Correspondence.

Hastings Standard, Issue 328, 21 May 1897, Page 2

Correspondence.

[We do npt hold ourselves responsible for the opinion of correspondents.] THAT DOUBLE QUARTETTE. [To The Editor.] Sib, —Hastings has not enthused for 14 years ; but has laid back all that time for a big burst of enthusiatic outpourings on the occasion of the Queen's Jubilee. My father tells me that the Bowling Club is going to celebrate the occasion in a manner never before dreamed of. All arrangement. o are complete. When Her Majesty enters St. Paul's Cathedral on the 22nd June a cable is to be sent to the Princess Theatre, where a " double quartette" will be awaiting the signal to burst forth with a setting of the National Anthem. The Telegraph Department has agreed to lay on a special wire for the occasion, at least that is what the programme says. Perhaps it is some years since any of the ball committee were at school; but surely they must know that the time they imagine they will get the signal to burst forth in a voluptuous swell will be at least 20 hours before the ball commences. According to what we are taught nowadays, if the Hymn of Praise is sung in London at noon on 22nd June the exact time in this colony is 81 £ minutes past midnight of the 21st, and if the ceremony is delayed until two o'clock the precise time in Hastings will be 28£ minutes to 3 on the same morning. Perhaps it is only the decoration committee that is to participate in the double quartette, but I would advise them to give a second performance when all the visitors are present at the ball twenty-four hours after. I am °orry the committee has exposed itself to ridicule, but I suppose excitement will account for the mistake.—l am, &c., A Puzzled Schoolboy. P.S.—I suppose the National Anthem was chosen for the quartette because it will not require the rehearsals that will be necessary to sing " The Hymn of Praise" in anything like decent form.