EGERTON'S ESCAPADE IN NURSES' HOME

NZ Truth, Issue 1197, 8 November 1928, Page 3

EGERTON'S ESCAPADE IN NURSES' HOME

Pursued By Porters After Falling Through Glass Roof, He Sought Refuge In River Avon

BEWILDERING BEHAVIOR OF MIDNIGHT REVELLER

, • (From "N.Z. Truth's" Special Christchurch , Representative.) . FARMING, BAI JO VEI Jolls old bore, what ? Couldn 7 stand it, old top. Too bally depressing. Mater would be grieved at the thought of me rising with the sparrows, milking bally old cows and chasing sheep on the jolly old prad. Shucks, lad, not for Eggie! This, no doubt, summarizes the attitude of Egerton Shelley Walter Hanbury Leigh-Hunt towards the great primary industry which it was his intention to assimilate when he sailed away from his Motherland some time ago. „ But a brief glance at the alphabetical, hyphenated Leigh-Hunt conveys the impression that a cocktail-shaker, swagger cane and kit of clubs are more his stock-in-trade than such commonplace implements as harrows, ploughs and milking machines.

DROBABLY Eggie left .England with L lighthearted visions of "Great Britain of the South." As the liner left the Old Land quickly astern, he would conjure up In his mind pictures of the wide open spaces, with fivers growing m every furrow — Without counting m as an offset such material matters as rabbits, manuka, gorse, the fluctuating prices of' butterfat, wool, mutton and daylight saving!

But what a disillusionment awaited Eggie m the wide open spaces where men are men.

Like many another polished product of an iEnglish school, whose main accomplishments are an accent, a penchant for good liqueurs, the gift of glib speech and of wearing weil-cut clothes, Eggie found the every-day li-fe of a New Zealand farm too dashed boresome.

The overwhelming silence, broken only by the moaning of the wind through the tussocks, the ineffable solitude of, the hillu and gullies, were a somewhat striking contrast to ■ the hurly-burly round of the Strand and Piccadilly, with their', silk hats and morning coats. '

Back To Blighty

So Eggie konked m on the great farming life whioh Gordon Coates so picturesquely describes m his propaganda literature distributed throughout Great Britain. He figured that the shortest route between two given points was not a straight line, but a steamer barth for Blighty.

"Home and mother for mine," quoth Eggie, but what of the' good friends he had met during his brief sojourn m New Zealand? And thereby hangs a tale., Despite the mass of information and learning Eggie had acquired whilst a scholar at Westminster, apparently ho was not aware of the fact that it is a difficult matter to walk either on water or on glass. „

So far as the former feat is concerned, history has recorded only ono successful achievement on water, while the man to \v.alk on glass without a breakage somewhere has yet to be found.

Egrgie is included m the list of also started.

"Truth" can give merely tha "official" .version of his. nocturn.al visit to the nurses' 1 home attached to the

Christchurch hospital, though con-*---strained to admit that Eggie's story was very thin.

The true facts were glossed over and leniently blinked ut by_ Magistrate Mosley. To celebrate an impending return to mother and the bright lights of London, Eggie thought a. little lubrication of the tonsils a necessary adjunct to th*»j ceremony. .-..-. So, m the evening, he summoned, together 'his friends and the hours were passed merrily till midnight. Judging by subsequent events, the party was an alcoholic success. Truth, they say, was ever stranger than fiction, but this is Eggie's explanation of his erratic behavior. When reaching the saturation stage, he was smitten with the bright idea of, visiting the nurses' home, tjiough he insisted that no person residing there had m any way induced, invited or permitted his presence.

A far brighter idea would have been to raid the city lock-up, which is located nearby, but . perhaps the inmates of that institution have no appeal to men of Eggie's type.

Plowever, for no reason whatever, according to his own story, Eggie scaled the fire escape at the home.

He was not long on the inside before he realized that he would be welcome prey for a flock of porters and attendants who Avere scurrying around m the vicinity. .

Any suggestion that he was a guest, making, a late — or, at that hour, early — departure, was. naturally, out of the question.

