DRUID DEMONSTRATION AT PORT.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 2043, 10 September 1880, Page 3

DRUID DEMONSTRATION AT PORT.

The united lodges of the Ancient Order of Druids took part in an entertainment and grand torchlight procession last night at Lyttelton. The immediate object of the demonstration was to aid the newly-formed lodge at Lyttelfon, the Hearts of Oik, No. 100. Advantage was taken of the Thursday night train, by which the members of the various lodges participating in the procession and entertainment were enabled to return to Christchurch the same night. Between sixty and seventy members of the Order, accompanied by a large number of friends and visitors arrived at port by the seven o'clock train. The procession was at once formed and started from the Oddfellows' Hall. The novelty of the costumes, the long white robes and patriarchal beards of the Druids, were a sufficient attraction to throng the streets of the town with people, and by the time the splendid Railway Band had played one or two airs and the order to maroh was given the neighborhood of the hall was densely crowded. Upwards of a hundred torohea were carried along the line by the torch bearers, including a small army of boys enlisted for the occasion for this particular duty. The line of march was through the principal streets and back to the hall, the band marching and playing in the van. Passing along London street, Canterbury street, Oxford street, and Norwich Quay, coloured fireß were lighted, the effect upon the proeesaion being woird in the extreme. After returning to the hall the Druids aang their " Welcome Chorus," and immediately the crowd outside the building made their way for admission. Before the concert had been fairly opened the building was packed to the doors, and numbers who had waited for the first crush to get seated mußt have found it impossible to gain admission. The programme of the concert was as follows : —Songs by Misses Ness, Hill, Kirk, Maudie, Grey, Mesdames Bradshaw and Fairhurst, and Messrs Wilson, Oppenheim, Cullen, Emerson, Fox, Moore and Kirk. Mrs and Miss Bowler played a duet, Mr Bowles an instrumental solo, and Messrs Ellis and Gordon a duet. Mr Yule gave a recitation, and Mr George Burgess his ventriloquial entertainment. A full measure of applause was accorded to each of the performers. The lodges represented in

the procession were, as nearly as could be ascertained, the Mistletoe and Pioneer of Christohurch; Hope of St. Albans; Oak of Sydenham ; Ethelbert, Springston ; Band of Hope, Rangiora ; Athelstan, Phillipstown ; Star of Angleeeu, Lincoln ; and Lyttelton Hearts of Oak. District President Swinnerton came in charge of the representative lodges, and Bro. Lawson, of the Hearts of Oak, performed the duties of. marshal in the procession. The performers in the concert kindly gave their services, and the torches were supplied by the Christchurch Fire Brigade, the colored fires by Bro. Biley, Hope of St. Albans. The entertainment was under the patronage of his Worship the Mayor, there being on the platform Bro. Hildyard, A.D., and Bro. Byan, P.A. The proceeds of the concert it was proposed should be devoted to the regalia fund of the Lyttelton Hearts of Oak, and the success whicn attended the evening's entertainment must be extremely gratifying to the lodge.