UNWELCOME JOKES

Hokitika Guardian, 28 July 1932, Page 8

UNWELCOME JOKES

ELABORATE PERPETRATORS. 4 SYDNEY, July 8. A hundred years ago hoaxing was a common feature of English social life but-in latter years it has been out of fashion. This very objectionable form of amusement has broken out r <n an acuto form on this side of the world. Seveial elaborate practical jokes have been perpetrated in Sydney recently, but the worst, or best, instance of the Australian hoax eventuated at Mar rickville this Week. There is a firm of dairymen in that suburb who seem to be unpopular with various “persons unknown”, as they discovered to their cost the other day. First the Newtown ambulance received a “hurry call” and riislied to the factory in to discover that their services were not needed. At they were, leaving, two lire dashed up’, only to retreat disappointed;- Th6n came 10 motor cabs, all iu response to telephone messages, hurraing lo 1 a “surprise party ’. Next avvaggon from the Lunacy Department, with two. nurses, rushed up to the door to take charge of a mental case supposed, to be-.giving trouble inside. lily this time the owners of the building had induced the drivers of the vehicles tp bellieve that there was nothing the matter, and-they al. withdrew; but there was worse to follow; A poultry farmer from Bankstown,. a suburb twenty miles away, appeared next, with 100 roosters in. .rates—he having spent the best pan afi ■ a-; day selectng the birds in re sponse to a telephone call. Then came U-'ioiu-y with two tqiis of wood, a women; with two clogs for sale, a var. ,itii an- apparatus for : .-killing cock-roaches',-and finally agents . with twi aoiior-cyt-les which* had been “ordered” or the 1 long-suffering dairymen. ■ No-: hing else happened, but' it would belard to compute the amount of •rouble' inflicted on- the large' number ■ f neoole concerned' in this idiotic exhibition of misguided humour.