25 YEARS AGO

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 1, 26 September 1939, Page 6

25 YEARS AGO

Theatre Etiquette (From “The Dominion,” Sept. 28, 1914.) The custom of playing the National. Anthem before every performance has been adhered to rigidly right through the Buckler-Paget season in the Grand Opera House, Wellington. Naturally, as the first few chords are struck, everyone looks round to see if the music is nierely anBouncing the entrance of the King s representative, probably very few being aware that it is the unwritten law ot etiquette to play the national air before every performance during wartime. * r or the first week the Russian National Anthem was played as a.prelude to the first entr’acte music, but few recognized it and none stood. During the last week, however, "La Marseillaise ’ was played during the first interval and the Russian National Anthem during the second, and those present have shown their respect to the Allies by standing up on the three occasions. Tlie public, on the whole, is not familiar with the Belgian and Japanese National Anthems. » * *

Ocean Beach, near Mount Maunganui, is strewn for some three miles with debris of all descriptions bearing unmistakable signs of coming from White Island. * It would probably fill twenty or thirty drays. Pieces of scantling litter the shore by hundreds. There are tram sleepers showing marks of rails laid for a Ift. Gin. gauge and scores of barrels, staves, and barrel heads are scattered about. Many articles bear encrustations of sulphur, connecting the mass of wreckage with the grim story of the White Island disaster.