DAVID LOW MAKES HIS BOW!

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 394, 30 June 1928, Page 24

DAVID LOW MAKES HIS BOW!

A 1910 Venture In Magazine Production ... First Issue Which Proveed To Be Last (Written for THE SUN) A copy of the solitary issue of “The Mirror Magazinewhich was born in November, 1910, and, died in November, 19X0, has come into the possession of THE SUN. It is interesting for several reasons, the chief being that it contains some of the earliest work of David Low, the New Zealand cartoonist , who is now drawing a salary larger than that of the Prime Minister of England. TYBCORATED with a crowing, lusty infant, in flesh tints, "The Mirror,” a venture in New Zealand magazines, made its appearance in 1910, the birth being the result of the enthusiasm of the now-famous David Low and a band of lesser-known artists and journalists. But the babe, which bore promise of a prosperous and intellectual manhood, was crushed by poverty. Its parents could not raise the money for its food, let alone a liberal education, and so it. made one smiling bow to New Zealand and faded away. “The Mirror” was smashed to smithereens before it could follow up its “preliminary” shimmer with the brilliant reflection of what was to be the “Christmas number” of 1910. Rather tragic reading is the foreword which begins “ours is a young nation and though the hot blood of nationhood is coursing through our veins, we have not yet attained the honour of a magazine to represent the taste of our readers and the art of our literary geniuses. That we have the latter no one can gainsay. "To mention suchc household names as H. B. Marriott-Walson, C. A. Jeffreys, G. B. Lancaster, Arthur Adams and poor dead and gone Bracken . . . is barely necessary. . . “We intend that ‘The Mirror’ shall move forward with the times, and that ‘Vorwart,’ the motto of General Blucher, shall be also our motto.” Alas for “The Mirror’s” Waterloo! Ninety pages of well-illustrated well-

printed, well-written reading, sandwiched between healthy piles of advertisement, were contained in that one and only issue, with David Low’s cover design. One of the first pitfalls the enthusiasts fell into was the publishing of a

galaxy of beauties in the front pages without permission. A serial was necessary, of course, and Mr. John Patrick, of Christchurch, now a playwright, supplied “The Silent Six,” the first chapter having the intriguing title “The Lady in Black.” David Low made the drawings, vivid if slightly rugged pictures of a gentleman who finds himself “looking into the muzzle of a revolver.” And of the same gentleman inquiring of the chauffeur of an up-to-the-moment (1910) motor-car. “Is that Princess Margaret’s carriage?” Low has done most of the illustrating, but there is some remarkably good line work by L. H. Booth, of the Canterbury School of Art. Among the writers is Mr. J. J. W.

Pollard, now editor of the “Southland Times,” who describes the theatre world, in which his father was so wellknown. “The Mirror” was out to please everyone. It had an expert to give his opinion on “nasal grub in sheep” and it published the “latest Parisian fashions,” of ladies with marvellous waists and flower-garden hats. —I.D.C.