NINETY-NINE YEARS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 18, 23 January 1939, Page 11

NINETY-NINE YEARS

QUIET ANNIVERSARY

BIG DAY NEXT YEAR

Yesterday was Anniversary Day for Wellington, but as it. was Sunday the ninety-ninth birthday of city and province is being celebrated today, quietly but pleasantly, for if the weather is not right up to full summer standard it is a warm and out-of-doors day. Races at Trentham, an excursion to Picton and the Sounds, the usual regatta, and summer sports are the main fixtures, but fixtures do not count for as much today when cars will take people anywhere. The traffic on the Hutt Road this morning suggested that every car was bound for Trentham, but as many more came out this afternoon, for the bays and the seaside places 'further out. '

Though in' a number of industries Anniversary Day is not a statutory holiday and though there is no provision for "Mondayising" the day, the great majority of business places are closed, and Wellington is a very quiet place. Next year Anniversary Day will be the big day of the year, for. the city will celebrate its first one hundred years, with big doings at the Exhibition, very long' addresses which will be much enjoyed by the speakers, a great night show at Rongotai, and a general and enthusiastic public whoopee, with nothing of the doddering centenarian about it.