22,500 MORE FOR FIRST MILLION

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 94, 15 January 1940, Page 9

22,500 MORE FOR FIRST MILLION

Exhibition Visitors

PHOTOGRAPHS TO BE JUDGED THIS WEEK

Saturday's attendances at the Exhibition were large, in view of the heavy rain that marred the evening. In all there were 25.338 visitors. This leaves only 22.569 to come before the millionth visitor enters, to be presented as a souvenir with a valuable cabinet radio set. It is unlikely that the lucky patron will enter the Exhibition today; tomorrow afternoon is a more probable estimate of the approximate time of the event. The general manager, Mr. C. P. I-lainsworth. will himself tick off the last, few hundred entrants through the Kingsford Smith Street gate, and will identify the millionth arrival by means of a mechanical meter manually operated. She or he will then be conducted to the administrative building, where the chairman of directors. Mr. Hislop, mayor of Wellington, will make the presentation. Rain on Saturday. The daytime attendance on Saturday promised well, but, unfortunately in the evening rain fell, increasing to a heavy downpour shortly before the main buildings closed, so that instead of spending the remainder of tlie evening in Playland the majority of visitors scuttled for trams and went home. Moreover the advent of the rain early in the evening discouraged those intending to visit the Exhibition. Considering the conditions, the attendance of 25.000 was good.

Will Bishop and his Centennial Serenaders concert party gave two performances in the assembly hall on Saturday, both of which were well attended, the evening one particularly.

The Taranaki and Wanganui Maoris gave two excellent concerts in the Maori Court, their displays of hakas, poi dances and action songs being most impressive, and given with enormous verve. The party is very big. numbering more than 100. and including some very outstanding Native artists. This evening at 8.30 the Maoris will give a large-scale outdoor concert in the weather bandshell; the special platform extending the size of the stage will be erected for them. Another such display will take place tomorrow evening. Miss M. Seaton and Miss Amy Kane lectured in the women’s section on Saturday on women of other countries. Visiting Ambulance Men. A party of 16 railway ambulance men of the St. John Ambulance Brigade, Palmerston North, visited the Exhibition on Saturday as assistants to the Wellington brigadesmen stationed there. Saturday was not very busy, compared with some recent Saturdays, but the visitors found plenty to do. One man found himself faced with three cases in quick succession, though none of them was serious. One of the most popular features of the Exhibition has been the driving test in the transport section of the Government Court. To undergo the tests is quite a lengthy business, and since the Exhibition started the officers of the section have been kept steadily at work. Nightly they have to turn away far more people than they are able to put through. So far, however, they have tested 2850 people, and it is estimated that before the Exhibition closes they will have tested fully 5000. Many doctors visiting the Exhibition have commented on the optical tests, and have expressed the opinion that the apparatus is unique in New Zealand, and a great advance on anything in existence in this country hitherto. Such apparatus is, of course, so expensive as to be beyond the means of the average private practitioner. Photographic Salon. Selection and judging of the Inter national Salon of Photography, to be held at the Exhibition from January 31 to February 28, under the auspices of the Wellington Canter". Club, will lake place this week, starting tomorrow. About 700 prints of a very high standard have beeu received from photographers in many parts of Ihe world. Of these about 400 will be hung. The salon is In three sections—purely pictorial, science and natural history, and commercial Press and colour ' pi-iiits. The board of judges will make no discrimination between the work of amateur and professional photo grapliers. Medals will bo awarded for the outstanding exhibits in each seel ion. The board of judges comprises Messrs. Spencer Digby, G. IV. Perry, J. T. Salmon and A. H. Eaton, Wellington. George ChauCe, Dunedin, and W. C. Davies. Nelson. Centennial Mural. Mr. F. 11. Coventry’s third centennial mural has beeu mounted in the central foyer of the Government Court. There is now only one required to complete the series. The new mural is entitled “The Beginning of Settlement.” it shows a nineteenth century full-rigged ship lying wllli sails unbent in a wooded bay of st deep inlet. Nearby a topsail schooner is making sail, and a smaller coaster lies beside a rude jetty. A ferryman with a log raft plies between tlie ship and the shore. At the head of the beach a cluster of shanties stands in a forest clearing. Up and down tlie beach flows tlie traffic of the settlement—crinolined women, tophatted men. fustiaiied labourers and soldiers in red coats. A settler with a laden ox-wagon is seen settiug out for some inland destination. Sailors are unloading cargo on the jetty.

