BURNS NIGHT CELEBRATED

Taranaki Daily News, 29 January 1934, Page 11

BURNS NIGHT CELEBRATED

NEW PLYMOUTH GATHERING. TRIBUTES TO THE BAND. To pay homage to their greatest national poet more than 100 Scots as* sembled at the Burwood, New Plymouth, on Saturday night. With speech, song and story they whiled the hours away, ate of the traditional haggis, which was piped in with musical honours, and generally managed to convey the feeling that though the poets of other nations may come and go, Robert Burns, their own “Rabbie,” goes on for ever, enshrined in the hearts of all men north of the Tweed.

Usually, the celebration is conducted by men alone. On this occasion, ladies were included, a point to which Chief R. W. D. Robertson made reference in his welcoming speech. In courtesy to the presence of- the ladies, no toasts were honoured, the evening taking the form of songs and addresses. Proceedings opened with the playing in of the chief and an overture of Scottish airs. Then Mr. J. C. Irving spoke of Caledonia. ‘‘Not one of us is not proud of our land,” he said. “There is the music of patriotism in all things, and we must seek to explain the love, the beauty and the honour of our race.” Speaking of the ideals of Scotland’s greatest sons, he mentioned William Wallace, whose great two-handed sword reposing in the hall of Stirling Castle rouses the keenest emotions and. is a national monument to love of liberty; of Alloway Cottage, where Bums was bom to sing throughout his life the songs of the nightingale; of Abbotsford, where the Knight of Scotland, Sir Walter Scott, under the colossal "burden of a debt of £130,000, gave his life in paying off his debt, and who, in the last hours, w’hen he had asked to be carried to his workroom to hold once more the pen, said: “Friends, do not let me expose myself. Take me back to bed”; of Thomas Carlyle, stalking out of a Lowland village to startle the world with his histories, his doumess and honesty of purpose; and lastly, of Sir James Barrie, who spoke, when initiated as Lord Rector of St. Andrews - University, on “Courage.” Some more songs, and then Mr. W. G. Simpson, Hawera, paid tribute, as it was being paid that night all over the world, to the memory of Bums, who, at 30 years of age, described himself as having not the slightest pretensions to calling himself a gentleman. Burns was born, said Mr. Simpson, on January 27, 1759, the son of poverty-stricken parents, and lived the hard life of a farm-boy for several years. At 16, he had his first taste of school when the poet in him was already blossoming through contact with women. Then “the hell-hounds of justice” took his father’s farm away, Robert and his brother taking a farm which ended in disaster when they were burned out one New Year’s Eve. Conflict with the elders of the church had reduced him. He falteringly published his poems in the famous Kilmarnock Edition, a venture which realised him £2O. Sickened by treatment, he had booked his passage abroad when Dr. Blacklock called him back to Edinburgh to supervise a new edition. More profitable than the first, the venture realised £6OO. In Edinburgh he was lionised and feted by all as poet and debater. The unfortunate ending to his affair with Mary Hamilton had its effect on his poetry. He went to Dumfries, married Jean Armour, and farming failing to profit, took a commission in the excise and died eight years later at the early age of 37. “Through all his works,” concluded the speaker, “there is a characteristic love of liberty, but in the background there is poverty, material and mental poverty. He had keen insight, but throughout his life financial difficulties beset him. Bums’ messages are needed now—we must strive for liberty and _ abolish poverty. When Bums was buried, 3000 people attended the funeral, ranking from the highest to the lowest.” On the magic carpet of imagination, Miss Corrigan took her listeners to places in Scotland where great women in the history of the country, ranging from Lady Macbeth to the present Duchess of York, have lived and died: Mr. W. W. Thomson gave some samples of Scottish humour, for which, he said, a factory for turning them out had been erected at Aberdeen. And Mr. S. G. Smith, M.P., paid a tribute to the work of the early pioneering Scots in Our Own Land”—New Zealand—and to the committee in charge of the Bums Night, which was, he said, the best he had ever attended. A programme of Scottish songs was provided by the following artists: M rs - C J. Harris, “Mary Morrison” and Aye Wakin O”; Mr. J. Quin, “Ye Banks and Braes” and “Mary”; Mr. Fred Baird, Of a’ the Airts,” “My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose,” “My Love is But a Lassie Yet”; Miss Flora McDonald, A Man’s a Man for a’ That,” and “For the Sake of Somebody”; Mrs. C. J. Harris, “Bonny Prince Charlie”; Miss Bamforth, “Robin Adair”; and duet, Mrs. Quay and Mr. Baird, “Loch Lomond. The accompanists were Messrs. P._ r redric and W. Hay. ’ In addition, Miss R. Chapman did full justice to the stirring ode to the haggis, after it had. been piped round the room. . Sitting at the top table with Mr. R. W D. Robertson, chief, were Messrs. S. G. Smith, M.P., E. R. C. Gilmour, W. W. Thomson, W. G. Simpson, J. biIrving and J. C. Findlater, Mesdames CJ. Harris, S. G. Smith, Thomson and Before supper was provided, the Rev. J D. McL. Wilson gave the grace before meat, and the gathering finished the evening by singing the most popular or all Burns’ songs, “Auld Lang Syne.