THE ORGANIST

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24866, 4 May 1946, Page 6

THE ORGANIST

[By WHIM WHAM.] The strains of the Christmas carol, "Adeste Fidel Os," coming from an organ which reached New Zealand in 1851, floated gently through the Otago Early Settlers’ Museum* yesterday morning Turning the handle which worked the mechanism, as the Prince of Wales had done before him, was the Prime Minister (the m. Hon, p> Fraser), who gave every appearance of enjoying himself. . . .—News item. Listening one Day to the Organ. I was baffled and ill-at-ease. And I wondered who had got in there And how he had found the Keys; I knew not who could be grinding, To gratify what queer Whim, On the old colonial Juke-box The Strains of a Christmas Hymn. It swelled in the old Museum Like the Voice of a Century fled, Each Turn of the Handle raising The Ghosts of Settlers dead; But it wasn’t a Ghost I saw there, Engaged in that Weird Employ. ’Twas the Right Hon. the Prime Minister Grinding with evident Joy. I gazed on that Hurdy Gurdy While the Premier cranked away, And I left him there at the Organ For I knew not What to say. It seemed as if our Noo Zillun Were posed for a sad Cartoon— No Matter who grinds the Organ, It’s always the same old Tune!