THE INDUSTRIAL EXHIBITION.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume I, Issue 31, 4 January 1884, Page 3

THE INDUSTRIAL EXHIBITION.

(Press.) Textile Fabrics, Continuing our special notice of the exhibits now on view in the Exhibition under the auspices of the Industrial Association, we come next to those exhibited by THE MOSGIEL FACTORY. The Mosgiel Factory is about ten miles from Dunedin, and has been started about twelve years. The exhibits of the products of the Factory at our Exhibition are shown by the proprietors of the New Zealand Factory, Hallenstein Bros. The old factory is entirely a thing of the past, the whole of the buildings and machinsry having been replaced by new brick buildings and the latest improvements in machinery. During the past twelve months something like £12,000 worth of machinery has been added. The number employed in the Mosgiel Factory is at present 200 females and 150 males, or a total of 350 persons employed. The factory possesses thirty-two carding engines, five thousand spindles, and seventy looms. The yearly production of the factory amounts to some 10,000 pieces. The plant is acknowledged to be unequalled for capability and completeness. It may be noted that the old wooden buildings have been written off, and the only charge on building account is new building, to which reference has been made. The care taken to prevent accident by fire is shown by the fact that the mill is the lowest insured of any in the colonies. The Mosgiel exhibits comprise tweeds in great variety of patterns, hosiery of all kinds, shawls, plaids, mauds, blankets, flannels. In the tweeds a speciality may ibe noted of treble milled tweeds, specially manufactured for hard wear. There are three patterns of these exhibited, and those best able to give an opinion state that these are equal to the far-famed Bliss’ treble milled. The trouserings and vestings exhibited range from the light summer shades to the darker shades. Several patterns of ladies’ dress tweeds in all the fashionable checks are exhibited. In suitings about 36 varieties of shades and patterns are exhibited. In shawls the Factory has a great variety of exhibits in in thistle and rose patterns. The travelling plaids also are very good, and here also the national emblem is reproduced in great variety. Of course it is unnecessary to say that the various tartans are shown in shawls, enabling patriotic Scotch lasses to wear the tartan of any clan to which they may be attached. Travelling rugs of all kinds are exhibited, for which orders from abroad are continually being received. The hosiery exhibits, wdich are of excellent quality, com- • prise socks, shirts, stockings of all kinds. The hosiery of the factory is a speciality, and has achieved quite a reputation throughout the colony. The lines of children’s hose exhibited are exceedingly good, the imported article, especially in the heavy Alloa stockings, having been completely driven out of the market. The factory exhibits a very fine article in the shape of blue serge, double width, which attracts considerable attention. White, scarlet, and navy blue flannels are also sent together with blankets. The Mosgiel Company, it may be stated, in addition to their own factory, have become the lessees of Kaikorai Mill, which was started especially for the manufacture of flannels and blankets.

THE NEW ZEALAND CLOTHING FACTORY. From the fact that the enterprise ■of the proprietors of the New Zealand Clothing Factory has led them to extend their operations throughout the colony their names are as familiar as household words. The factory, which is the pioneer clothing factory of this colony, successfully carrying out the business, was started by Messrs. Hallenstein Bros, about ten years ago. The Company started with but one establishment in Dunedin, and wholesale only. After a time, however, they determined to supply their goods direct to the public. With this view the Christchurch branch was added to the business some eight years ago, and since then twenty-three other branches have been opened in all parts of the colony. Mr. B. Hallenstein has just returned from the West Coast, where branches have been opened at Hokitika, Greymouth, and Reefton, so that there is scarcely a portion of the colony from the Bluff to the North Cape, where the Company has not set up its standard. A great point in connection with this extension of the business may be noted, viz., that the youths who join the firm are promoted to the management of the branches, thus affording a field for the employment of the colonial youth. The head-quarters of the Company are at Dunedin, comprising a factory and a warehouse, in addition to the retail establishment. From this factory and warehouse the supplies of goods are drawn for the various branches. The factory and warehouse, which has recently been erected, is one of the largest in the colonies of its kind. It is four storeys high, each flat being 200 ft. long, and 60ft in width. The number of persons employed in the factory amounts to 400. In addition to these work is given out to about 200 others, thus making a total of 600 work-people employed at the head factory alone, not taking into acoount the number of employes in the various branches and the warehouse. These facts will give some idea of the magnitude which this industry has attained in a short time. Having gfven a brief sketch of the rise and progress of the Company, reference may be made to the exhibits. One of the specialities of the Company is juvenile clothing. A number of wax figures are exhibited, enabling he visitors to judge of the cut and tit of the arious articles. There is also exhibited suits lade from New Zealand tweeds, Mosgiel preominating. Cricketing trousers are shown lade from Mosgiel cricketing flannel. The Company, it may be mentioned, are also he contractors for the supply of railway uniforms throughout the Colony, vhich are ail made from New Zealand sloths. The Union Steamship Company, tvhich imports all the cloth required for their ifficers’ uniforms, might with advantage folow the example set them by the Government, ind thus help to encourage local manufactures. The whole exhibit of the Company ioes them very great credit, and it may be mentioned that all the articles exhibited are taken from stock, not made specially for exhibition only. This enables the public to judge of the progress made in the industry from the goods.

