An Elocution Contest Criticised

Feilding Star, Volume VIII, Issue 74, 23 December 1886, Page 2 (Supplement)

An Elocution Contest Criticised

By Charley Cope. An elocution contest is open to all sexes. It is not dangerous, as the weapons used by the combatants are only aerial daggers and visionary swords, and the creatures who are slain are merely those which the actor's mind conjures up, while the weaker sexes who revel in flowers and Bheep are not allowed to bring on to the stage anj'tliing more substantial than shadowy animals, and the roses which are sent to heaven by them are very imaginary ones. The one thing which does really suffer is their mother tongue for at the Palmerstou contest one competitor succeeded in poking a > clean out of the middle of a word, and no ' doubt if the word had appeared at/'n its only i would have shared the samo fate ; as it was, the one who thus mutilated the English language was awarded a very high prize. "Wirh this exception, the judges (Jvmnd as they were by the rules laid d-*»\'ii fur them) were not to blame at the di.?satisfaetion whioh existed at their several decisions. As well might an agricultural committee huddle pL;s, oxen, eneep, and liorses altogether at their show, and require tiw judge t<> point out the best animal amongst them as to expect a correct duc:isi.m from the judges at Palmerston, where high and low comedy, tragedy, and farce, were all mingled without any classification whatever. Mr Maearthur might have used the word "inrpossibility" for " difficult} " in men untrained to the wort, forming m correct judgment from such a medley, and so we find them giving the preference to the lighter pieces, and music hall eloquence. Tea meeting sentimentalities outrivaled the deeper, more sublime, and consequently more difficult, rendering of the great masters and the Stowaway touched them more than did Eugene Aram, though given with all the power and vividness ' of a thorough artist, whilst Brunswick with all its grandeur admirably pcrartiayed, was defeated by the scandal of Mrs McTarley, and the competitor who recited the fall of the Wolsey must have been tripped up by Nelly and Bill on their road to heaven, for lie was seen no more, although greatly applauded by the audience. It is no use pointing out faults without showing how to remedy them, and as an elocution contest is meditated by the Folding people, let there be at least two classes viz., high and low comedy, with a champion prize for tho widest range. Then if the judges will read one scene from Hamlet before taking their seats, I don't think the prizes will be awarded quite so up side down, as they were at Palniersfcon.