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Free Lance, Volume XV, Issue 789, 13 August 1915, Page 22

Dear Free Lance, —The death at 44 of poor Fred Dight was too premature, though he did finally fade away after a long, lingering illness. Writing as a 20-year-old pal of his, I only wish_ I could have spent more time in his witty society. It was a privilege to be with him. The dailies mention his connection with the old Operatic Society. I remember a big hit and an exit he made in "The Gondoliers" years ago. Fred' was rowing bow or chief shover-off with a boat-hook on the Dook and Dookess of Plaza Toro's barge. When the gondola had to leave the back of the stage to float down the Grand Canal or call on a Doge or something Fred made a lunge with his meat-hook weapon at the landing stage. The scenery wasn't properly propped up for the prod, and Fred fell with a bump on a hard stage. Stage realism he called it often. Of course, the audience roared at the thud (which

should have been a splash) as the gondola went astern, pulled, bv a rope, and left him stranded. Didn't see the show again, but have been told Fred had the fire brigade the following nights with buckets and hose, and when h© went pv-erboard such a water squirt went up that the scene shifters couldn't see the flies.—'Yours, etc., "Friendite."

Two well-known New Zealand ladies, m the persons of Misses Rosina Buckmann and Nora D'Argel, liave been appearing in "opera in English" at the , London Shaftesbury.

The latest lord who chose his w!re_ from the stage isn't . prospering, (xossip by the last mail says that there is a receiving order in bankruptcy out against Lord. Edward Fitzgerald, who, a couple of years ago, married May jtftheridge, a beauty actress in- musical comedy.