So Eggie took to his scrapers, tied through the door of a passage and found himself on a glassed-in roof.

Crash through the skylight went the fleeing Eggie — to find hinjself with a leg through each square and sitting astride the ste^l supports m which the glass is framed. ■ • ; ,

Progress under such conditions is, of necessity, a slow job, but when he had at last found his way through two or three panes of the skylight, he reached the edge of the roof and dropped to the ground. r

But he was not yet safe. A band of porters gave chase, while the lower sashes of a host of windows m the home were thrown up and dainty heads peered out into the night — some, per-

haps, wondering what all the commotion was about. Some, perhaps, had no need to wonder. "'"'■•;"

Though Westminster failed to made a farmer out of Eggie, he certainly must have gone close to winning his blue for sprinting. Along Oxford Terrace he flew. When he had put a big break between himself and his pursuers, he cunningly brought into play' the. animal instincts of the pursued fox and slipped unceremoniously into the Avon. .

Here, m water up to his knees, he crouched beneath the sheltering gloom of the river bank.

And when his unsuccessful pursuers gave up the chase and returned to the hospital, Eggie emerged from hia watery hiding place and made his way horne — a cold,- shivering • and much more sober man.

■Arid so, the medical superintendent, as it is reliably stated, had yet another night's sleep disturbed. ,'

Eggie, from all accounts, has borne a highly respectable character during his stay m New Zealand.

His reason for making a voluntary statement — that the police would have

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an idea of the identity of the prowler — is somewhat significant and certainly difficult to understand. s

However, supported by his legal adviser, Eggie called at police headquarters and made a voluntary statement concerning- his adventures* giving the true reason for the broken glass and the rather thin excuse that he was out on the spree, felt m a cantankerous mood and visited. the home entirely uninvited. ■ ' ; :

When he appeared before Magistrate Mosiey to answer a charge of being unlawfully on premises, but not under such circumstances as to disclose an intention to commit a crime, Eggie had little to say for himself, his counsel, Lawyer E. S. Bowie, doing all the talking Required. . . : Chief-detective Carroll had very little to say inview of the plea of guilty, made, according to counsel, . to avoid any innocent parties being drawn into the affair. ' , . Lawyer Bowie informed the court that EggieUmd discovered — soon after I settling on the soil— rthat farming was not iliis natural bent. He was intending to. return to England m the near i future. • . ,

His condition after the night's carousal, said counsel, deeply concerned his friends, who did all they could to restrain him 'from scaling the fireescape and gaining admission to the home. Eggie, however, had very stern ideas on that particular \ occasion, and, emulating the dashing fireman, scaled the escape, leaving his protesting comrades td go their way without him. "Has he got £3 10s.?" asked the magistrate. •■. . • Counsel replied that Eggie's solicitor m Auckland would be. good for a touch to that amount, so the budding Romeo was given forty-eight hours m which to communicate with his good Samaritan m the north. Eggie appeared before the court dressed m the customary immaculate style, with heather double-breaster, semi-Oxfords m a deep fawn shade and a pair of pince-nez perched upon an acquiline nose. N

. Looking little more than his twenty years, he took a casual interest In the proceedings and nodded approvingly to counsel when the magistrate took a

Nurse's Dismissal

lenient view of his behavior, convicting and discharging him.

Default for non-payment of the damage was fixed at seven days' hard labor, but as Eggie has had all the hard labor he requires on a big block of New Zealand's farm lands, the money was paid m the same day. '

The fact that at about the same time as Eggie's escapade, a nurse was summarily dismissed from the hospital staff,. prompted counsel to apply for the suppression of defendant's name, "so that the nurse's name would not be con- ' nected with the escapade," but. it fell on barren ground, for the magistrate declined to entertain such a proposal. So, on his return trip to the Old Land, Egerton Shelley Walter Hanbury Leigh-Hunt, when he wiles away the long, dreary hours on the broad expailse of water separating New Zealand" from the Old Country, will have | time for reflection on the arduous life of the New Zealand farmer, the {rigid waters ■of the Avon, the potency of New Zealand's alcohol — and the leniency of its human, understanding magistrates. - '