GUESTS IN ALARM.
ROWDIES INVADE A GILLHAM
ROAD WEDDING PARTY.
TURNED ON GARDEN HOSE.
DRENCH THE COSTUMES OF SOME
OF THE GUESTS.
Made Deafening Noises With Bells
and Pans and Demolished Veran-
da Furniture -- Would Not De-
sist Until Frightened Off
by Approach of Police.
Two policemen and a patrol wagon were required to quell a miniature riot incidental to a charivari after a wedding at 2716 Gillham road last night. The police were summoned after a gang of hoodlums had smashed furniture and deluged with water the house in which the bridal party was holding an informal reception.
The boisterous charivari followed the wedding of Herman Hampel, of San Francisco, to Miss Edna Spengler, which had been celebrated earlier in the evening at St. John's Lutheran church by Rev. Ernst Schulz. From the church the wedding paty had gone to the home of the bride's father, Carl Spengler, Jr., 2716 Gillham road, where an informal reception was to be held. The house was thronged with guests, among them many women gowned in expensive toilets. Everything went merrily until about 9:30 o'clock.
HOODLUMS CREATE UPROAR.
Then a crowd of boys and young men who had not been invited to the wedding and reception appeared and began a charivari. It was said that the "serenaders" were composed largely of a number of young toughs known to police as the "Holmes street gang." They carried bells and tin pans, with which they created an uproar that drove many of the guests inside the house and aroused the neighbors for blocks. It is presumed their intentions were to keep up the disturbance until they were invited inside. When, after several moments, their importunities were not heeded, they adoped more boisterous tactics. They swarmed upon the front veranda, overturning and breaking a number of chairs and settes placed there for the accommodation of the guests. Then they secured some garden hose, attached it to a hydrant and played a stream of water upon the veranda and in the hallways of the house. A number of the celebrants who happened in the reach of the stream were thoroughly drenched.
CALLS SENT FOR POLICE.
When the rioters first became boisterous, the Walnut street police station was notified and Lieutenant Morley dispatched Patrolman A. N. Metzinger to the scene. Upon a second call a patrol wagon was ordered out. The charivari party learned that the police were coming, however, and dispersed before arrests could be made.
BRIDE WAS UNDISTURBED.
The bride was not at all disconcerted at the untoward incident. She received the congratulations of her friends undisturbed through the turmoil. Beyond a little annoyance while the charivari was at its height, the reception proceeded as merrily as if nothing unusual had happened.
The bride is the daughter of Carl Spengler, a local manager for the Dick & Company Brewing Association, of Quincy, Ill. her husband is an influenctial young business man in California. Their wedding was considered an important social event in German circles, and the annoyance at the reception was deeply deplored by many of their friends.
