CLOAKROOM STAMPEDE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21530, 30 December 1931, Page 12

CLOAKROOM STAMPEDE

GIRLS FIGHT FOR HATS. Women became hysterical and rushed the cloakroom at the City Hall at Hull, England, at the breaking-up of a dance at 1 o'clock on a recent morning. The dance, which was organised by the Hull Co-operative Society in aid of the Lord Mayor’s Hospital Sunday Fund, was attended by about 3000, which is far in excess of the hall’s dancing capacity. When exhibition dancing was taking place excited young women squabbled for seats on which others were standing. In one part of (lie hall six or seven girls claimed one table, and when they all jumped on it the table collapsed and they fell in a heap. When the (lance ended the female cloakroom attendants were quite unable to cope with the impatient queue. Girls and women shouted out the numbers of their tickets in noisy chorus, ami whtn two or three jumped on the counter intending to get (heir own coats and hats, there was an immediate push through the 'barriers, and bats and coats were thrown out. In the stampede two women collapsed and received medical attention at a hospital, and others fainted. The police were called in, and carried the clothes in.piles to the hall, where they were occupied until 4 o’clock in the morning in distributing them to the owners by shouting out the ticket numbers.