ANNIVERSARY TEA PARTY.

New Zealander, Volume 2, Issue 59, 18 July 1846, Page 3

ANNIVERSARY TEA PARTY.

The annual commemoration of the institution of the Total Abstinence Society, took place on •Monday evening last, at the Hall of the Mechanics' Institute, when a numerous and respectable com- • pany were regaled with " The cup that cheers, but not inebriates." The Hall was tastefully and appropriately de corated, and the cheerful mirth and rational hilarity of the festive scene was heightened liy the presence of the military band. After the tables were cleared, and a couplet of thanksgiving verses had been chaunted, to one of those beautiful but ancient minor airs, which the corrupt taste of the present day has allowed to fall into desuetude, and which was performed by the band with great effect; the chairman of the meeting, Mr. Me N air, addressed the assembly in a short but eloquent speech, dilating upon the I benefits to be derived from the adoption of habits j of strict temperance, and contrasting the innocent enjoyments of temperance festivities with the guilty pleasures of Bachanalian revels. j During the intervals that elapsed between the addresses of the speakers', the band delighted the company by the performance of several lively and soul-stirring airs. Messrs. Joshua Robinson Somerville, Hunter, Griffin, Caleb Robinson., and Wilson, severally addressed the meeting, with much humour and good sense. Mr. Somerville, in particular, evinced considerable tact in engaging the attention of his audience, and many of bis remarks were characterized by that feeling eloquence which speaks to the heart, and finds a ready i espouse in every bosom. Messrs.. Griffin, and Caleb Robinson each entertained the company by singing in turn a temperance song, adapted to well known melodies. Mr. C. Robinson was particularly amusing in the air of a "Fine Teetotal Gentleman," which he sang with considerable effect. - The utmost harmony and good feeling prevailed throughout the evening, and the happy countenances of the assembled guests were indidicative of the pleasure and enjoy raent they experienced. It "is a humiliating sign of the degeneracy of feeling which prevails among the higher orders of the present day, when we- see tuem stand aloof from these praiseworthy efforts of the humbler classes to supplant the vicious excesses of intemperate revelry by the mtioduction ol" the sober pleasures of a rational conviviality. Every man of observation, whatever his station in society may be, is conscious of the fact, that the immoderate use ol intoxicating drinks is the most productive source of misery, wretchedness, and crime ; and yet many such men ate content to enwrap themselves in the self-appl<uiding notions ol their own moderation, while they look down with feelings approaching to contempt, upon the whole hearted efforts of those who would relieve the miseries, avert the wretchedness, and prevent the crimes of their fellow -creatures, by inculcating the principles of total abstinence from the use of those fatal draughts from which these evils spring.