THE FEATHERSTON FETE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 50, 6 January 1872, Page 8

THE FEATHERSTON FETE.

[TO THE EDITOR OP THE NEW ZEALAND MAIL.]

Sib, —In your issue of last Saturday, you give a very interesting account of the Featherston Fete, but as some portions of your report do not appear to me to be quite correct, I venture to make the following remarks: — You say “ the arrangements undertaken by the gentlemen were of the very worst description." Now, sir, with all due deference to your assertion, I must give it the most emphatic denial ; and I believe I am right in saying that there could scarcely be an affair of the kind where the arrangements could be more complete in every particular,which would have been fully proved had the committee of management been able to carry out those arrangements, which they were utterly unable to do in consequence of the exceedingly bad weather •which set in on the evening before the fete. J.n making such an assertion I think you must have arrived at a foregone conclusion, seeing that, as I have already said, scarcely any of the arrangements made by the committee were carried into effect, and therefore could only be really known to themselves. I am very much pleased with your tribute to the ladies, and am sure too much cannot be said in their praise for the manner in which they conducted their portion of the programme ; but at the same time I feel that you have utterly ignored the exertions of the gen-

tlemen in assisting the ladies to make their arrangements a success. To my own knowledge several of the committee were, for many days previous to the fete, working from four or five o’clock in the morning until dark at night in finishing the room for the evening’s amusements, the grand stand and refreshment booth—no one being more conspicuous than the worthy proprietor of the building—and grounds used for the fete; whose whole time and attention from the first meeting of the committee, until the day of the fete, was solely devoted to the necessary preparations. I could mention several others of the committee who exerted themselves to the utmost to make the affair a complete success, and I could mention others who did literally nothing, after having undertaken to do all they could, not even so much as to appear on the ground to assist those who were there! I fancy it was enough to damp the courage of the bravest committeeman to go on to the ground on the morning of the fete, aud find that the refreshment booth, with tables, seats, and every other convenience which had been erected, literally smashed to the ground ; and it was not very encouraging to see the rain descending all round the country ; and during the day several of the tarpaulins (borrowed ones, thank goodness) rent into slireds by the wind! Had you said that the weather on the occasion was of the very worst description, you would have been somewhere near the mark, and there would have been some excuse for your facetious reference to crape and long faces. —I am, &c, One oe the Committee.