The Newtown bee., 1907-08-09

if not quite soshowy as the work on the strings .s the strains uf the famil- jar SUns "~ss- caught iT the compost t1on here and there, thJse in the seats were taken back in memory to the long ago, to
 The wide-spreading pond and the mill that stood by it,
 The bridge and the rock where the cataract fell,
 The cot of my father, the dairy house
 nigh it,
 And cen the old bucket which hur g in the we'll.
 | Miss DOrette l.. Gordon has come to Newtown to take her summer rest fresh from musical honors received in examinations at the. University of To: onto, Canada. She was heard to good advantage in a difficult piano part, 'Tarentell" a work of Heller. The instrumentation was excellent and the audience could only be satisfied with an encore. The young lady too, was rewarded with large bouquet, which was passed up to her. Some of the other debutantes were also presented with bouquets. Miss Helen J. Tenders during the school year of 19067 became household word in many Newtown homes. Great regret was expressed when it became known in June that her plans made it impossible for her to return to work here. 1t goes with out saying that everybody was glad to see and hear her when she stepped for ward to give the recitation, "The Wandering MinStrel.' Miss Tenders modestly disclaims any right to pose as an artist in the line of elocution and yet the naive, spirited way in which she does this work shows that the ability to please and entertain may be wholly apart from the tricks of the school. The older pupils might well be expected to excel when they played in opjunctiOn and so they did when they rendered "The Charge of the Hussars" as piano trio and violin duet. Mrs James w. Gordon and Har- old Botsford took the violin parts and Miss Dorette l.. Gordon, Miss Anna Houlihan and Miss Mabel l.. Taylor sat at the piano. Up to this time Mrs Gordon had held herself in waiting, and yet her force and direction had been in evidence in each number. Now it was her turn to show what she could do. Although every number of the programme had been good when she assumed the leading role, it was easily patent that the skill in the handling of the violin had risen to higher degree and the masters touch was there. Her selection, "IIuit Baga- tellen'' was enjoyed and brought out the encore, an old favoIite of hers and of all who have heard it, "The Blttle of Gettysburg. This composition, which weaves in the martial notes of camp and field as the shuttle weaves the interlacing threads of some fine tapestry, fttingly closed an evening, which as one lady pronounced it. was ''as pleasant an evening as NewtGwn has had in many a day" As the stir ring notes of war died away, at a sig nal from the chairman all rose to sing the immortal words penned by the man whom Fate thought to conceal by naming him Smith, My Country 'TiS.of The.
 A little out of the beaten track of a strictly musical programme was the truly Imaginable sketch in which two of Newtown's bright college girls, Miss Eleanore Nor throp and Miss Lo- retta Houlihan, impersonated "Piff' and ''Puff' in logomachy battle of nothing more dangerous than filings at each other with saucy words. This gave good occasion to introduce some pointed hits at some of Newtown's noted celebrities. that the shafts went, most of them, straight to their mark was manifest by the laughter which rippled and rolled through the hall from end to end. There are more discoveries than those in history which tell of Columbus voyage in his caravels; and it was pleasant to all of her friends to discover that Miss Loretta .Houlihan has real gift in song No doubt was left in any one's mind, least of all in Miss Loretta s, that her hearers wanted more after she had sung "Gavotte in Grey" and so she responded with a grooming lul- laby that had the flavor of sandy stretches and log cabins in the South land far away.
 w hile soaring to ecstatic heights on the wings of song, we always carry with us some weight which reminds us still we are of the earth, earthly; so | it was by no means to be despised that the receipts, which came as the result of Mrs Gordon's long and pains taking efforts were generous beyond her ex- pectaJion.
 David Christie Murray, journalist traveller novelist and playwright, who lectured in Newtown 13 years ago un- der the auspices of Prof P. B. Cliff and Arthur J. Smith, has just died in Lon don in his 61st year, having been born in English Staffordshire April 13, 1S47. l Murray was a reporter in Birmingham ] .l l,;x