Notes on Current musical (and Unmusical) Events.

Otago Witness, Issue 1805, 25 June 1886, Page 14

Notes on Current musical (and Unmusical) Events.

Whether it was from want of a sound classical education on the art of the evangelist concerned, or only fro a slightly indefinite articulation on the p et of the distinguished foreigners, we mo o leave our readers to decide ; but here are le facts : — The Kingdom of Futuna lies in latitude 20 South, longitude 170 East, and measures fully three-by-four in miles. Certain nobles of the realm tumbled out of their fatherland one morning, and such of them as eluded the expectant sharks managed to get on board a whaler that was passing. By this means these noblemen not only saved their lives, but also the payment usually required in advance for a steerage passage to New Zealand. Immediately upon arrival at the unquestionably finest port of this Christian country, they were promptly addressed by a particularly Protestant " evangelist," who was waiting for them on the wharf, and who reasonably assumed that the visitors were cannibals who would want converting very badly. To the astonishment and heartfelt joy of the rev. gentleman, it was discovered that not only were the distinguished visitors unaccustomed to an exclusively cannibal diet, but that they could warble hymns p.pp. (that is, pianissimo, and that too is where the music comes in and accounts for the appearance of this truthful tale iv this column). They sang, and the evangelist was heard to remark, whilst wiping his eyes that his- joy was full and that itwaa indeed sweet to hear fches« converted noble-

men from distant lands joining in evangelically Protestant psalmody in their own melodious native tongue — which was so familiar to him, too ! But it turned out after all that somehow or another the hymns were not sung in the melodious Futunese language at all, but in the Latin tongue ; and, what's as bad as that too, tlia hymns weren't evangelically Prote.itanb at all, but particularly PopL->h; the tunes even were Gregorian, and the self-tame hymns and tunes too were sung in the Roman Catholic Cathedral the very next Suuday by permission of a bishop. Bran Futuna isn't safe from those wicked Jesuits.