CORRESPONDENCE “MUSIC HATH CHARMS.”

Waikato Independent, Volume XXX, Issue 2312, 18 March 1930, Page 5

CORRESPONDENCE

“MUSIC HATH CHARMS.”

(To the Editor)

Sir, —My attention has just been drawn to a letter under the above heading which appeared in The Waikato Independent dated March 8, over the nom-dc-plume “A Show Lover.”

In this letter an uncalled-for and exceedingly scurrilous attack is made upon the national dress and music of Scotland, by some prolegomenous babbier whose culpability is only exceeded by the ignorance of his mind and the uncharitablencss of his heart.' If the writer of the aforementioned effusion has the courage of his convictions let him come out into the open, instead of adopting the serpentine tactics of hissing behind a hedge: he will then find “foemen worthy of his steel” ready to defend the national dress, music, and characteristics of an unconqucred people.

My object in writing this letter is by way of congratulating the children of the Cambridge Highland Society on the excellence of their performance at the recent show, as evidenced by the success their work merited and won. They also deserve the very best thanks Of the Cambridge community, not only for the distinction and charm which their presence gave to the show, but also for their ever ready and willing spirit to assist in every community cause when their presence is called for.

I would like also to offer to the children, their parents, ah'd teachers, an apology on behalf of all who think as I do, for the unnecessary and unwarranted attack, which must have outraged their feelings, by one ashamed of his name, and who will “go down to the vile dust from which he sprung, unwept, unhonoured and unsung,” while Scotland’s fame and national eharac- ; teristics will rank as they have ever ranked, second to none among the peoples of the world.—l am, etc.,

JAS. HAY. Cambridge, March ISth, 1930.