"MY FRIEND FROM INDIA."

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XVIII, Issue 4362, 3 December 1897, Page 3

"MY FRIEND FROM INDIA."

A large and fashionable audience welcomed the appearance of the Panlton— Stanley Company in "My friend from India " at the Oddfellows' flail last night. The promise of fun and frolic throughout the piece was fulfilled to the utmost, and from beginning to end the audience was convulsed with laughter. The piece is full of funny situations which follow the one upon the other in rapid succession, so that there is not one dull moment during the two hours and a half it lasts. The stars of the piece are Mr Paulton and Miss Htanley, and throughout the first was a source of side-splitting merriment by his immensely funny acting. His soliloquy on " Woman " was worthy of Mark Twain, and elicited roars of laughter at every sentence. Miss Stanley had a monologue apportioned to her in which she told to her listening girls the story of her first kits from her sweetheart, and the way in whioh she delivered this was so captivating that vociferous applause followed the naive recital. The other parts were excellently filled, and none more so than that by our old friend Oily Deering, whose pourtrayal of the character Of " Erasmus Chigneli," the old parveun, was simply superb. The company left by the express for Timaru this afternoon, where they pi >y to-night.

It having been alleged that the recent destme'ion by fire of the English church at Temuka was the fault of some members of the Christian Knde&vour Society, who had met during the evening in the adjoining Social Hall, the Rev. John Dickson, Vice: President of the Society, writes to the Titmnt Herald denying .he truth of* the report. He scouts the idea that a Christian Endeavourer looking for an umbieiU was so criminally careless, or so insane, as bo drop a lighted mat. h which set the edifice all in flumes in a few minutes. The gentleman who went into the church by the front door for the umbrella, found it in the middle of the church at once, and extinguished their light outside. When the light of the flames was firsts'en it was thought the parsonage was burning. " Entering the grounds," says Mr Dickson, "we found the vestry on aire. All this time the church itself was as dark as midnight, with the door closed, some say locked, between it and the apartment in flames, and those who first entered by the front door could see the organ quite intact, and the main building free as yet from fire. The natural conclusion is that the fire did not, aa suggested, begin at the organ or in the church at all 5 and that if any young people took undue liberties with the organ of the church ab 650 or 10 p.m., their action had nothing to do with the burning down of the church. We are not conoerned to point out another theory for this fire in the vestry, with its own outer door, where kerosene was stored, and where flames sprang up so suddenly and raged so violently, or to say whether it was an accident or otherwise; we laave that to others." The New Woman, the new fashion, the latest craze, have some particular virtue to commend them ; so it is with the new cough mixture, Woods' Great Peppermint Cure-rr instantaneous relief for man, woman, or child is the feature of this unfailing remedy. AH Groeere and Chemists keep it, the price is reasonable, Is 6d and 2s 6d, De. 16