THE STUDENTS’ PROCESSION

Evening Star, Issue 15516, 11 June 1914, Page 8

THE STUDENTS’ PROCESSION

PERTINENT AND IMPERTINENT. The procession of Otago students that prefaces their evening carnival is always certain of success. However raw their burlesque of current topics may be, it always has that quality of gusto—'the air of enjoying the making of the fun—that inveigles tne public into participation in their antics. The students are impudently persuasive, and the very irrelevance of some of their caricatures has its amusing side, adding a harmless pinch of salt to the savory. At all events it is a sure draw for the public, this exhibition, and contains much of that raw humor that has still the biggest of all compulsions—the kind of fun that when one man uses the slapstick on another, convulses a theatreful of patrons. Many of the individual impersonations were good—notably those of women, and especially that of Ray Lawrence, the female impersonator recently appearing at the Princes Theatre. The allusion to the Ulster situation was rather cryptic, but the “ W© Will Not Defend Our Country ’’ burlesque had its vitally amusing points. Many other caricatures, pertinent and impertinent, might be quoted, but it is sufficient to say that, while previous processions have contained more pregnant allusions, this one share,! with others the privilege of drawing all Dunedin on to the streets for an hour. And an assay yields more bright metal than dull rock.