LYTTELTON TIMES SICK FUND SOCIETY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 3553, 30 August 1879, Page 3

LYTTELTON TIMES SICK FUND SOCIETY.

The firat annual entertainment for the beneQt of the Lyttelton Times Sick Fund Society took place last night at the Theatre Rojol, which was densely crowded for the occasion. The programme consisted of an original prologue, a selection of songs, and the comedy of . " Society." Tho first was received with an amount of applause which augured well for the success of the evening. Tho vocalists, both in the choice and the cic-, cution of their Bongs were markedly happy. The comedy, however, was the pihce de resistance. It is from the pen of T. W. Eobertßon, and like other plays by the same author requires very considerable histrionic powers in most of its characters. The scene is laid in the present day, and the plot, which includes the starting of a daily newspaper and the exoitomont of a general eleotion, is singularly appropriate to the company performing last night, and to the present position of affairs in the Colony. The opportunity might have boon easily seized to make the play a vehicle for political partizanship but it was not. The text was scrupulously followed and the audience appeared thoroughly to apprcoiate it. As the dramatis ptrsonts were, with tha excoption of the ladies, all members of the staff of the Lyttelton Times, it would savour of self-praise to do more than acknowledge with thanks the kind indulgence to their efforts shown by the audience, and at tho same time to give credit to Mrs Walter Hill, Miss Arothusa May, Miss Ida Mercer, and Miss> Ada Montgomery for their efficient assistance. It may, however, be stated that the difficulties in the way of a successful produotion of the comedy were so great that an experienced stage manager and veteran actor, who was asked to superintend it, declined to do so on the ground that it was a task j too arduous for amateurs to cope with. Whether the quality which carried the amatours of lost night through their difficulties can be termed presumption or pluck it waß for those who patronised the entertainment to say, but if applause is to be taken as a criterion by which to judge their verdict they left no doubt as to what it was. This notice -would not be complete unless it conveyed a recognition of the services rendered by Mrs Croumbie-Brown and Mrs Harding, the former forhor artistically rendered bodes, and the latter for her brilliant and tasteful pianoforte accompaniment. The following was the :