NEW YEAR'S NIGHT AT CAMBRIDGE.
If any indication were wanting of the change which has come over Cambridge within the past few years, it is the manner in which the public of tiiat rising town celebrated the death of the old and the birth of the new year. Contrary to the custom held sacred for many years past of combining as much harmony, noise, and nuisance as it is possible for a population of some few hundred people to make, some preconcerted idea got abroad that everybody was, by way of a change, to celebrate the advent of 188(5 in bpd. With this laudable object the people retired to sloop shortly after 10 o'clock, and from thi=» hoiir till daylight, the town was, with 0:10 exception, all but deserted. The story g't about that there were a 1 irgo niuuiur <>t t iiirNt-i •at the hotels, and it was thought discreet th<»t the townspeople should, in the eyes of the Grangers, endeavour, as far as possible, to sustain their established reputation for taking a common scn«e view of evei ything, and for a quiet disposition in geneial. A midnight service was announced at S. Priul'h Wesleyan Church, bute\en thi*, the eloquence of the Rev. H. *R. Dewsbury notwithstanding, could not induce more than about a dozen people to go out into the night. Hitherto the bells of S. Andrew's have pealed forth then welcome to the new year, but on this occasion they hunjjf silently in the tower, undisturbed in their solitude. At one timo Cambridge possessed a 'baud which, as the clock pealed out the twelfth hour, was wont to enliven the town with the well-known " Auld Luig Syne," but even this we must reckon among- 1 the features of an hre>ocab!e past. Tins disappointment of the local public can easily be guessed when, after all these sacrifices on their part to raise themselves in the estimation of the tourists who wore passing I the night in their nrid->t, those latter, faithful to the custom of the pa-.t, and wit'; a sort of contempt for the unseemly dullness of the town, issued forth, well armed, by way of greeting the new year on their own account. One of the number squeezed out sundry melodies from the recess of an accordion, another supplied triangle accompaniment on a pair of toug-,, another varied the harmony with a dinner bell, whilst an elderly gentleman with a somewhat clerical appearance filled the bass with a kerosene tin. The combination was one of the mo<»t delightful of iti kind we have ever henrd, and in the nutter of smil-stimup p.ilhos far eclipsed anything which the Salvation Army has ever produced. Having done full justice to the occasion they retired to their respective hotels with the nir of men who in the face of adverse circumstances had clme their duty to society.
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Waikato Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2105, 5 January 1886, Page 2
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477NEW YEAR'S NIGHT AT CAMBRIDGE. Waikato Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2105, 5 January 1886, Page 2
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