BUNS AND BEER.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5129, 23 May 1927, Page 4

BUNS AND BEER.

AND FREE CIRCUSI

WIRTH BROS’. GENEROSITY

Free hot cross buns and free ginger beer. What a magnetic attraction I They drew over a thousand children to the Hippodrome, where for the last 25 Good Fridays Wirth Bros, have distributed free buns and ginger beer to the poor of Sydney. At 6 o’clock Messrs G. L. Peterson and G. Anderson, who had charge- 0.l the arrangements, looked out of the Parker Street entrance to the building, and there was not a small boy or girl in sight, but at a quarter to 7 what a difference! The small people were coming from all directions, some carrying sugar bags, others small portmanteaux, billies, or baskets.

Three policemen were detailed to keep order, and a long line was formed, which stretched almost round the building. Gradually the long line disappeared inside the Hippodrome, and coming up in the rear were some 150 old men and women.

There was a short circus programme first, and then, as the children left the building, there came th? principal reason for the early-morning gathering—the buns and the ginger beer. The ginger beer was contained in half a dozen big casks, and there was a plentiful supply of’ tin mugs, but it was the way in which the children received the buns that was most illuminating. TOOK THEM HOME. There were small boys, who were there obviously for no reason but their own gratification, and who started the bun-eating without any preliminaries ; but there were others who were evidently obeying strict orders to take the buns home. They put the buns in billies or bags, with a look of longing. Messrs Petersen and Anderson have distributed the buns before, and even in the bustle of seeing that every child got his or her share they managed to interpret some of these longing looks. So what could a little boy or girl do if he or she was given an extra bun and told it was for instant consumption, and to take a bite- out of it under the eyes of the distributor.-, ?

They took the bites. And the buns were just out of the baker’s oven, and full of currants and plums. And there were other boys ami girls who tucked the buns under their arms and made a bee-line for home to share the prizes with boys and girls' at home younger than themselves. Some boys put the buns in capacious pockets of big coats for which father had no further use, while still other boys pushed the buns inside open grubby sliirts. JUST AS TASTY. The old people were no less pleased than the children to receive their share of the buns, though, naturally, their delight was not so spontaneous, and age- did not make- the ginger less tasty. While to supply buns and ginger beer for some 1500 is no small undertaking, the firm comments on the gradual lessening of the number of children and adults who visit the Hippodrome on Good Fridays for the distribution.

A few years ago as many as 5000 waited from early morning outside the Parker Street entrance. The lessening in numbers coincides with the improvement in the general prosperity of the people of Sydney.