AUCKLAND EXHIBITION NOTES.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXI, Issue XXVII, 31 December 1898, Page 855

AUCKLAND EXHIBITION NOTES.

(By

our Flippant Flaneur.)

Reform is the order of the day, ‘mes enfants,’ wherefore, doff your hats and whoop hooray for the Executive, who have come off their high horse, and set about putting things to rights in the most jovial manner possible.

No doubt they have been unable to withstand the genial influence of the festive season, and have come to the sensible conclusion that the best way of fostering ‘peace on earth and goodwill to men’ is by acknowledging their mistakes and making prompt amends. This they' are doing. All the important suggested improvements have been granted. Prices for special entertainments have been reduced, season ticket holders are granted booking privileges, and the Exhibition is open from ten till ten, so that no one is turned into the cold world (so to say) for a couple of hours at tea time.

All this is as it should be, and if the Executive keep it up, we shall soon, all of us, be ‘finding the world extremely flat, for we’ve nothing at all to grumble at.’ The absence of the two hours ‘off’ between five and seven will be severely felt by the caretakers at the various stalls, but there can be no doubt that for the Christmas fortnight, at any rate, it is far wiser to keep the show open continuously. The tearoom people will reap a golden harvest, and ‘tea at the Exhibition’ will not improbably become a rather smart way of entertaining one's friends. At all the large exhibitions at Earlscourt it has always been the regular thing to ask your friends together for dinner at one of the restaurants. Here nobody ever thinks of asking a dinner party at a restaurant, for the verysimple reason that there is not a firstclass restaurant of the class needed in the city. But at the Exhibition it is different. Any one of the tea rooms would fix up a smart little dinner if asked. At least, one imagines so. I commend the idea to the hospitably inclined.

A book bound in human skin is apt to make even the most flippant person pause, and 1 confess I felt a disagreeable qualm on examining the book exhibited by' a Dunedin firm of binders, which.it is asserted, is covered with human cuticle. It is surely a unique exhibit, and one naturally feels anxious about it. Whose was the skin? When, where, and how was it obtained, how long did it take to tan, and, in short, what is its entire history?

Ever since I saw the volume—it looks a very nice and quiet binding, by the way, and is nondescript in shade—the above questions have possessed me. I never go to the Exhibition that I do not seek out the stall and try' to imagine what sort of man or woman it was whose skin now serves so unwonted a purpose, and how he or she would like it if they knew. Of course, it might have been cut off a ‘real live person,’ as in the skin grafting, but this idea does not commend itself as probable. No, the skin which covers that book doubtless came off what Mr Mantalini called ‘a dem’d moist unpleasant body.’ The main event of the week has been the Messiah, which, after production by the Choral Society on Tuesday, was repeated as an Exhibition concert on Thursday with great success. The tremendous popularity of the magnificent oratorio was again exemplified on both Tuesday' and Thursday. There were large audiences on both occasions. That of Thursday enjoyed the better of the performances, though neither was perfect. On Tues-

day the organ went astray rather markedly in-the matter of time, running ahead of the chorus aud orchestra in a distracting fashion.

Likewise a brass band outside entered into friendly rivalry with disconcerting results. On Thursday the brass band was non est, and the concert went better in every way. The Hallelujah chorus was given with great force and verve, and—as it always does —acted powerfully on the emotions of the audience. What an incomparable composition it is, aud what splendid shudders it does send down one’s spine.

All the soloists were excellent. Madame Du Rieu is perhaps entitled to chiefest honours, though there is little to choose betwen the quartette, for all did admirably. At both performances there was evidence that an extra rehearsal or so would not have been amiss, but this was much less noticeable on Thursday', when—save to a very captious critic—there was little to complain about. The Messiah is not a work on which one can hope to say anything new. It has long since worn threadbare those superlatives which seem its proper and only vocabulary. It would be interesting, perhaps, to discuss the old point of the owl and the egg in connection with the popularity of the Messiah. Whether, that is to say, it achieved its popularity because it is the most familiar of tne oratorios, or whether it became familiar because popular? With this nice subject for a Christmas argument I retire, wishing all ‘Exhibition’ visitors or residents the compliments of the season.