“ONE OF THE SIGHTS.”

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 1349, 19 January 1915, Page 4

“ONE OF THE SIGHTS.”

NEW ZEALANDERS IN THE LORD MAYOR’S PROCESSION A TREMENDOUS RECEPTION. A member of the New Zealand Contingent in England writes an interesting account to his sister in Christchurch of the Lord Mayor's procession and the reception given to the New Zealanders in lb j streets of London. Some extmcr.-, are published below : I must te r you of cur visit tc Loudou this last vv ‘.- ?nd in rc-rch in •Fp Lord Ida} -E: procession. One hundred 01 us were chosen to go up, and i wa' fortunate in being among that number. We had ratner a bad sta.S, as "’e were a! 1 iro'miated agains. typhoid again the night before set out for Londor, md CheLv, Barracks, and we arriv -r there more or less wrecks. It affects one just like a dose of “flu.” The joke ofwas that everybody hailed us -,s : . newly arrived after a trip i ',ooo miles, being far from our dear ones, and sc forth, they wanted to treat us to everything. The idea of our being there (together with the Canadians and some of the favourite companies) was to aid recruiting, which had gone a bit stale lately, so the papers were giving it out that we were the New Zealanders arrived. We did nothing to destroy their illusions, and I guess we didn’t half skim the cream off their reception when they do arrive. Anyway, we have done a thundering lot of fatigues here tor them, so we are about square. PATRIOTISM AT THE ALHAMBRA. We had dinner at Lyons’ Cafe with a sergeant of Strathcoma’s Horse, and went to a Sunday concert at the Alhambra, where an Irish Guards’ band figured largely on the programme. It was all very patriotic and warlike, of course. There is a very popular recruiting song sung everywhere just now. It has iu it these words : We shall cheer you, hug you, kiss you When you come back again. Well, it is a fact that one of the Tommies, back wounded from Mons, was in a music hall when this song was sung, and be went up and got his reward. Of course they always get an attractive sort of girl to sing these songs. At the Alhambra I noticed that the fair singer was not taking any risks, for she substituted “love you” for “kiss you,’’ And even yet I have not told you of the great day we had on Monday. I guess none of us will forget it as long as we live. It was something to be proud of all right, and we were proud of it, and did all vve could to keep our end up, and bring honour to New Zealand. If you get a look at the moving pictures that were taken of us, you will see that we happened to be swinging along like the Guards. The whole day we were on our feet, and it was pretty gruelling, too; but every minute it was exciting. We marched at right through the centre of London, Westminster, Whitehall, Trafalgar Square, the Strand, and St. Paul’s, singing our particular songs—- “ Sundowner” is one of them. A MAORI HAKA. Going down the Strand we were overtaken by a 'bus with an excited Maori on it. We started to give him a haka, and, by Jove i he just about "broke his nc k getting off that ’bus, and into the middle of us. After that he marched along with v nc: h.E excited, I can tel } ... Our hakas went down Mi L.b: tveryVvueo.. ILey were quite a knockout in London. , We spent about twe hours down

a little side street, in Cheapside, waiting and joining up with the Canadians. It was not long before we had crowds around us, and hundreds of heads leaning out of windows all the way along, and arms chucking down apples, pears, cigarettes, anything and everything. Dozens of smart girls besieged us for buttons and badges. It took two or three policemen all their time telling them we were all married. Then we took their breath away with another haka, and the Maori, now quite beside b;r self with excitement, got up ou a nig fruit case, and nearly get tiimself arrested for being drunk ?:nd seeing things. The march in the afternoon w«s continuously through masses oi wildly cheering people waving flags. There were rows of windows lined with pretty girls — never saw so many in my life before. Every here and there along the route of our march someone would yell “Kia Ora,” or the name of some New Zealand town. Many of them bad New Zealand flags, and I recognised one girl from Dunedin. We got a great reception, mostly, I think, on account of our hats. The remarks we gathered in along the route were many and varied.

LORD MAYOR’S COACH

The Mayor’s coach was a spectacle in itself. It was gorgeous, if that word ever deserved to be used to describe anything. It was all guilded and gingerbreaded up, and the coachman looked as if he had stepped out of an old-time painting. He did not seem a bit real, until he favoured us with a big wink as we marched past. It was all wildly exciting while it lasted, but our arms were like lead by the time we finished up at the bank where we started from. We had to march back to the other side of London iu the gloaming. We did it through the most conjested parts at the double, single file. It was great sport.