Salient: Victoria University Students' Paper. Vol. 29, No. 4. 1966.

Trouble

Trouble

Until now everything had gone according to plan. The next step was for the stunt organiser, John Harlow, to leave the body, walk over to a car parked in Dixon Street, and collect a sign reading "This will happen to you if you don't see procesh and give to charity." He was to place this sign on the grass, and with the help of another student carry the body back to the car and drive off with it. However . . .

Opposite the park nearly two hundred people were attending an auction. They heard the pistol shots ring out, saw two men rush across to a body lying on the grass, and heard "the screaming of hysterical women" (to quote the Evening Post). The auction audience streamed out to see what was going on. A crowd always attracts a crowd, and everyone else in the area ran over to see what was happening. Almost every shop keeper in the area rang the Central Police Station to report a murder in Pigeon Park.

John Harlow forced his way through the crowd and placed the sign on the ground alongside the "body." But the other student who was supposed to help remove the "body" was held back by the crowd.

An elderly woman leaning over the body told Mr. Harlow that she was a trained nurse and ordered him to get out of the way. Two men then grabbed and forcibly removed him. Someone picked up the sign, and without even reading it, threw it after him.