"ORDER OF CARDINALS."

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14235, 4 December 1909, Page 2 (Supplement)

"ORDER OF CARDINALS."

A NEW DINNER FREAK.

TURKISH BATH FESTIVAL.

Ark there 41 other fools,, we wonder, rich enough and ridiculous enough to copy the freaks of some feather-headed festive ones in New York who have just invented a " Turkish Bath Dinner

It seems that a New liorker named Billy Hurlburt, dodging a railroad train, had been thrown over a bridge and had landed on a rock in the river way up in Connecticut. Everybody said, "If he croaks we'll give him a grand funeral, and if he gels over it we'll give him a dinner he will remember so much he'll forget being thrown off a bridge into a river onto a rock."

That's how it all came about. People who have seen the bridge and the river and the rock have said no one but Billy Hurlburt would have survived. They lifted the rock out of the river and brought it down to the banquet with a brass tablet suitably inscribed.

Then Billy's pals were advised by the projectors that the Order of Cardinals would be established to further commemorate the event.

Twenty-six strong-armed chauffeurs were let into the secret and their services secured. The guests assembled at the hotel. There, in a suite of small rooms, luncheons were spread and I hen one by one the guests were asked to step into another room hard bv and become Cardinals.

The door closed behind each as he passed in. Each in turn was bound and a red bag tied securely over his head. Then, one by one. they were taken down in the private elevator and hoisted into waiting automobile*.

By nine o'clock all the guests had been gathered and had their heads bagged.

The initiates of the Order of Cardinals faltered not. What was the use? For all they knew they were being taken up to be thrown off the bridge into the river and onto the rock.

Their minds were eased upon this point when they felt themselves being hustled out of the autos through a hallway and up in an elevator.

The next thing the initiates knew it certainly grew very warm. They were paced through the hot room of the bath; then, still bagged as to their heads, they were led forth, one at a time, and tossed into the cold plunge.

They were then fished out and allowed to remove their clothing and were furnished with bathrobes.

Now the revels began. Boxing boats in the gymnasium and athletic stunts followed. All hands were then piped for another plunge and were then conducted to lie banquet hall. .

Just previous to the hour of 10, a popular actor was abducted, after performing his playlet, "The Sign of the Rose," at Haunoet stem's. He, too. was invested with the Order of the Red Hag, and when he arrived at the baths all hands turned in to make it pleasant for him. This final conferring of the third degree having been finished, another plunge was taken, after which every participant was stomped with a rubber stamp " raid" in indelible ink. All were now passed " Cardinal* of the Order of the Red Bag and the Bath."

Hurlburt himself had received the Order of the Red Bag. but in consideration of the fact that he had been flung over a bridge into the river and onto a rock, he was spared the rest of the initiation: being given, instead, a chair on the edge of the plunge: any being invested with .authority to how long the various guests, with their heads in bags, should be held under water after they were thrown in. All that was missing. Hurlburt said, was the rock to land on. ' THEN* CAME THK. HAXQCKT. . , The snap and spontaneity of this ; oddest of all New York dinners, that began with blindfolding- and bathing and ended with dressing gowns, never flagged from seven p.m. till two a.m., when som* of the guests pleacffe'l busy days before them and remarked that they thought they'd drop into a Turkish bath for a while'"and get braced up.

The sight of more than 40 men with lank wet hair, feasting, orating, reciting, and singing in varied coloured bathrobes, as if it were the usual thing to do was a sight most ludicrous.

| The waiters at the banquet wore high hats. Turkish towels and bands of gold paint around their shins and forearms; everything being done on a brilliant scale. The table decorations were pinks, water lilies, and rubber plants.

During the dinner the rock was presented to Hurlburt. although he remarked that they had met before, having been thrown together in Connecticut some months since.

At the dessert, all present cracked nuts on the rock except Hurlburt, who reminded all present that once was enough for him.

The stone was removed on rollers and taken up to Hurlburt's offices as a souvenir of the bump, the bath, and the banquet.