Students parade through city

Once at least in the year, at the time when the honours are being handed out to their successful fellows after years of toil, students are by common assent expected to throw off all sobriety and decorum and "celebrate." The students on their part are never slow to accept the privilege and exercise it to the full, or perhaps even a little past that point sometimes. Yesterday half Dunedin was early a-tiptoe with excitement to see what this year’s labours on the part of the students would bring forth. By noon the route of the procession along George street and Princes street was densely lined with spectators. The police had a busy time keeping a passage clear, and trams were finding it increasingly difficult to make a way through the crowd. The procession, which started from the University, was of great length, indicating that elaborate pains had gone to its preparation, but it did not include much of an unusual character. Most of the exhibits carried a great amount of tiny detail in the way of notices and placards and so on that were lost as far as the spectators were concerned.

Alleged prank derails tram

To say that a joke is a joke is trite, but true, and the students’ carnival day is one on which that powerful body known as the general public looks with a tolerant and even benign eye upon the antics of the revellers. Confetti may be thrown, traffic may be blocked, and business may be brought to a standstill on capping day, and the public will smile and enjoy it; but when the joke is carried to the extent that life and property are endangered, it becomes an act of mere hooliganism. Such an incident occurred yesterday afternoon about 3 o’clock on one of the Maori Hill trams. The car was proceeding from Maori Hill to the Junction, and, in addition to a fairly large freight of ordinary passengers, there were in the rear and about the footboard a number of students in characteristic carnival attire who, just before the tram reached the bend at City road, thought it would be an excellent joke to remove the trolley pole. This they did, and the motorman immediately lost control of the car, though at first he did not know what had happened, and therefore reversed the power — which is usually a quicker method of bringing a car to a stop than applying the brake. This had no effect, however, and the car jumped the rails and proceeded down City road for about 50 yards, and cut through the concrete pavement as though it were cheese, finally coming to a standstill against a wire netting fence.

Otago scholar’s Olympic bronze

Every day we have been receiving cables of the results of the Olympic Games. We are all mighty pleased that an Englishman, in the person of H.M. Abrahams (Cambridge University champion) has annexed the 100 metres. And we are even prouder of Arthur Porritt’s great showing in the same event. To finish third, and then to be beaten only by inches, in the company of the world’s finest sprinters, is an achievement which is miles better than anything done by previous New Zealand Rhodes scholars. Indeed. Porritt’s running will go down as one of the historic events in the annals of New Zealand athletics. — by ‘Amateur’— ODT, 17.7.1924

Compiled by Peter Dowden