HARRY LAUDER ON DRINK.

Mataura Ensign, 2 July 1914, Page 7

HARRY LAUDER ON DRINK.

A STORY ABOUT " FU' THE NOO."

" HOW I CAME TO BE A COMIC."

'Members of the Ner South Wales Temperance Alliance entertained' Mr and Mrs Harry Lauder af t'he Y.W.C.A. rooms in Sydney last week. Rev. R. B. S. Hammond presided. Among those present were Hon. D. R, Hall (Minister for Justice) and Mrs Hall, Rev. F. Oolwell cpresident of the Methodist Conference.).

Mr Hammond said that the mo mil) on? of the Alliance could claim kinship with' Mr and Mrs Hairy Lauder becnuve they were total abstainers. That was probably, why Mr Lauder's merriment was always clean and therefore tending towards not only the happiness of the individual, but "of the home. He considered that there wais no audience so gif.tecl with a sense of humor as a ternpen nee one. Mir Lauder in the course of a happy speech became humorously reminiscent. He raised a good deal of laughter by his reference to his song,. ".Fu' the K'oo," which is the portrayal of an in-d-ividnK'l in tue deepest mires of inebriation.

"I'd like to tell ye aboot that song," he declared with deep seriousness. "The London press was responsible for its creation, and I simply revelled; in it. I put my imagination into it to Mich an extent that when T sans it 1 felt absolutely intoxicated.—(Laughter.) One night, when I was leaving the Einston Music Hall, where I hart been singing, a man came up to me. He was absolutely 'fu' the noo.' He asked if he might speak to me. J told him to fire away. He coughed. They al\vay.s cough when they have had whisky like he had.—'Laughter.) And lie then said that if he was as, big a- fool as I looked on the stage when singing that son.g, he would never touch another drop."

The man kept his word, the comedian explained, for 12 months "later he again claimed acquaintanceship, well dressed, smart, and .an altogether different person.—(Applause.) "I have been sometimes asked," he went on, "how I came to be '.a comic' —(dolorously)—a comic.—(Laughter.) Before I was VI I was working in the factory and had to get up at a quarterpast five every morning. Then I went to work in the mine, and saw daylight once a- week; and I had before .me the j desire to rise—(hear, hear)—to do something for myself. That was my first idea, and then I wanted to be j useful to others. I was fond of singing. Often I used to sing 10 songs a night after I had) been in 'the mine all day. I was asked to sin gat this concert and that.' I sang for the Good Temiplars 'and the Rechahites and others—and you Snow how societies i like that pay you at Home.—(Loud laughter.) "I was satisfied at first if I got half a crown, a cup of tea, a bit of cake, and an orange or an apple. T ; !;en I got ss'—that was at the second year; then 7s Gd, then 10s 6d. I was singing for 10 years before I got a guinea and a-halff."

A lady's voice: But you made 'em pay for it afterwards.—< v Laughter.) Mr Lauder (reflectively): Aye! Mr Lauder added that he 'and .Mrs Laude.r might come back to Australia, so -well did they like the pface and so well had they been treated.