SHOCKING SCENES

Evening Star, Issue 18730, 4 September 1924, Page 10

SHOCKING SCENES

SYDNEY ARTISTS’ BALL POLICE CONFIRM FIRST REPORTS. Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright Australian and N.Z. Press Association. SYDNEY, September 3. The report of Inspector Hankey, who was in charge of the police at the artists’ ball, largely supports the reports already cabled. It declares that large numbers of young women wore under the influence of drink, and were behaving in a manner showing that they were quite oblivious to any need of restraint or decency. Several women in fancy dress who were standing about the passages of the main Khll were drunk, and had abandoned all modesty and decency, while in the basement things were still worse. There were about 1,000 men and women present, and fully 500 of them showed unmistakable signs of having drunk too much. Many of the women were scantily clad in fancy dresses. The police broke open a dark room in which couples had locked themselves. The report closes: “The conduct of the young men and women in the basement and precincts and on the balconies and main floor was the most abandoned, dissolute, and wanton I have ever witnessed in my experience. It is idle to seek to place the blame upon interlopers. There were not more than a score of them present, and all those behaving in an objectionable way were in fancy dancing costume, both men and women.”

FIF.E BRIGADE CHIEF’S WARNING. SYDNEY, September 3. The chief of the fire brigade supplied a strongly condemnatory report in connection with the artists’ ball. He says that, in view of the extensive flimsy decorations amongst which drunken men and women were smoking and throwing lighted matches about, there was an extraordinary fire risk; yet the safety of the people in case of fire'or panic had been totally ignored. Only the very tactful action of the police and the Town Hall staff who assisted the firemen prevented a serious disaster.