ARTISTS’ BALL.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 4 September 1924, Page 5

ARTISTS’ BALL.

NO RESTRAINT. ON DECENCY,

IMMODEST WOMEN,

MANY PEOPLE DRUNK

BY CABLE—PRESS ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGHT

SYDNEY, Sept. 3. Inspector Markey, Who was in charge of the police at the artists’ ball, largely supports the reports already cabled. He declares that large numbers of young men and women, who were under the influence of drink, behaved in a manner which showed that they were oblivious to any need of restraint or decency.

Several women in fancy dress, who were standing about the passages of the main hall, were drunk and had abandoned all modesty and decency, while, in the basement things were still worse. There-were about a thousand: men and women present, and fully five hundred showed unmistakeable signs of having drunk too much, while many women .were scantily clad in fancy dresses. The police broke open a dark room, in which several couples had locked themselves.

The report closes: “The“conduct of the young men and women in the basement and its precincts and on the balconies and the main floor was the most abandoned-, dissolute and wanton ever witnessed in my experience.” The report addg that it is idle to seek to place the blame upon interlopers, as there were not more than a score of them present. All those behaving objectionably were in fancy dancing costume, both men and women. The chief of the fire brigade has supplied a strongly condemnatory report in connection with the 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 people in the case of fire of panic had been totally ignored. Only very tactful action by the police and the Town Hall staff assisted the firemen and prevented a serious disaster. • . ,