WE MUST HAVE A FAIR?

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XV, Issue XI, 14 September 1895, Page 342

WE MUST HAVE A FAIR?

When your church society or your temperance band feel obliged to get np a fair to raise money for the organ, or the library, or for some pet charity, you know of course how busy you must be for a long time beforehand, making fancy articles ; and as the day approaches how hard you must work preparing refreshments and decorating tables. Sometimes under such circumstances one resolves that one will never have anything to do with a fair again. But while the fancy-work and the useful articles and the refreshments must always be at the basis of the whole thing, there are so many ways of presenting the fair itself to the public, that the spice of variety is not lacking once more to stimulate your zeal and to attract outsiders. Last winter a * Rainbow Fair ' proved to be a successful venture. Seven lone tables displayed the seven colours of the rainbow—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. For instance, the first table was festooned above with drapings of red cambric, and three or four of those great tissue-paper balls, which look like bunches of double poppies tied up close together, were hungover the centre. Over the red table were red ones; blue ones over the blue table,and so on.

There were red flowers on the first table, and among the fancy articles those in which red was predominant were made most conspicuous. The attendants at this table wore white aprons trimmed lavishly with red ribbons. It was not hard to carry out the same idea with each colour; and then, to crown all, there was one grand table at which all the colours were rampant together, and the girls’ aprons were trimmed with seven different hues on each.

At this table were sold dolls and all kinds of things used in dressing dolls, together with many sorts of toys. Here, also, tickets were sold for the ‘ Dolls’ Show ’ at sixpence apiece.

The ‘ Dolls’ Show ’ was curtained off at the end of the ball. There was a door at each end of it, so that people could go in at one and out at the other. This show was a ’loan exhibition.’ Each little girl in the Sunday school had loaned her dearest doll, dressed in its prettiest clothes, with a card attached bearing both the doll’s name and the owner’s name. It might be • Helen Clara, loaned by Kitty Jones,’ or ‘ Baby May, loaned by Alice Smith.’

Older peeple, too, loaned curious and rare dolls. One was over a hundred years old, with a delicate wax face, a long, narrow waist, and a quilted petticoat. There was an Eskimo doll, an Indian doll, a Sandwich Island doll, and two funny old Dutch dolls with smooth, painted wooden faces. The ‘ Rainbow Fair ’ was a great success. A smaller fair was given in the Sunday-school room of a suburban church. This was a * Fair of Days,’ and there were seven tables besides the flower and lemonade stands. Over each table was stretched a banner of white cotton cloth, with the name of the day upon it in large gilt paper letters.

At Monday’s table were sold clothespins and laundry soap, washboards and tubs, coils of line, packages of borax, pound packages of starch, and bottles of blueing. There were also toy tubs, washboards and pins for the children. Gingham aprons, suitable for a laundress to wear, decorated bags for soiled clothes, and a nest of clothes-baskets, also appeared here. Tuesday’s table bore flatirons, cakes of wax, iron stands, numberless holders, ironing aprons, bosom boards, sprinklers, water basins, toy irons, fluting irons, and an order for coal.

Wednesday’s table held all the conveniences for mending, needle-books, work-baskets, emerys, darning-cotton, threadcases, housewives’ scissors, sewing-aprons with pockets, pin-balls, button-cards, tape-measures, shoe bags, thimbles and bodkins.

Thursday represented leisure, with calls and fancy-work. Here were card cases, card-receivers, crocheted laces, and every sort of fancy article that did not suit any other table ; because there was nothing that might not have been made on Thursday.

Friday’s table held brooms and broom-brushes with cases, feather dusters, cloth dusters, pretty bags to hold dusters, decorated dustpans, sweeping aprons, and a lot of jaunty sweeping caps all colours. Saturday’s table was luscious to behold ; for on it were the results of cooking and baking. Such tempting loaves of cake, such flaky jelly tarts, and such delicious homemade sweets. Baked and brown bread dared to be there, and there were sandwiches and canned fruits, and jam. Then the Sunday table —what was on that? Good reading, of course ; books and booklets ; text-cards, bookmarks, and photographs of the clergyman. This fair, too, was a great success and lasted three days, afternoon and evening.