DRUIDS IN DISTRESS

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIX, Issue 252, 23 September 1929, Page 2

DRUIDS IN DISTRESS

trapped in own lift.

A RESOURCEFUL ESCAPE.

Many people, and 15,000 New Zealand members of the order particularly, will be surprised to hear that the Cabinet of the Druidic Parliament of New Zealand was recently in jeopardy at Wellington (says the Auckland Star). , , . .v The executive had assembled in tne severi-storeyed Druids Chambers in connection with the administration ot funds that total over half a million *AAfter a continuous eight-hour lastday session, proceedings terminated at iO'p.m. in the sixth floor offices, in© automatic lift was entered by the six officers and tlie grand secretary, Bro. J. N. Grant, blithely touched th© button to consign them to. the ground floor. A floor lower ■he thought lie saw a light in one of the rooms, and the sudden jolt when he'endeavoured to . stop the lift;, evidently fused the transmission wires, the lift; stopping a foot below the floor. So a. group of prominent Druids temporarily was imprisoned. They were not'wanting in resourcefulness, however. Efforts to ‘open the lift door or pick the lock failed, as'did the grand secretary s 11 brain-wav©’* by which he thought n 6 could remove with a stick a roller at tire top of the life to release the lock. This desperate work continued for over an hour, and all means of escaping from a serious predicament seemed to have been exhausted. Loud solo and choral efforts to get the attention of the police, fire brigade or general public of a noisy outside world also want unheeded. The Druidio Parliament was in a state of hopelessness suspended almost between two floors high up in a large city budding, which would not be opened untd Monday. . " Several members were becoming resigned to the situation, and the grand secretary had his boots off ready to spend the night. A wish that “Bio’ (a well-known Auckland member of the order) was there to entertain them was expressed. Then the strained feelings were roused by the question, “What if a fire happened, wouldn’t we be trapped?” Grand guardian Bro. F. Mawhinney, and grand treasurer Bro. J. Laughton then became notably energetic. They seized upon the large sft. by 3ft. “caution board,” which when removed revealed a twenty-inch central panel at the back of the lift. This had been screwed into a frame. With the aid of a threepenny bit and a pair of draper’s scissors,, it was eventually forced off. Bro. Grant, after a terrific struggle, climbed through past the four downward wires and over the screen on to the stairway. He obtained towels, and the wires were tied back to allow the others individually to squeeze to freedom through- an exit measuring only about a foot wide. ... It was a herculean task, wriggling inch by inch through the opening, the drop from which, between the lift and the wobbly wire screen six foot high, to reach the stairs, was five floors sheer down the lift well. By a quarter past midnight the last of the sextet was safe and sound, the grand president, Bro. F. Jackson, of Palmerston North, thanking brother officers for a wonderful fight for true liberty. The vice-grand, Bro. G. H. Lethaby, and junior past grand,. Bro. Tom Wilson, both of Auckland, being the bigger men, had the greatest difficulty in getting out. : Subsequently it transpired - that had the lock not been picked it would have been possible to operate the original roller idea, but as these Druidic yeomen now know, “We can all be wise after an event,” but it is a curious fact that the same executive was in a train derailment between Whangarei andMaungaturoto not twelve months ago.