THE EXHIBITION.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIII, Issue 70, 23 March 1907, Page 9

THE EXHIBITION.

CHRISTCHURCH, 22nd March. The Fire Brigade competitions were concluded on the Exhibition sports ground to-day under most auspicious circumstances. In the evening a banquet was held^ in tlie main corridor, over which the Deputy-Mayor, Mr. Payling, presided, and at which the Acting-Premier, Hon. W. HallJones, was one of the speakers. The whole of the lower half of the main avenue was occupied by the banquet. In the concert hall to-night Mr, Purcell Webb, the Nelson organist, gave the last of his series of organ recitals, before a large attendance. The schoo' cadet encampment at the Exhibition is fully occupied at present by the battalions in camp, comprising Taronaki and Wanganui companies to the number of 572, with 30 officers, and 113 Nelson lads, with seven officers. A large number of schools from different parts of Canterbury and Otago have visited the Exhibition during the past few weeks, being accommodated at the Exhibition "home," Children from no less than four schools arrived to-day, and notice has . been received of the intention of several other schools to make visits shortly. Two fine exhibits of perennial rye grass, grown in Southland, have been placed in the Southland court by au Invercargill firm. The weight of one sample is 331b to the imperial bushel, and of the other 341b. Weights such as these are very rarely met with. At the production of "Elijah" in the concert hall on Tuesday and Wednesday next Miss Amy Murphy will ' take the soprano part, Mrs. Le Cren the contralto, Mr. J. Carl Puschell the tenor, and Mr. John Prouse the baritone. The oratorio will be . given by the Exhibition orchestra and a choir of one hundred and forty voices, with Mr. Henry Wells, the well-known Christchurch organist, as conductor. Purchasers of tickets for any part of the house will be admitted free to the Exhibition. There was a large attendance at "Wonderland" this evening to take part in the search for buiied treasure and new physical development competitions. The display of ladies' arms and ankles did not take place, the manager of "Wonderland 1 " explaining, when the curtain rose on the special platform erected, that the Acting-Pre-mier had prohibited this ' feature. Clever representations of classical statuary were given instead by a lady specially engaged, and a number of leading physical culturists exhibited the development of their muscles in different poses, prizes being awarded to the best developed. A display of one hundred typical sorts of pears and apples will bo made to-morrow in the Agricultural Depait- ■ ment's court/.- With the fine exhibits of fruit in the Hawkes Bay, North Canterbury, and South Canterbury courts these should prove of great interest to growers. The attendance to-day was 12,700.