CONSULAR GATHERING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19094, 12 August 1925, Page 16

CONSULAR GATHERING.

A BRILLIANT SCENE.

ONE THOUSAND GUESTS. NOTABLE SOCIAL FUNCTION. A brilliant scena was presented at the Town Hail las! evening, when the United States Consul, Mr. Waltor F. Boyle, and Mrs. Boyie, tendered a reception to tho admirals and officers of the American Fleet. The sincerity of Auckland's welcome was evidenced in the cordial greeting extended to every naval guest; the spirit of formality and constraint • that sometimes accompanies official functions was conspicuously absent, and the guests were made to teel that they had come among a kindred people. The guests, who numbered about one thousand, were received by Mr. and Mrs. Boyle. Visitors from the lleet included Admirals Kobison, Wyllio and MacDougall, and Roar-Admiral Borthwick, the function also being attended by Sir James and Lady Parr, Commander F, N. Miles, Colonel tl. 11. s Potter, Mr. J. A. Warnock, Deputy Mayor, and Mrs. Warnock. Owing to-shipping difficulties none of the wives of the officers of the fleet was present, but it is understood several arrive in Wellington to-day, and will reach Auckland in time for the civic reception to-morrow evening. The Town Hajl presented a spectacle of rare beauty and' animation as the guests filed forward in a long queue to the opening reception. The entrance was trans formed into a bower of greenery, lii, by richly-shaded lights, and the interior of the hall presented vistas of slender nikau palms spreading their 'graceful fronds from the gallery, with long festoons of lycopodium looped from the high central chandelier to the gallery rail, along which ran a double line of rose-shaded lights. The stage, arranged as a drawing room, was adorned with great clusters of glossyleaved flax and tall cabbage trees, presenting the appearance of a forest bower. Hanging baskets of ferns/suspended from the gallery, completed an effective scheme of decoration.

Shortly before nine o'clock the guests of honour arrived, and the band of the flagship California, which had been playing a lively jazz tune, gave four flourishes of trumpets and swung into the Admiral's March. As the guests moved up the hall, escorted by Mr. and Mrs. Bovle, the strains of "God Save the King," followed immediately bv the American national anthem, " The Star-Spangled Banner," echoed through the crowded hall, an inspiring message of amity and goodwill between the two greatest nations of the world. During the evening the majority of the guests were presented to Admirals Rohison and Wyllie by Mr. and Mrs. Boyle, Lady Parr assisting in the receiving. A buffet supper was served in the supper room, which was effectively decorated with nikau palms and lit with clusters of gold shaded lights. An impromptu dance, to the strains of the band, concluded a most successful and enjoyable function.

SHIPS OF OTIIER BAYS. BRITISH FLEET IN 1870. VISIT OF FLYING SQUADRON. WHEN SAILS STILL SURVIVED. Since the war Auckland has had the good fortune to see a number of great warships, some of them bearing the honoured scars of war. First came the Dominion's gift ship, the baTtle-cruiser New Zealand carrying Admiral Lord Jellicoe upon his special naval mission. Followed 11.M.5. Repulse, in which travelled His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales upon his memorable tour to the Antipodes. Then, last year, came the Special Service Squadron headed by H.M.S. Hood the one ship of her class on all the seas.

But there were naval occasions in the days of infancy of this young city which live in the memory of a few, the greatest being the visit of the famous Flying Squadron in IS7O. Fifty-five years is no great lapse of time, but what has been achieved in th§ realms of science and invention within the period makes a con trast between the naval pageant of today and that of 1870, that beggars the imagination of Jules Verne. To-day we shall see the floating fort in all its. might, a gigantic machine of destruction filled with mechanical wonders, conversing as it comes by wireless, bearing with it its aeroplanes, burning oil fuel, embodying in a word all the invention of an age of invention. Fifty-fivo short years ago the Flying Squadron, all ships of wood and relying more upon sail than upon the steam power of their primitive engines, made stately entrance into these waters. No wireless had announced their coming, no aeroplanes droned overhead. No mighty puns answered to the touch of a switch in turrets of armour. Yet these frigates and corvettes, the Liverpool, Lifiey, Phoebe, Barrosa, Endyrmon and Scylla, represented the finest ships of the day, aud stood for the' naval might of England.

A thrilled writer placed it on record that the sight presented by the Flying Sauadron as it came up the channel under all plain sail " comes but once in a century to tho exile from Old England." Having rounded North Head they " stowed all square canvas and under jibs alone steered admirably." The squadron spent a week in harbonr and the people crowded the vessels and were just as impressed by eight-inch smooth-bore guns, the heaviest pieces carried, as young Auckland will be in the great guns of the modern battleships. Doubtless the engines, horizontal *direct acting that developed as much as 1900 h.p., were duly appreciated to say nothing of patent two-bladed propellers and appliances known as K<ylam's donkeys, which had " enormous pumping power," and the unique distinction of ( being able to work on steam from the engine of a launch on deck in the event of the stokehold fires going out. To the sound of saluting guns in .Fort guns which were captured from the Russians in the Crimea War, the Flying Squadron sailed for Japan. " The wind," states the recorder, " was dead up the Waitemata, if anything a little free on the port tack, on which the longest legs were made. Under courses, topsails, topgallant saiis, jibs and spankers, the. two leading ships beat out and passed .through Rarigit'oto Channel." The others followed under steam, the yards lined with, men in farewell. Spreading their wings in the golf these ships of war vanished into the haze out of which to-day the ships of a new age will appear. A FAVOURITE BEVERAGE. COFFEE ON WARSHIPS. Coffee appears to be the chief drink of the American Na.vv, although tea was produced for visitors yesterday afternoon upon one of the battleships. One of the travelling journalists laughingly remarked that the coffee was so strong on that particular ship that it could almost intoxicate one. Once he had had three cups and had felt more intoxicated than the :S.ame number of whiskies could have made him.