LIGHTS GO OUT.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 23 December 1924, Page 8

LIGHTS GO OUT.

AT A PRIZE-GIVING GATHERING. (BY TELEGRAPH —PRESS ASSOCIATION. AUCKLAND, Dec. 22. When at the end of a prize-giving gathering of the Auckland and Epsom Girls’ Grammar Schools, which.,was being held Sn the hall of the AucklandGrammar School, the whole of the gas lights went out suddenly. The chairman of the board, Professor A. P. W. Thomas, was speaking when the hall, which was crowded below in the galleries, was plunged in darkness. Loud laughter greeted this interruption, and was renewed when the chairman struck a match, and was seen to be conferring in the gloom at the end of the hall with the Minister of Education. The gas had been turned off at the meter, and it was impossible to restore the light quickly. Fortunately the large audience remained quiet, and after a few minutes the chairman announced the National Anthem. When this had been sung the crowd dispersed slowly. Then difficulties arose, for the whole building was in darkness, and the parents had to find their daughters, who had been sitting together in the hall. One or two tapers lit the way to the entrances, and, after some groping, families managed to get together. The affair seems to have been a- practical joke.

The distribution of prizes to the boys of the Auckland Grammar School was made in the same hall this evening, but there was no repetition of the ini cident, a trusty person being placed in charge of the meter.