Youth in the 'Nineties

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21912, 22 September 1934, Page 4 (Supplement)

Youth in the 'Nineties

By ISABEL M. CLUETT—Concluded

In 1897 Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee was celebrated to commemorate the sixty years' reign, for she came to the throne in 1837 at the age of 18. In England the occasion was marked with very great rejoicing, and New Zealand, in her own small way, did her patriotic best, to show her loj'alty and honour Victoria the Good as the nged Queen was affectionately called. The date for the ceremonies, which were to last a week, fell in the middle of winter on June 22, but the school children were brought in from the country districts to see the sights and take part in the display with the town children in the Domain grounds. The city on both sides of the water was beautifully decorated with coloured lights, while gigantic archways of greenery spanned all the principal streets and were lit up at night by thousands, of gem-like fairy lamps, nestling among the leaves and flowers. The shops and buildings from end to end of Queen Street and far out into the suburbs were decorated with nikau palms and giant fern (torn, alas! from their cool home in the bush and festoons of flags waved overhead like triumphal banners. There was a monster procession of sailors, soldiers, citizens and school children, which marched under the great arches and waving flags, up to the Domain. Hundreds of vehicles of all kinds were in this procession lavishly decorated with ferns, flowers and fluttering banners. Bands played lively national airs and stepped out gaily between the cheering, laughing crowds which thronged the streets, most of them wearing little emblems of the event, in red, white and blue badges or tiny medallions of the Queen. Over 20,000 people were Congregated on the Domain, which was a large assembly for those days in Auckland. She railways had brought in hundreds p country people and one could easily distinguish the rather roughly-dressed back-blocks farmers, and their wives and children with over-flowing hampers of food, and their sun-burned faces. The assembled children, from town and country, were drawn up on the green, waving red, white and blue flags and they sang the National Anthem, everyone joining in with a will. There was the firing of a Royal Salute, a review and march-past in which all tho regiments took part, including the young cadets and the old veterans. Then came a wonderful military tournament at which everyone stared admiringly, particularly at the clever and spectacular work of the soldiers and their wellgroomed satin-skinned horses, amid the smoke and salvoes of blank cartridge and the thundering rattle of the guncarriages, little dreaming that in little more than two years many of these soldiers would be engaged in real warfare in the South African War.

SOME MILESTONES TO REMEMBER

The familiar bronze statue of Queen Victoria in Albert Park was unveiled two years later after these celebrations in memory of tho sixty years' reign. At night every building was picked out ill a blaze of lights, every archway illuminated and all the wharves and shipping had rows of many-coloured lamps strung along them. There were large set-pieces of illuminations in which patriotic and loving messages to the Queen stood out against the dark, and bon-fires blazed and crackled on every hill-side, lioman candles and exploding bombs which threw out millions of red, green, blue and violet sparks, monster Catherine wheels whirling fiercely in the darkness, huge set-pieces which burned away in marvellous pictures of the different events in Victoria's reign, made the night light as day. To the children it was like a huge, glorified Guy Fawke's day as they gazed with wide-eyed wonder at the gigantic ship's rockets which rose with a swish and a whine into the darkness and soared off in a magnificent curve of fire which ended in a burst of lovely coloured stars high in the dark skies.

On only a few other occasions can I remember Auckland looking so gay. One of these was in 1901, on the occasion of the visit of the Duke and Duchess of York, the present King and Queen of England. For a day or two then, also in mid-winter, the streets were decorated, and at night the bonfires blazed and illuminated buildings find fireworks lit the darkness. Hundreds of Maoris came in from the country districts to give tho King's son and his Duchess a welcome, and again 3000 school children assembled to sing the National Anthem and form a living Union Jack as tho carriage with the Royal pair passed on its way. During this visit an event to be remembered gratefully by all the children of Auckland for all time took place, and that was the noble gift of Cornwall Park to the people, made by Dr. Logan Campbell, who was afterward knighted by the king. In this year also the Indian and Imperial Troops visited Auckland and there were picturesque sights and doings in the streets. The Indian officers, tall, swarthy, haughty-looking men in glittering uniforms and jewelled turbans rode up Queen Street on their superb horses under tho waving flags and the stately arches, and the Imperial Troops, though moro soberly dressed, in their uniforms looked equally impressive. Then in 1908 the Great White Fleet, the United States Navy, visited, these waters, and for a week known as "Fleet Week," the whole city was filled with life and gaiety, night and day. Added to the illuminations on streets and buildings, the waterfront for miles was outlined in lights, and all the magnificent great white ships of the fleet were lit from stem to stern in a scintillating blaze of lights, reflected like thousands of stars in the dark waters below.