FANCY-DRESS REVEL.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 12063, 19 July 1917, Page 7

FANCY-DRESS REVEL.

OFFICERS AND MEN CAUGHT AT

A MIDNIGHT BALL

Officers from the Provost-Marshal's staff, assisted by the police, raided the Chelsea Town Halll, King's Road. Loudon, early one morning recently during tho revelry of a ''New Arts'' fancy costume ball. Young officers were caught breaking the regulations. About fifty of them were in uniform and fifty others in various kinds of "fancy" costumes; some, were in mufti and others were dressed as privates and non-commissioned officers.

Two hundred men and women were dancing: a rollicking " two-step. Fun and frolic had reached the top note of extravagance and noise. The ball-room waa a binze of light, with shouts and laughter. Most or the dancing girls wore the most extravagant. costumes, and were letting themselves go with Continental abandon. Many of them were munition workers; others were "artists" —according to their own descriptions of themselves—and shop assistants. When the officers entered tne ballroom, a. rush was made for the doors, but the young men who tried to escape that way found every exit guarded. A few of them dived down into the collars, they were speedily hauled out from that, hiding-place, and it was a, crowd of rueful countenances which finally bad to line up for the official roll-call. Hardly one escaped, and over a hundred names of soldiers were taken before the revellers were at last allowd to depart. In the "bag ' were a number of officers attached to the Pioyal Flying Corps and several overseas officers and men

The ProTost-?if;ir?.hnl hns h.id bis t'ye upon tbif, and sinnlnr gathering places of midnight mirth for some time. Late dancing has been .stopped for the period of the war by mutual nrrnnsercent- by all the better class hotels and clubs for some time; but- it still goes on in some parts of the "West End and income of tho nearer suburbs. The authorities are determined to act. rigorously, and with no further warning.