PARADES BY NUDISTS

Taranaki Daily News, 8 June 1932, Page 7

PARADES BY NUDISTS

DEMONSTRATORS ARRESTED. i POLICE USE ITCHING POWDER. Further particulars have come to hand of the nudist parades mentioned in recent cable news from Canada. The paraders were members of Doukhobor settlements in British Columbia, and during a demonstration on May 1 they fought a fierce battle with the police, who were compelled to throw itching powder on the bodies of the paraders. Nelson gaol on May 2 was filled to overflowing. On the preceding Sunday 117 men and women, allegedly Sons and Daughters of Freedom, cast aside their garments and staged a nude parade. This led to a fight of about three-quar-ters of an hour with 18 provincial police officers, and the freedom of the paraders ended when they were loaded into motor-trucks and cars and packed in the gaol. , The parade is reported to have been headed by Pete Maloff and a woman fanatic, known as “Old Bottlenose.”

The parade, which began at Thrums, 16 miles from Nelson, was partly a protest against expulsion of Sons of Freedom from the Doukhobor communities by orthodox leaders. Some of the free-dom-loving folk are said to have Communist leanings, too, and it is possible that May Day struck them as a suitable time for their celebration. Apart from this, however, parading in the nude is an old custom among the Sons of Freedom.

As trouble was expected provincial poHce officers were stationed at Shore Acres, about five miles from Thrums. A motor-cycle officer was sent along the highway, and when he ran into the nude parade summoned the officers. The police gave some 50 nude paraders 20 minutes to dress or get off the highway, but they paid no heed. The police quickly closed in on the parade. The marchers fought hard and turned streams of water on the police. The latter countered by attacking with lengths of garden hose and sprinkling liberal quantities of itching powder on the naked bodies of men and women, young and old. This .led to a general disrobing by others and a wave of resistance which found officers sometimes beating back three and four nude demonstrators. The women were particularly vicious. As the itching powder was not fully effective in the high wind that prevailed the nudists started an offensive by using water from a garden hose. Several officers were drenched before the pipe line was disconnected by the police. As fast as an officer grabbed a nudist lie was set upon by one, two or three more. One nude woman stepped backwards and fell into a glass hothouse. Another received a severe gash on thq forehead and was admitted to hospital. She “forgave” the police, “for they did not know what they did.” Police uniforms were clutched and the paraders poured a vile smelling liquid on a police sergeant, ruining his uniform.

When the fight was over the police had 84 men and 33 women cornered in an orchard. Many of them were completely devoid of clothing, and all were in various stages of undress. Application of the itching powder to bare skins had caused the unfortunate paraders to ■cratch, and their bodies showed large red blotches.

On the previous Saturday a parade in the nude had been held at the same spot, and passing motorists were pelted with rock's by the fanatics. Police went to the scene, but all was quiet upon their arrival.

Under an amendment to the criminal code brought down last year by the Dominion Government, persons guilty of parading in the nude are liable to three years in prison.

The parades followed a series of attacks on property, in the neighbourhood of Doukhobor settlements, for which members of the Sons of Freedom sect are blamed. Attempts have been made to burn schools, an irrigation pipe was shattered by -a, bomb, railways werd tampered with, and a switch was blown up by a bomb just after a train passed over it.