“CHUCK ’EM OUT!"

Evening Star, Issue 19003, 27 July 1925, Page 6

“CHUCK ’EM OUT!"

DIVERSION AT BURNS HALL STUDENTS AND SULPHURETTED HYDROGEN. Amongst the audience at Mr Alexander Marky’s lecture in Burns Hall on Saturday evening were a number of gaily-bedecked students, and in view ot the subject of the address and the fact that the city was still in the throes of the capping celebrations, tbeir presence, no doubt, was considered bodeful _of something a little more exhilarating than is generally to be found at a semi-scientific lecture. However, the students were as demure ns an assemblage of Quakers, but about an hour after Mr Marky commenced his address the atmosphere of the hall suggested that it had received divers attentions from a poison gas expert, the odor being diagnosed as the rather pungent variety provided by a liberal offerng of sulphuretted hydrogen. After most of the audience were in a state bordering bn mild asphyxia the rather fearsome odor evidently assailed the less delicate nasal organ of the speaker. The lecturer, with his hands to his nose, and looking fiercely up to a small group of students, whose numbers had been sorely depicted by several hasty exits prior to this gas offensive, stated with considerable boat that someone had been guilty of “ a highly discourteous thing.” “ If you can’t act as gentlemen,” he added with increasing tartness, “ I hope yon will get out,” Voices: Chuck ’em out!

The Speaker: Do yon want me. a journalist of seventeen years, who has come 8,000 miles to speak to yon, to go hack and tell my countrymen that I was disturbed in Dunedin in the silliest way that I have known in all mv life?

This produced a chorus of “Thevro only hoodlums ! Heave them out! They get too much latitude.” Many menacing glances were turned towards the stndcnts.,who still retained their Quakerish sang froich, and even appeared oblivious of cither the expressions of condemnation, or. more remarkable still, the almost insufferable smell. There were prospects of pence agaip, however, when a member of the audience suggested that the culprits were not those in the hall, but those who had left.

For the first time during this rather hectic interlude the students showed that they had not been asphyxiated, and in unison they rose and thanked their unexpected defender. “ And what’s the matter, anyhow?” they added in seeming surprise. The Chairman (Cr C. 11. Hayward), with a dramatic gesture that suggested he wished he had come armed with a gas mask: A chemical smell lias been discharged. The students with increasing bravado announced;' with a collective look of injured innocence, that they were not responsible for the rather smelliferous diversion.

The lecturer, who had by this time recovered Ins wonted equanimity, asked in rather sceptical tones if this was so. Being assured that it was, he < said t “Well, then, I have to apologise to you boys.” Bv this time tbe audience showed distinct signs of having recovered from the effects of the gas. and also having regained their tempers. Peace wan again proclaimed, the students sank into their earlier state of apparent lassitude, and for the rest of the evening did not depart from a strict observance of the proprieties.