ILLUMINATION OF THE HABBOUR.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 241, 11 February 1888, Page 4 (Supplement)

ILLUMINATION OF THE HABBOUR.

Two or three excursions for favoured visitors and officials were organised for Tuesday and Wednesday, but, practically, the Centennial rejoicings were brought to a close on Wednesday night by a grand illu mination of the harbour. This display unquestionably afforded a greater amount of pleasure to the masses of the Sydney j population than any other spectacle j or entertainment provided by the Government during the Centennial, The arrangements had been entrusted to the management of Messrs Pain, the celebrated pyrotechnists, and Mr Denton, a member of the firm, who organised and directed the display, ably upheld the high reputation of ] tho firm. Three centres wero chosen from which to launch the fiery rocket and noisy bomb into mid-heaven, namely Fort Macquarie, on the Sydney Ride, Fort Denni&on. (Pinchgut), in mid-harbour, and Admiralty House on the North Shore. For more than an hour these points were volcanic orators in 'active eruption, their lurid fires illuminating the heavens with a strange glow, from the iriidst of Tihich myriads, of brilliant coloured lights, fiery sparks, shrieking rockets, and noisy bombs shot fertile without, „a. single second's intermission into the heavens 'and fell over the harbouY m~sho>vers of beautiful varicoloured meteors. The roar of the mortars was deafoning to those who occupied places on the' fort. ' Anon, H.M.s. Nelson and other ships- of ?Dhe-.fleeb lying snugly in Farm Cove were lit up from stem to stern with , magnesium Jlighta, and then would blaze out on'Fort-Macquarie great tongues of blue i flame, which illuminated in ghastly hues the' ] sea of up-turned faces over the seething.; human mass*' which extended around the* water line, from, the walls of the fort along ' the road as far as Lady Macquarie's chair. The effect was wonderfully weird, and tho

whole affair has been pronounced unique among 'the many, pyrotechnic displays hitherto given in Sydney. Thus ended the rejoicings over the first hundred years of colonisation in Australasia. But ei'e the roar of Mr Pain's fireworks had ceased, or the last glass ( of champagne had flowed down the Ministerial throat, there were heard the rumblings of a brewing storm. All the newspapers have fiercely attacked the Centennial programme, and there axe unmistakable signs of a tremendous row when Parliament meets over tho utterly useless waste of money upon festivities participated in by a comparatively small number of people and thetotal absence of any national work that can be considered worthy of so important an event in colonial history. Mr Dibbs, a prominent member of t the Opposition, sounded tho war tocsim afc the citizens' banquet, and tho Government , will undoubtedly have a warm time of it. They have a strong defence in tho fact that to have organised anything really effective, the preparations should have been commenced by their predecessors in oftice, nevertheless it will probably be shown that, but for Sir Henry Parkes's abortivo and non&ensical scheme for the erection of a State house, something better than feasting and after-dinner speeches might have been hit upon. It is not probable, however, that Parliament will distinguish the Centennial year by j turning Sir Henry Parkos out of office. To do bo means bringing the protectionist party into power, and as they, although a growing force, are as yet in a deckled minority in New South Wales, the shortcomings of tho Ministry will be condoned, and their Centenary accounts, with the grouse and champagne thrown in, will doubtless pass safely through the fires of the Committee of Ways and Means.