OTAGO’S PART.

Otago Witness, Issue 3764, 4 May 1926, Page 28

OTAGO’S PART.

LOCAL COMMITTEES ENTERTAINED. The various committees connected with the Otago Provincial Court were the guests of the Court Executive at an evening In the official reception room last night. Mr W. B. Taverner, who presided, said that he wished to thank the committees for all the work they lmd done to make the*court the success it was, and also the Otago Expansion League for the valuable assistance it had given, and for the fine public spirit it had displayed. He went on to say that there were some 24,000 signatures in the visitors’ book, and these certainly did throw some interesting sidelights on the work of the court. lie had noticed that quite a number of visitors from Southland had remarked in the book that with the exception of the Southland Court the Otago Court was the best in the Exhibition. That was very high praise. In conclusion, Mr Taverner thanked Mr Fletcher, who had had charge of the construction of fhe court, and Mr Smith, who had undertaken the specifications and the plans. It was then announced that Mr W. B. Steel had a small presentation to make, ‘it has been said,” Mr Steel remarked, “that a prophet has no honour in his own country. I am here to break that ini* piession. There was only one man who had the pluck to say there would be over 60,000 people at the Exhibition on Saturday. We laughed at him, and he offered to wager a cigar on it. I being possessed of Scottish blood, was willing to wager on a ‘dead cert’ which, it turned out, was not a ‘dead cert’. 1 will now hand that cigar over to Mr Charles Hayward. Mr Hayward, with a gleam of satisfaction in his eye, accented the cigar. On behalf of the Expansion League and other representatives, Mr S. B. Macdonald thanked their hosts for their courtesy and congratulated the executive on the court. He was not there, he added, to say whether it was better than others, but be had been told that it was the cleanest court at 9 o'clock in the morning and at 9 o'clock at night,. As far as the primary exhibits were concerned, if there were any better in the Exhibition he would be pleased to see them.

Several songs and musical items were contribued during the evening.