BRINGING IN THE HAGGIS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 11, 11 January 1913, Page 5

BRINGING IN THE HAGGIS.

Calamity was narrowly averted at the New Year Scottish gathering in Sydney during the ceremony of bringing in the haggis—that well-known and earnestly respected Highland delicacy which has provoked poetry, both for and against. Just as the diners, quite 500 in number, were beginning to settle down to their meal in the large dining-hall at the Agricultural Ground, a gaily-bedecked piper made his appearance, and, playing some characteristic melody, marched with stately tread towards the chairman, followed by a couple of waiters . carrying overhead and at arm’s length ' the “dish de resistance.” Beaching the chief table, the piper stood to finish his tune, but the waiters, obviously unrehearsed in the manner of paying tribute to a haggis, waited.|pr instructions. None were forthcpming, and perhaps naturally they assumed that their slow march ought to be continued. So, still awkwardly carrying their precious burden, they turned to go. The movement clearly was not the correct one, and the piper went red in the face in his anxiety Jest his assistants should make a mess of the proceeding, as they were clearly threatening to do, though nobody except the piper himself appeared to know of this. Another moment and all would have been Ibst (says the Daily Telegraph) but the piper, bursting his lungs almost in order to put extra pressure into the bellows of his instrument, yelled in a voice of thunder, “Put it down!” The waiters eagerly obeyed, the haggis was placed in the position of honour at the head of the table, and the piper finished his bagpipe performance in comfort.