PICNIC AT A SALE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20384, 12 October 1929, Page 3 (Supplement)

PICNIC AT A SALE.

CURIOSITY AND AUCTIONS.

UNDER.THE MULBERRY TREE

Seekers after sensation had a "field day" in London a few weeks ago when Mr. Thomas Sidney, one of tho principal witnesses at the Croydon inquests, submitted for auction the surplus contents of his house in South Park Hill Road, South Croydon, before leaving for America. Tho little garden at the back of the house was crowded with pcoplo long before the hour fixed for the sale. Tho auctioneer and his assistant sat on a raised dais in the garden, hemmed in by a pushing crowd. Tho auctioneer called out lot after lot in a weary voice. Good furniture was sold for next to nothing. There were few bidders, but the whole time a constant stream of people, most of them women, filed into the garden. Some women took their babies and camped under tlie trees with a'Vacuuin llask arid' a packet of buns. They were "out lor the day." Others gathered wide-eyed round the auctioneer's table. They talked iu whispers and nudged one another. The sun blazed down*on them, but it mado no difference.

One young woman left" her baby to sleep at ono end of tho garden and dashed back so as not to miss, the fun.- "Is that up for auction, too? " cried a man, and a few women laughed. A beautiful mulberry tree burdened with ripe fruit, provided shade for another picnic party.. Ono man leaped up. and, catching hold of the branches, pulled them until ho could reach tho berries. Then he ale. as if he had never had a meal iu his life. All the wliilo -the monotonous drone, of the auctioneer floated across tho garden. Mr. Sidney, dressed in a grey flannel suit and looking grave and preoccupied, came and stood at the back of the crowd, lie surveyed the sightseers with a bitter smile, turned and walked away. All the while a slim figure of a boy of about 15 years of age, in' grey flannel trousers and a .tenuis, shirt open at tho neck; had been sitting with folded arms watching l he sensation-mongers crowd the beautiful little garden. He knew that few of tho people thero had como .to bid,, and from tunc to time an expression of contempt.would come into his eyes. Tho boy rose to his feet. " Curiosity killed thereat, you know." lie said in a high voice. " Curiosity killed the cat." Then lie, too, turned and left the.garden.