THE ALFRED HILL BENEFIT.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVII, Issue 137, 11 June 1909, Page 2

THE ALFRED HILL BENEFIT.

At the close of the Liedertafel concert last night, the conductor, Mr. Robert Parker, took occasion to call attention to the coming benefit concert to Mr. Alfred Hill, and to request his hearers not to forget the date. As he saw before him a representative musical audience, he spoke with the more freedom. For months past Wellington, musicians had watched with sympathetic interest and keen anxiety the valiant struggle for life which their colleague had made, and now that the favourable change had taken place, they could think of no better way to testify their sympathy than by the means proposed. Every musician in the city had united in the movement, and he hoped the public would respond with like heartiness. The warm applause which followed the references to Mr. Hill sufficiently indicated that the audience was in full accord with Mr. Parker's sentiments. OLYMPIA RINK. Last night, at the Rink, the final of the 15-lap race was run off. W. Pullman came in ahead of E. Macdonald. The latter, however, was not far behind. Next week a couples race is to be held. From 19th June to 26th the rink will not be available for skating, but re-opens on" the 28th. CHUNG LING SOO. Had Chung Ling Soo, the man of many marvels, who opens a short season on Monday evening, at the Opera House, lived upon this earth a couple of centuries or more ago (remarked one paper), it is not difficult to see that his end would have come with more haste and agony than he himself would have desired, and in that event thousands would have been robbed of not a little entertainment, and possibly edification. Even in this enlightened age it is not impossible that there are people living who would be prepared to doubt that Chung managed all his tricks by merely his own ingenuity and a little human aid, for the most difficult and surprising feats aro executed by him with apparently the most transparent, simplicity. It must be, of course, obvious to the merest tys© ' in such matters that the tricks which Chung performs in the course of his j business as a magician are of extreme j difficulty, and require a subtleness and < an adroitness which can only come from j long praci-ice and a naturally ' quick I mind. But, remembering this, wh^t has j surprised people most is said to be the *, imperturbable manner in which these tricks are executed, and the simple manner in which the most surprising effects are obtained. Whether producing boiling coffee, growing flowers and oranges, or shooting one of his female assistants through the body without hurting her, Chung always has a singularly winning smile, and when he has astonished everybody by doing something wholly incomprehensible, his features relax, and he spreads out the palms of Ins hands, seeming to say, "You see how it is done?" The box-plan for the season is rapidly filling up at the Dresden. Mi. E. L. Burgess gave a lecture last evening to St. Peter's Club on "The Life and Career of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield." Of the great statesman, Mr. Burgess said that he was the most strikingly dramatic personality in modern history, and to his gift of administration was owing much that was beneficent in the government and constitution of the Empire. His was a large influence. Many instances were given by the lecturer illustrative of .the personal characteristics of the Victorian Prime Minister, and extracts were cited from his speeches. A vote of thanks to the lecturer was proposed by the Rev. H. G. Blackburne. Mr. Goer presided.