Through a background of sombre forest-covered hills can be glimpsed the far horizon of the open sea. Like its predecessors, the mural is executed for the most part in restrained and almost gloomy colours, set off by one or two splashes of bright colour and by the treatment of the water in burnished gold-leaf, giving the effect of a sunset light glimmering on the mirror of the calm sea. The treatment is formal and allegoric, and the series will make a notable centennial memorial to be preserved after the demolition of the rest of the Exhibition. School Exhibit. A new and interesting exhibit in the Education Department's section of the ’Government court is a series of ship models bv pupils of Motukaraka School, North Auckland, ranging in age from 8 to 15 years, and from Standard 2 to Standard 6. The ship models trace the history of seafaring from prehistoric times to the present day, and number perhaps two dozen. They are remarkably finished and detailed, and it is hard to believe that they are not the work of skilled craftsmen. The series begins with crudely hollowed logs, at first square-ended, later sharpened at one end to facilitate their passage through the water. Next come primitive canoes with sails of skins, a Pacific catamaran, a Maori canoe, a Phoenician galley, an ancient Egyptian funeral barge, a coracle, a Roman trireme. a Viking galley, and an Eskimo kayak. Historic vessels include William the Conqueror’s ship in which he invaded Britain. Columbus’s Santa Maria. Drake's Golden Hind, the first river steam launch, and the Queen Mary of the present day. Mr. C. A. Watson, headmaster of the school, said taht the collection represented the entire studies of the boys over the period of their making. In the first place they represented a full course in woodwork. In the second place, every ordinary subject was included and extensively covered in the research involved in making the models. There were vessels from every part of the world, so that geography was worked in; they covered the full range of English history; and there were many arithmetical calculations necessary to work out their scales and similar problems. The amount of research represented was enormous, and at the end every boy was competent to deliver ajt interesting lecture ou the vessels in the making of which he had participated. Indeed, they had visited ninny neighbouring schools displaying and explaining the models. More titan this, many difficulties had been surmounted by the children. They had as far as possible used the appropriate materials. For the coracle, a boy had killed and skinned a rabbit and prepared the pelt. For the hide sail of the prehistoric canoe another youngster had trapped a rat, and had simillarly prepared its skin. The Queen Mary was the work of four children, aged 8, 10, 10, and 11. He had repeatedly asked if he had not done the work himself, or at any rate helped the children extensively; but it was their own work. The exhibit had been inspected by the Minister of Education, Mr. Fraser, who had expressed keen pleasure iu it and interest in the scheme which had incorporated ordinary school studies with constructional work in an original and interesting way.

Exhibition Highlights

Do not miss the opportunity of recording your name in the Centennial Roll of Commemoration. This Historical Record is to be placed in the Dominion Museum in commemoration of New Zealand’s first 100 years of Progress.

Exhibition Cabaret! The one bright: spot in Wellington night life. Tonight dancing from 9 p.m.. Subscription 2/6 single. There will be No Cabaret for general public Tuesday night. Book, now for Friday’s Grand Centennial Race Bull. Tel. 18-526.

St. Moritz Ice Skaters, a show that will thrill and hold you spellbound with its daring artistry, its synchronized poise, grace and rhythm. * « «

Tlie Exhibition Restaurant and Cafeteria. Recommended unreservedly for superior food at popular prices. Luncheons, Afternoon Teas, Dinners.

Have you seen the wonderful Miniature Theatre If not visit the Blue Pavlliou today and assist the Crippled Children’s Clubs.

Exhibition Visitors wishing to take away Souvenirs. First call at Aitken's Arcade Souvenir Stall, opp. Cafeteria, where they will get more for their money.