HUTT CARNIVAL

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 83, 10 April 1939, Page 10

HUTT CARNIVAL

FUN AT A FIRE

A two-storeyed house, specially constructed for the occasion on the Lower Hutt Recreation Ground, was sacrificed by fire on Saturday night in aid of the Hutt Valley Centennial Memorial Fund. A crowd estimated at over 4000 attended the carnival and was thrilled and amused by the sight. The Petone and Lower Hutt Fire Brigades provided a "Darktown Fire Brigade" which caused much merriment.

The house provided a brilliant spectacle when, in the bright moonlight and almost total lack of wind, it was set on fire. The brigadesmen were very interested in a card game, and so were excusably slow in answering the alarm. They went into action with their hand-propelled engine, however, and soon were doing their best towards extinguishing the blaze. A thrilling part of the show was the jump of one man from an upper window, 25 feet from the ground, into a sheet of canvas held by the firemen. Other high lights comprised the saving of a "baby" and its subsequent return to the flames; the resumption of the poker school; and .numerous battles and misadventures with the hoses.

The Andrews Shield for the best rifle and machine-gun shot in the Hutt Valley Territorials was presented to Corporal Ferguson by Mr. J. W. Andrews, Mayor of Lower Hutt.