MARGATE REVELS.

Hokitika Guardian, 29 September 1923, Page 4

MARGATE REVELS.

GAY OPENING OF CARNIVAL WEEK. BATTLE OK FLOWERS. MARGATE, August 14. Had you been to .Margate to-day for the opening of Carnival Week you would have masqueraded as Puck or Tarzan ; a Spanish maid or a Red Indian. a fairy or an executioner, or something equally colour!ul. There was no avoiding it. lo add a comic touch you would have assumed bushv eye-brows, a sandy heard, n tangled mop of hair, a mask or ail ill - 11 tic-in I nose, and, with one hand given to throwing si reamers and confetti, you would have used the other 1n press to your lips a gaudy trumpet, li was the (inlv way to he inconspicuous.

Scores ol thousands ol people, disguised out ol any possibility ol recognition by even their relatives, lined the hot streets in the hot sun of the early afternoon to await a gay procession two miles long. Always under a hail of confetti from windows and verandahs belli ml them, they filled in the hour by throwing streamers t hat went high over tin' Hags and hunting and shaming diehard friends into buying absurd caps and facial ornaments. CHAPLIN’S CAVALRY.

Ten thousand blares and hoots heralded the procession long before- any of (lie three bands was heard. A Roman warrior standing on my right, as brawny a fellow as over swam the Tiber, a I tlum, Mi he had the mislortune io faint and thus buckle his sword while llie procession was passing, drew m\ attention to the bead ol it winding round a corner.

There came first mounted police, wlio, the eye said at once, were not mount to he funny, and then a tableau of an nver-imlulgeitl-louking King Cole listening to his Fiddlers Three with 25 wise guards walking near to protect him from the flappers. Then the twolegged horses of Chaplin’s Cavalry went liv in a charge. Next was a huge llower-hasket that completely bid a big ear. Then came a Venetian gondola, complete to the swarthy Venetian who plied a long pole, with in l lv a peeping number-plan' 1" show that there was a cautious and law-abiding uiutori-t. hidden somewhere ill the body of ihe vessel.

I f- STONE BABIES. Then centic police ol tlm film knockabout varici y, ; nldtcrs inm ott ol check and slid' of lee like loy >o!dii t's, “habit-:” el' I 1-slime or thereabouts sleeping iu perambulators pushed In 7-fCmm mol hers or nurse.'-, and lots of tunny men and equallv Itmttv "omen. Si', giants with heads as big almosl a.s the tloitie of the lighthouse and grotesque of face, danced by. One huge head drooped forward toward' the ground, and Fere I got sonic insight into the workings of giant... "Hi! the ha'ketwork is slipping.” someone shouted. Two men adjusted the giant's upper half and on he danced. More cars garlanded with Mowers; more carload.-, of beauties and then, to the intense delight of the children, Iho “Daily Minor” pets. On a car : itrruunded by such interesting people as Dick Whittington and lied Hiding Hood, with the Baltics in the Wo cl standing on an upper tier, the " Oa’i.v Mirror ” dug Pip beamed on the crowd, hut there "civ too many adults about to nleaso Wilfred, the rabbit, lor he nestled nervously in the undergrowth. More laughter and cheers and tootles and whistles, more decorated vehicles, ears, lorries, drays, motor-cycles, sidecars— ancient and modern—and perambulators, until the last one had re-

entered Dane Park, whore, after the massed hands of the Arg.vle and Sutherland Highlanders and the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders had played, prize- valued at Civil "ere distributed for the host decorated vehicles. t-'TORM OF 100,000 BLOOMS. After a battle of Mowers in which nearly KtO.OOO blooms of every seasonal type fell like a snowstorm, thousands of merry-makers romped oil’ to the hunilrod-and-one varieties of amusement that Margate oilers. I hey had begun their revels in Lite early morning, when hundreds of people m carnival dress were out and about. T'ntil alter midnight there was n spirit or carnival throughout the town. Every performance was a rat-nival performance. Thousands el people joined in dances both outdoor and indoor.