FAREWELL AND GREETING

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 83, 2 January 1929, Page 8

FAREWELL AND GREETING

OLD YEAR AND THE NEW YEAR The natural fun in human nature finds an outlet on an occasion of universal celebration, and New Year’s Eve in the City of Wellington was no exception. The crowds in the streets were not as great as on Christmas Eve, but hundreds of visitors swelled the numbers. The observance of a late shopping night resulted in good business for the shopkeepers. Places of entertainment were well patronised, and many people chose to dance the Old Year out and the New Year in. There was a general unloosening of convention. Novelties of all kinds sold briskly—a coloured hat, a comic face, a false and bulbous nose—anything emblematic of the carnival spirit Through the jostle of the footpath, with its laughing pedestrians, a grotesque countenance would loom up at once and pass on chuckling under its paper and paste. Balloons eddied above the crowd, like giant fruit tossing* on a swift-flowing stream. Groups stood ou street corners with guitars or ukuleles, and expressed their good humour in sentimental melody. Pies —a goodly handful—were eaten openly and with relish. The smell of kippers and the strains of an accordion, played by a man with a red neckcloth, at once suggested the East End. If a citizen looked too serious for such an occasion as New Year’s Eve, he was readily and cheerfully chided about it. The public spirit was one of gaiety, because the Old Year was giving way to a new one full of promise. The bagpipes led the din, and were accorded accompaniment from mouth-organs and even kerosene tins.

Crescendo was reached at midnight. The Post Office Square was, as usual, the common meeting-ground.