"PINAFORE" ON THE WATER.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VI, Issue 920, 13 October 1879, Page 2

" PINAFORE " ON THE WATER.

I The ' ' Pinafore " mania took a strange shape in New York, where 2000 or 3000 persons assembled to witness the play "on a real ship, on real water." The ship was 110 feet long, and was fully rigged as a man-o'war. A San Francisco paper says :— r" Her sails were 'loosed to a bunfcline, 1 her gun-deck ports were closed, but on the main deck were four broadside guns and two boat howitzers ; there was the wheel in front of the cabin, the capstan, the ropes coiled up around the five-rail, the starboard anchor down — in short, it was a good representation of a ship of war. The orchestre was out of sight in the forecastle, but not ' out of sound. ' The action was in the centre of the main deck, and when the sailors departed they went down the forehatch, while the Admiral, the captain, his lovely daughter, and the sisters, cousins, and aunts disappeared at the proper times into the cabin. When Little Buttercup came on board she came in a boat alone, and was met at the Btarboard gangway by a gallant tar and sang the first stanza while in the boat. The sisters, cousins, and aunts arrived in the same way. When the boat containing Sir Joseph and Hebe arrived there was a commotion on board. There was a salute, and the yards manned by the men, who were as agile, and evidently understood what they were about as though they were real man-of-war's men. Then there was a file of marines who did their duty, notably the silent drill, so well as to win merited applause when the Admiral left the ship with Hebe he sang his " I'm Monarch of the Sea " after he had boarded the small boat, and while preparing to start. And over all and above all was the strangeness of the surroundings, the water, and the sky, the reflection of the opera in the lake, the immense audience scattered around the shore of the lake, giving a novel not to say Avoird appearance."