A CLERGYMAN’S DEFENCE ON THE STAGE. The Rev. Dr. John McKay, an eminent Scotch divine, recently delivered an eloquent sermon in the Argyle-palace Presbyterian Church, Edinburgh, on Theatres and Theatre Going. He said that he regarded the dramatic as one of the highest forms, if not the very highest form, of literary art, and the drama as an educative force, for whose purity he Was oil the more deeply anxious, simply because he recognised in it that power and influence. The purity or morality of the stage made itself felt very speedily, either elevating the morals or so reducing their strength that the land lay prostrate before the merely sensuous or sensual. They could have no Vetter illustration of this than was found in the reign of the second Charles. Having briefly indicated the tendency of the drama of that period, Dr. Kay proceeded to speak of the excellence of Shakespeare, and remarked that the instruction of the Bible and the instruction of Shakespeare were two different things. True, there were passages by the score in the works of this greatest of men that he should not select for reading to his family as they sat around the fireside; but he has been driven to avoid selection from the sacred page from the very same circumstance. The most judicious advocate of the high art. of dramatic representation would candidly ramit that to a certain extent in the present day there were many things whiwi raquireu rexormarion—nay, which must be reformed before a Christian man could give his unqualified support to the drama. It was not only fair to the noble profession of which he spoke to sound a note of warning; but to insist upon it that they should strenuously endeavour to repress the a buses which had for a long series of years gathered around the purlieus of the stage. If the stage were to be tile temple it was called, keep it pure, and have done for ever with the inconsistency of presenting, more or less upon the stage, something to tempt the masher of the nineteenth century to muddle with drink some remnant of the wit that might be in him. Let them raise the theatre to the position inwhich God meant it to be—a means, not of amusement, but of instruction. The theatre did not exist for the purpose of displaying gracefullymoulded limbs, or of studying the nude at the charge of so many shillings a head. He had the honor of knowing one who sometimes appeared before Edinburgh audiences, as an actor of no mean note, and who, under a deep religious conviction, left the stage for the painter’s studio, in order that he might avoid the temptations of an actor’s life—poor, honest, noble, and good Montagu Stanley. He threw away his opportunity |of redeeming the stage from the obloquy under which it suffered, His (Dr. Kay’s) position might seem somewhat paraloxical when he mentioned that he had never been within the walls of a theatre to look upon or listen to a play. He had preached the gospel upon the stage of a theatre, and enjoyed doing so very much indeed, n once occurred to him to have craved permission to open the Lyceum by preaching a sermon from its stage. He had never, however, seen a play acted, neither here nor in London. Very naturally they were surprised at this, and he felt it would demand an explanation. Men were not always at liberty to do as they pleased in this country. He found St. Paul declaring that all things were lawful for him, but all things were not expedient; and he (Dr. Kay) did not consider that his presence in a theatre would have been expedient. Although admiring the drama, it was not for him, so far as public representations went, a necessity, either of mental or spiritual being, and in these circumstances he had no hesitation in denying himself what would be to him a pleasure of no ordinary kind that he might by any means save some. He had no doubt he would personally have been the gainer had it been possible for him to listen to a gentleman who had during the past week honored the city with his presence—a gentleman bearing the name of a splendid orator. His (Dr. Kay’s) own profession, he held had been vastly indebted to what constituted the actor’s art, the manner of vocally presenting the truth, which w'ould win and draw souls to Him who was the life and light of man. Speaking of the unwise advocacy of the friends of the stage as, in his view, injurious to it, he said he had always maintained that wholesome denunciations of the stage had had the effect of withdrawing real blemishes that injured its beauty and crippled its influence. The Church, and especially the clergy, had been denounced as opponents of the stage, while Christianity was branded as the religion of sorrow. He deprecated such criticism and declared that the publi c teacher was far from right who, yielding to claimant , religiosity, turned away from innocent amusement. To speak of tcotlanu and the Scotch as having had “ a very melancholy religious history,” and to endeavor thereby to explain the aversion of Scottish people to theatres seemed, to him, very much like a man trying to view a landscape from between his legs. Not for all the theatres in the world would he condescend to dishonor by such an expressiou the graves of the honored dead. That man was greatly mistaken who, supposed that Scottish Christian men and women were averse to recreation.