DESECRATION OF CENOTAPH

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20263, 24 May 1929, Page 11

DESECRATION OF CENOTAPH

APOLOGY BY STUDENTS.

INDIGNATION NOT APPEASED.

EX-SOLDIERS' RETALIATION

UNIVERSITY BOYCOTT URGED

(Received May 23. 7.5 p.m.) SYDNEY, May 23,

Twenty-six representatives of tho Undergraduates' Association, wearing their academic gowns, filed solemnly past the Cenotaph to-day and placed on it a large wreath with a card bearing the words "From tho undergraduates of Sydney University, as an apology for tho insult to our glorious dead." In addition to the procession having being banned the smoko concert festival and ball have also been cancelled. Lectures will be recommenced forthwith. Tho indignation of returned soldiers caused by the desecration of tho Cenotaph by students has not been appeased by the apology nor by the projected prosecution of two of the offenders. The exsoldiers contend that many students witnessed tho acts and did not attempt to stop them. Therefore they are as blameworthy as tho actual offenders. A senior officer of the Australian Forces says he intends to move at a meeting of the Returned Soldiers' League that it approach the sports bodies with the object of having all university teams ostracised by them for six months. A few apologies or prosecutions, be says, will not satisfy tho returned soldiers. Tho blot will take a long time to erase, and every student must be impressed with that fact. Officials of tho Returned Soldiers' League state that bloodshed would have occurrod at tho Cenotaph if any returned men had seen the vandals at work. Public condemnation of the occurrence is widespread and the sevei-e punishment and expulsion of tho principal offenders are urged.