OFF PARADE AT THE FRONT

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2954, 18 December 1916, Page 3

OFF PARADE AT THE FRONT

Captain Walls', the Salvation Army Chaplain with the New Zealand Forces, writing from France on October 13, says that since the erection of the new the place has been the centre of attraction—during one week 3500 men attended the various concerts that had been arranged. Some days ago the cooks in the camp suggested that they would put up about 100 francs for the purpose of getting souvenir prizes for a competition of singing, recitation, and monologue. This caught on well, and there was a full house every night. The colonel was in the ball for the first time since the building was erected, and was much' surprised at the number of men that attended; in fact, was so pleased with the first concert that he hurried over his dinner and came in to the next following. He made a small speech, and also.' mentioned that lie had no idea of the extent of the work,' though he had listened to tho cheers that had rent the camp of an evening.

For the- purpose of giving some stimulus to performers and others in the direction, of the entertaining of our troops across* the seas, the officers who had been selected as judges submitted a report of the competitions with the following comments: —We desire to express our appreciation of the efforts of all those who enthusiastically took .part and helped to make the competitions a success. Such competitions are unique in that, to our knowledge, they are the first of their kind to be held by cur troops fighting in France, and indeed it is just possible that they are the first of their kind to be 1 held by any troops during the war. We congratulate Padre Walls upon his energy and optimism, which have gone a very long way towards bringing this to such a successful conclusion.