessly the inexorable present moved onward into the future along a road that has few landmarks. For dead yesterdays and unborn tomororws leave little trace along the avenues of time. It is man who makes the landmarks and then blames Father Time for it. The hopes of one year pass into the next without observing any boundaries. As the time ribbon of midnight had silently swept across the Empire a hundred million souls had marked this self-same man-made boundary of time and wondered at it all. They had blown out the candle that had lit the way through 1929; and relit it with a 1930 match—but It was the same candle. Good luck to it.