ORDERLY CROWDS

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 546, 26 December 1928, Page 11

ORDERLY CROWDS

CHRISTMAS EVE IN THE CITY A QUIET CELEBRATION Queen Street, strangely deserted of tramcars and vehicular traffic, presented a most unusual sight on Monday night. Here pedestrians spread across the street and walked between tram-tracks with impunity. There were a few drunken men and here and there stray bands of '** : noisy revellers, but generally speaking, it was a quiet and very peaceful Christmas Eve. The futile resistance of one pugnacious individual who appeared loth to, leave his taxi when it drew up outside the Central Police Station shortly after nine o’clock was only a brief interlude. Three pairs of hands appeared as if by magic from out the station door and he disappeared from sight, quickly and smoothly like a piece of flotsam into the maw of a suction dredge. It was a good humoured and very contented crowd that thronged the streets. Bent more on spending a quiet evening than in noisy celebration, people thronged Queen Street and Karangahape Road at an early hour. Quite a number had left 'their Christmas shopping to the last moment and once this was completed the majority moved off homeward. Shop windows with their Christmas decorations proved a big attraction to visitors and parcels were everywhere in evidence.In side streets various scratch bands helped to provide a Christmas atmosphere and except when rival musicians came into too clase a contact and the strains of “Christians Awake” and “Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” tried to mingle, the results were not unpleasant. Traffic arrangements were well handled. Wellesley Street was made the terminus for many of the routes, and Anzac Avenue was also used by most of the cars running to the Eastern suburbs. Little difficulty was experienced in keeping Queen Street deal' of motor cars, and although a few cars had to be turned back the regulations were well observed. Shortly after nine o’clock the streets commenced to thin out, but at ten o clock when the theatres emptied the streets were again thronged for ’ a short while until trams and buses succeeded in disposing of the traffic, and at eleven o’dock the streets were practically deserted.