BACHELORS' BALL.

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 400, 30 September 1911, Page 3

BACHELORS' BALL.

The Marokopa bachelors gave a grand ball on Thursday, September 14th, and a correspondent forwards the following interesting account:--"At 8 p.m. the ball started with the Grand March, the music supplied by Mr P. Saunders, of Kiritehere, in a style that was a credit to that gentleman ana his instrument. Let me make a feeble attempt to describe the various fancy dresses of the ladies. Oh, if I only had the author of "Westward Ho" to give a hand, what a picture we would be able to draw! But. as he is not here to help me, I will have to do the best I can. There were t'ne two little pets of Marakopa representing two fairies and two pretty little fairies they were. There was a little lady from over the hills who might have been "Bonnie May of Argyle," with her bright smile and the warm blood of her northern origin showing red in her pretty cheek 3. There was the Queen of Roses in a pretty costume all decked with roses, and the roses of youth in her face. There was a little lady from Marakopa as Daffodil, bright and happy looking as the flower she represented. There was a lady from up the river in a nice costume representing Spring, and the spring of some eighteen summers in her face. There was another little lady from up the river in a natty gown representing Queen of Cards. There was a little lady from far above the navigable part of the river in a neat costume, and her pretty face, all wreathed in dimples and smiles, would have done your heart good to see. There were ladies in various other costume that I cannot describe. Dark and fair ladies born in happy New Zealand, and ladies born in northern climes, and there was a little dark woman from somewhere up the river in black silk, full of dignity and grace, moving here and there amongst the visitors, chatting to one, smiling to another, and trying her best to make everyone happy., and surely she succeeded, for everyone did iook happy. At 11.30 p.m. the supper started, and as t'ne table would only seat 15 or IS couples, it required three sittings to satisfy all. But there was plenty for all and some basketsful over. The catering was done by Mrs J. Willison.a style that did credit to that lady and to the bachelors as a body. After supper dancing was resumed under the masterful control of MrJuhn Kinnane, M.C., and it looked to me as if there was not a person in that gay assembly that cared a hang about Charles Stuart, the American War of Independence, or the Boer War, and I don't think that there was more than one haunted conscience and that was the present writer's. His conscience did feel a bit haunted after supper, but that soon passed away. There was a fair assortment of men in fancy dress. Te Rauparaba, the old fighting chief of the coast, was there; Wharenui, an old identity of Marakopa, was also represented. Then there was a chief from the cannibal islands in full war paint, and a Sundowner. There was a trim looking Jack Tar, several Stockmen, a Boundary Rider or two, a Cricketer and some in football costume, and an Undergraduate in gown and mortar board, by Jove! And Mark Anthony was there in sackcloth and ashes, or rather in loga vir ill is and laurel wreath. Edward the First, and the men that dressed in skins of animals were not' there, and perhaps it was just as well, as one might have started coining dictums that would be disagreeable to the present generation and the other might have been too smellsome for the Maori Chief and the Sundowner, There wss a nigger in full dress and a chap in a white and black dre-is that I have not got enough ink to describe. There were men from the sunny land of the emu and kangaroo and men who had been seeking for gold in far away Klondyke. There were men who had stood and looked down on Akarua's beautiful harbour and some who had stood on the shores of Behring Strait and seen Aurora Borealis in all its glory. Every man and woman present seemed to enjoy themselves in good colonial backblock fashion and when daylight came and I saw old Sol burnishing the hilltops up the river, and th,en looked down on the Marakopa, flowing past the township, and heard the cheerful farewell greeting of the merrymakers, my heart grew glad for I found that the district had not lost one iota of its new dignity through the bachelors' ball not being run by a few grumblers. And so ended the Marakopa bachelors' ball of 1911. "Transiat in exempium."