THE WEEK.

Otago Witness, Issue 3195, 9 June 1915, Page 69

THE WEEK.

Show Week has come and gone—a record Show Week in many ways. There was the weather to begin with. We know the sort of weather we generally have for the show—a thick grey drizzle that comes down persistently day after day until our streets, never much to boast of, are turned into seas of mud, and our disconsolate visitors from the country throng the pavements under the shop verandahs in a vain attempt to get come shelter from the prevailing damp and depressing condition?. This year we had a week of unbroken, sunshine, each day finer, 'brighter, and warmer than the last, and the result was that the city wore a cheerful and holidaymaking air, and there seemed to be a much larger influx of visitors than usual. It was as if we had determined to cast care aside for just a few days, f to relax our anxious thoughts a little, and make the most of this opportunity of getting s, little festivity. Of course we could not forget the world’s troubles altogether: there were too many collections for the wounded, too many patriotic entertainments, for that. Even at the show-one was reminded of the national crisis at every turn in the oft-repeated note of red-white-and-blue in the decorations of the stalls, and even in the designs of cakes and the butter, ythe customary, baskets of roses and gracefully floating swans in the latter section being almost superseded by wonderfully constructed

battleships and Egyptian Sphinxes. There were the two stalls of the Otago Women’s Association, too —the Troopers’ Stall, with its fierce-looking decorations of rifles and machine-guns, where all sorts of comforts for the benefit of the troops were disposed of; and the next door to it, which made a very gay picture with its festoons of greenery and bunches of real and artificial flowers which were being sold in aid of the Wounded Soldiers’ Fund by. attendants garbed in the white dresses, bright red capes, and quaint flowing caps generally worn by the French Red Cross nurses. Over in another corner there was displayed the very good collection of pictures acquired for the Art Union in aid of the Belgian Doctors and Pharmacists ; and even when one wearily sought refuge in the tea-room one’s tea and cakes were brought by daintily-dressed waitresses, whose white caps here a large red cross in the front, for here again the Women’s Association was to the fore, and they were undertaking the catering with a view to devoting the proceeds to the funds in aid of the wounded. Of course all the usual features of the show were there as well—the country products, the Agricultural Department’s exhibit (where the display of curiously-shaped and coloured but delicious locking things in the way of squashes and pumpkins and melons from the experimental farm at Tauranga made one wish that our climate was just a little hit warmer), and the various stalls where manufactured goods are on view. These last are really a great trial to me. I am always a ready listener, and so easily convinced for the moment that each different article is really the best of its kind in the world that "only the exercise of considerable self, control prevents me from walking out of the building with a sewing-machine under one arm and a bundle of patent duster mops under the other, having left behind

me an order for the most expensive kind of motor car on view!

Our holiday mood was well catered for in the way of amusements through the week with a musical comedy company at the Garris.on Had, the Plimmer-Hall Company at His Majesty’s, and last, but by no means least, a couple of conceits from the Cherniavrky brothers in the Burns Hall. Wc are generally fortunate enough to have a good concert company for Show Week, and the three young Russians are no exception to the rule. Not only is each a master cf his instrument, but the accord between them makes their playing of the trios something to be wondered at. They balance the parts so perfectly—each instrument subordinate to the others, yet each taking fully its proper place. It is something of a rarity to find three people possessed to the same degree not only of goad technique, but of temperament, a combination not so common as one might suppose even amongst those most popular on the concert platform. It is this temperament that gives a delightful uncertainty to the'r solo playing, as it varies to a certain extent with, their mcods. “Isn’t Jan splendid to-night?” say the connoisseurs; “he must be feeling in good form!” Or, “You should have heard Mischel at the last concert! He’s not doing himself justice to-night at all.” But when they play together one seems to inspire the other, and -they .all get worked up to the same pitch of enthusiasm until one perfect whole is produced, and we could not say which was the best of the three, Leo, Mischel, or Jan. Their concerts were a real joy to those who can find in music a solace for many troubles, just as the short season at His Majesty’s was welcomed by ardent playgoers who have been starving, as it were, for a snarkling comedy like “Lady Windermere’s Fan,” or the quaint moralising and the touches of human nature in “The Message from Mars.” One dees not want tragedy just now, and it seems almost a pity to have closed the season with “The Second Mrs Tanqueray,” «except that it gave us a chance to carry away a memory of Miss Beatrice Day at her best. It may be long before we see this favourite of ours again, but we will not easily forget her presentation of the loving, jealous, fiercetempered, warm-hearted, proud, repentant, sinned against and winning Paula Tanqueray.

ELIZABETH