STUDENTS' DAY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22722, 7 May 1937, Page 13

STUDENTS' DAY

PROCESSION IN CITY MUCH TOPICAL HUMOUR MANY EFFECTIVE DISPLAYS £IBO FOR CHILDREN'S CAMPS Students of Auckland University College had a good frolic yesterday when they were permitted to hold a street procession in aid of the King' George V. Memorial Fund. These annual diversions, which were revived in Auckland a year ago after a long suspension, have always attracted large crowds, and thousands of people gathered in Queen Street during the lunch-hour yesterday to see the show. Judging by the number of faces in office doors and windows, very little work was done while the procession was passing. As a sort of prologue, a party of Olympic runners, in more or less Greek ■! garments of white calico, sprinted through the streets carrying a "torch," which consisted of an amber beer bottle with its bottom cut out and filled with white sisal fibre. The party met the procession near the foot of Queen Street, where a pretence was made of lighting the torch at a fire carried on tho first float. The latter bore a party of gods, including a most ravishing Venus, grouped 011 a pile of sackingcovered boxes, which apparently represented the summit of Mount Olympus. On the top was a very large barrel from which thin black smoke emerged. The Domain Statue All sorts of current events, personalities and institutions were held up to ridicule in displays on about 20 motorlorries. The fir.'jt prize, if there had been one, would certainly have gone to a paper-covered figure, about 10ft. high, representing the famous Domain statue, bilt with the head and face of the Hon. Robert Semple. It wore a green fig-leaf decorated with the Labour Party's triangular badge. The lorry bore a number of placards: "Our Simple Statue," "Old Bob's Bare Facts," and "All He Wears is a Scowl." A "scrounger," seated in a wheelbarrow, and a "spittoon philosopher" also rode on the vehicle. The Minister was the target for more jokes on another lorry representing the "Public Shirks Department," which carried a number of black-coated gentlemen idling 011 the job. A cinema poster depicted "Surlev Semple," all-talking; A certificate, "The Big Noise." Yet another item was a real tractor painted bright scarlet and bearing 011 a framework in front a wheelbarrow with a man in it and an inscription, "The Vanishing Race." Prolific Hippopotamus The tractor was used to haul a large trailer with a huge pair of wool shears, described as "The New Zealand Clipper." A crew of aviators and others included a gentleman with a trombone, who at times almost drowned the band. Large figures of a hippopotamus and a stork, the latter ridden bv a youth dressed like an old-fashioned doctor, were explained by a placard: "Bella Wins the Stork Derby." Half-a-dozen students wearing a minimum allowance of feminine lingerie represented "The Carcus Show," and a large representation of a battleship, "H.M.A.S. Can opener,'' boro a placard which was taken to refer to the same subject. Other allusions to it occurred here and there, especially 011 a float which made fun of tho orange-potato warfare. This described New Zealand as "The Orange-free State," and carried a "spud-orange" tree bearing both commodities. "Tho 5,000,000.000 Club" was advertised by an exhibit of very adult babies drinking from beer-kegs through rubber tubes. The club was stated to be "under the patronage of Mr. Dionne." Newspapers and Radio Kadio and the press had a good deal of attention. A newspaper office, as viewed by the Labour Party, was staffed mainly by red devils. Very ragged-look-ing papers were produced from an old mangle and thrown to the crowd. A broadcasting station, PUOK, was shown conducting a "poisonality quest" under an aerial made of barbed wire. Other floats bore a negro "subheaven" with black-faced angels in white robes and wings, a Hangitoto nudist colony and a "charm school." A team of Springboks inarched instead of riding, and four of them carried an old tin bath-tub, labelled with appeals for cash. There was also a Nauru Island Olympic team, wearing kilts made from the straw jackets of beer bottles. Altogether, it was an effective display, and would have been more so if numbers of signs and labels had not been hung so low down that they could not be seen over the heads of the crowds. On account of this, the point of many of the jokes was missed.

A small army of women students and men not taking part in the procession plied collection boxes and glass beer "handles" with cardboard tops all along the route. Mock courts were also held at intervals on a lorry by members of the law school, and the fines imposed were added to the collection. As a result, £IBO was contributed to the Memorial Fund for children's health camps, with possibly a small extra amount still to come in.