Bowling.

Free Lance, Volume III, Issue 120, 18 October 1902, Page 19

Bowling.

From end to end of the colony the gay and festive bowlers are busy with, preparations for chasing the kitty. You will find them in the hatter's and mercer's, trying on those white pipeclayed beavers which they so greatly affect or m. the shoe-merchant's, coaxing their trilbies into the latest style of lawn shoes. In t'hjs connection, I notice there is a movement afoot down South to in~ crease the seductive temptations of bowls. Mr. W. C. Allnut, president of the Jtoslyn Club, has sent out a oirculair to* clubs affiliated to the Southern Association asKin™ a series of questions, amonest them being — (1) Are you in favour of moie prizes, and these of erreater value 3 , (2) should the entrance fees for competitions be reduced ? ; (3) w r ould you support the establishment at the Association's annual tournament of a friendly rink match for members si^tv veais and over, lunch for subh pla,yers on>- te be at 1 m , and game or games to follow 5 (4) would you fivour the establishment of a special annual figure, to be called the "Champion of the najy^ions Contest " in which club champions could meet on a chosen srreen a<nd nlay few an Association pii^e of fiom five to ten Tiineas? Evidently, the sleepy South is waking up.

Melba's terms with Geo Musgrcn c are said to be £000 a concert. At th.it rate her trip will cost Mi. Musgiove from £9000 to £10,000. • • ♦ Harry Riekards is alleged to pay that preacher of the new religion. Sandow, £400 per week, and he, therefore, asks th.9 Tivoh audience to bear with him while he hoists the prices of admission up a peg or two. • • • Of perambulating picture machines there is no end. Mr. and Mrs Fraser Shaw are now landing somewhere on this island with a threatening-looking paraphernalia which will whizz you through scenes that are brightest and so on. » • # J. C. Williamson issues a threat He will do without an orchestra for dramatic shows if his tootlers do not stop aggravating. This is not without precedent. Dramatio representations in that land of music — Germany — are shorn of orchestral accompaniments. • * * Thus a scribe in the "Catholic Press" — "Australia is certainly a land which grows legislators full fledged for comic opera. The noble lords who figure in "lolanthe" are grave and serious seigneurs compared to some of the political pearls who honour the Commonwealth with their sublime servioes." • * • Charming idea that of Nellie Stewarts to greet her friend "Nellie" Melba with a blue satin stave of music in the treble clef, and the notes of "Home, Sweet Home" in primroses (the diva's favourite flower). The superscription bore the words "To Nellie Melba — Nellie Stewarts homage." • • • The theatrical prints, both in New Zealand and Australia, are strangely unadorned with the recent doings of that enterprising little comedian. Mr. Van Burg, who eventuated in Wellington a while ago, and evanesced. No doubt, he is qroingr strong somewhere. Can anyone relieve my anxiety as to the welfare of the talented entrepreneur? • • • It is becoming the custom for managers now, in writing to star actresses to engage them, to put. "if you are not dead." Most modern actresses are pestered with obituary notices about themselves, and their illnesses, as chronicled by hurrying scribes are frequently a source of wonder to no one but themselves. • • » One-time Timaruvian, and erstwhile fighter, Fitzsimmons has gone out of the thumping business, and is merely getting hand-claps now. He is the chief performer in a semi-serious, and halfjocular, production, yclept "The Honest Blacksmith." Bob shoes a horse on the stage, spars some, and does a lot of unusual things. All this is happening in San Francisco. • • » Uncharitable people remark that Melba is, to say the least of it, not remarkable for humility. Why should she be when the following is one of the least of the nice things said about her : Imagine a delicious voice as pure as crystal alighting in the lips of the cantatrioe with the aerial lightness of a bird. . . Pearls dropping from her mouth without the slightest effort." 1 iris is what a blase French critic had to say. • * * It is now the custom in some hotels for the "boots" to bring you your Sandow developer with your pedal envelopes and shaving water in the morning. One gentleman, of eccentric disposition, in Australia recently, owes his "boots" a debt of gratitude. He had intended going out of this world per rope manufactured from a sheet, as the torn nature of that article proclaimed, but the advent of his morning developer obviated the necessity of committing suicide in that soft goods way. • ♦ • Thus the "Bulletin" — "Just as bad as stage-fright is a sudden blankness of memory. Nance O'Neil, when playing 'Fedora," in Melbourne, had her mind become a blank in the middle of a speech. O'Neil is a plucky woman. When "Lady Inger" failed in Melbourne she fought a hostile audience for two hours and a-half— fought herself to a standstill, so that when the curtain fell. O'Neill fell, too, and had to be carried off the stage to her dressing-room. But, when her memory left her in "Fedora/ Nance lost all her faculties temporarily. She could not even hear the prompter, but sat looking before her, with eves growing bigger and bigger with hysterical terror. Harry Plimmer, who was oa with her. saved the situation by comink quite close to her, grasping her wrist and telling her the lines. She repeated them after him, and as she repeated them her mind returned, and she finished them splendidly The moment the curtain was down she seized Plimmer's hands in hers • "God bless you, God bless you ' If I live to be a hundred I shall always be grateful."

"Davie" Robertson, of the Phoenix Foundry, has not always been an ironmaster. This was easily gathered at the dinner of the Industrial Association, on Tuesday night Davie took the company into his confidence during the speech he made in reply to the* toast of "Engineering," and remarked that his early days were given up to farming pursuits. He had a vivid recollection of churning all day for butter that would not come. He had a girl to help him, and still the butter would not came. Davie was perfectly seriousi, but the meeting was not. It got an idea into its head that young Robertson had given a good reason why that refraotory milk refused to become butter. During the rest of the evening, Mr. Robertson put in the time earnestly explaining to fellow convives that really the presence of the girl had nothing to do with his failure to churn that milk into butter. But, they would not believe a word of it. * * * We are in receipt of the Christmas number of tlhe "Canterbury Times," which is a remarkably cheap srxpennorth. The processi pictures (chiefly New Zealand scenery and Maori types) are excellently produced The letterpress is entirely descriptive.

F. Midlaaie, the young New Zealand oncketer, who distinguished himself m inter-provincial engagements before coming, to reside here, made 44 not out in the holiday match on Monday for Sydney District against North Sydney, at the Sydney Cricket Ground. In competition cricket he is plavmg in the Second Grade match against Manly, but on Monday's form, even though the bowling had lost its sting when he went in, he ought really to be in the first eleven. He was very effective on the cut. — Sydney "Referee." * * • The Railway Department advertise holiday excursion tickets in connection witlh the Hawke's Bay Show, at Hastings, on the 22nd and 23rd instant. The Christmas number of the Chnisrtchurch "Weekly Press" is a veritable edition de luxe. It will challenge comparison with the best of the serials either at home or abroad, and forms a handsome present to send to one's friends. It is replete with pictorial work devoted entirely to choice New Zealand scenery, and the illustration of Maori life. There are two special art pages of great merit, and some loose ■sheet pictures, one of them a choice study in colours. The letterpress,

which consists of tales and sketches, is well selected and interesting. And, the production altogether is tip-top. "Muscle make® the man" is a trite aphorism, and nowhere is the truth thereof more evidenb than at a frontrank gymnastio exhibition. The exuberant energy and vitality displayed by the members of Mr. J. W. M. Harrisons Gymnasium, in the extensive preparations for their annual carnival, which takes place at the Opera House to-night (Friday), are the best recommendations tte institution can have. The programme of the carnival includes apparatus work of all kinds, fairy-light-ed figure marching, Sandow exercises, electric lighted club swinging and an excellent display of humorous boxing.