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The Plunket Medal

(By Our Special Sporting Correspondent)

I made a faux pas myself at the outset. Coming up the stairs with a friend from the country, I thought I would like to show him that I, though not a Historic Character, yet moved in sufficiently exalted circles: and observing the energetic secretary of the Debating Society rushing hither and thither in a pre-occupied and official manner, I advanced up to him and proffered my ticket. He gave me not a look, even of disdain; he rushed away looking still more preoccupied and official, and in chastened mood I gave my ticket to the man at the door. This, I say, was a faux pas; But it was not half so faux as some of the pas that were hurled across the footlights later on. The Concert Chamber was crowded; the atmosphere was like some of the rhetoric, heavy; but otherwise the conditions were ideal. The audience was quiet, staid, almost drearily, dreadfully, respectable; but the consequence was that the competitors were able to get into their stride immediately, and the chairman was freed from the embarrassing necessity of back-chat and badinage with any section of the spell-bound crowd. There was a distinguished baud of judges— one politician, one lawyer, and one who combined the vices of both, namely, and to wit, the Rt. Hon. Sir Joseph Ward, P.C., Bart.; Mr. G. G. G. Watson, M.A., LL.B.; and the Hon, W. Downie Stewart, LL.B., M.P. The geniality and benevolence expressed in their looks was unbounded. Mr. P. Martin-Smith, LL.B., was in the chair, and very nice he looked, too, in the academic costume proper to his degree, an innovation which might be followed up with advantage at these public ceremonies. In a few carefully-rounded, Rosebery-like periods he adverted to the merits of the late Lord Plunket, Friend of Debating Societies (commendably refraining from odious comparisons), mentioned the public men who had attained celebrity in spite of their connection with those ill-omened Gym. Saturday nights, outlined the conditions and called on the performers in turn.

Mr. H. A. Heron kicked off with a novel treatment of that scoundrel Napoleon, which moved an earnest-looking pacifist behind me to rare heights of enthusiasm. Mr. Heron was fluent, even facile; his enunciation was excellent, his pronunciation the reverse His delivery, like that of most of the speakers, was marred by the Startling dramatic tone given to the narration of the most trivial events. Also like the rest of the speakers, he stands in some danger from the deadly cliche—Death clasped in his last embrace his illustrious victim, who half a minute before had rode sublime on Fortune's wing' and descended on stricken Europe like the plague. Mr. Heron also might observe more accuracy in his references: he quoted from a poet who was subsequently identified as anonymous blank verse, badly spoken, Walt Whitman, Victor Hugo translated, and a modern vers librist: and who turns out to have been Robert G. Ingersoll orating at Napoleon's grave (that is, according to the Hon. Sec.). However, with more balance to his speeches, some refinement of production, and close attention to a pronouncing dictionary, Mr. Heron will make an excellent speaker.

Mr. A. E. Hurley followed, with one of the best speeches of the evening, on Captain Scott. He has a fine, well-controlled voice; his phrasing and sense of word-values were very good indeed, page 13 and with the exception of falling over one or two unimportant words and thus giving them a somewhat exaggerated character, his speech, on the common-sense and straightforward plane, stood by itself, and its simplicity suited its subject. Bat his strength lay far more in his elocution than in his matter; not Scott, but Oates, in Mr. Hurley's treatment, stood out as the hero, and consequently his death, which from the circumstances takes on such epic significance, took away from the steady concentration which should have centred on Scott. And why, oh! why, did Mr. Hurley conclude his peroration with Robert W. Service when he could have used the magnificent lines from "Ulysses" which are cut on the best of the Scott monuments? Nevertheless a good performance.

Mr. Baume now took the platform with a panegyric on Father Damien, and all the fire, impetuosity and dogmatism of superabundantly eloquent youth. Mr. Baume pulled out the vox humana, the tremulant, and the sob-stop in his first sentence and maintained the registration with grim persistence throughout. The great danger that he suffers from is oratorical journalism—he piled on the pity and terror, the blood and agony, the tears and physiological details, the horrors and ghastliness, to such an extent that the cumulative effect was not so much impressive as grotesque. On second thoughts, I am not sure that this was not a virtue, for Damien's work was tragically grotesque—but it was also impressive, and Mr. Baume would make far more impression with simplicity and dignity of diction than with the whirl of rhetoric in which he swept his hero to the skies. His voice, too, is not fully matured, and he should keep his falsetto well under control. Mr. Baume was one of the few speakers who used gesture; but his gesture savoured more of the Wesley - Whitefield - Dr. French E. Oliver - revivalist school than of the sweetly reasonable. Yet his speech had balance and a welcome touch of humour, and with rational pruning and restraint, Mr. Baume should get the medal some day.

Mr. Free made the singular choice of Signor Benito Mussolini for his admiration, a Napoleonic adventurer with the instincts of the yellow-pressman and the butcher and a faculty of exploiting the Italian genius for melodramatics, who at the moment of writing is evidently trying to force another war on a harassed world—Heaven only knows why. Owing to the close proximity of musical competitions and an aggressive piano, Mr. Free's speech rather assumed the aspect of a musical monologue. Mr. "Free was somewhat vague in his. statements—Benito, we were given to understand, combined and transcended the personalities of Joan of Arc, "William the Silent, Garibaldi, and Nictsche's Super Man—in fact, he could not be measured by ordinary standards: although if he fails, Ave are to remember that every statesman of the present age has failed. I got the impression that Mr. Free's modern history was, on the whole, defective. Nevertheless, when he picks on a man really worth his unbounded admiration, and imports into his naturally good voice some of the passion of his words, he also will some day make an exceedingly good speech.

Mr. Yaldwyn was unfortunately off colour, and did not speak nearly up to his usual standard. He has all the capabilities of a fine speaker—a very pleasant stage personality, good vocal production and modulation, and a welcome absence of cant in thought and expression. But on this occasion he apparently suffered from a frog in the throat, and in spite of starting off well, drifted into a page 14 matter of fact delivery which went by fits and starts and led him into strange morasses. Mr. Yaldwyn, I say it with deep sorrow, was disappointing, and Abraham Lincoln suffered accordingly.

Mr. I. S. Hjorring, a new speaker to me, then orated on Ferdinand de Lesseps, who had a very varied life as diplomatist and company-promoter. Mr. Hjorring with his first words took the stand of high tragedy and maintained it with no deviation or relief. I must confess that at the end of his speech I felt rather limp. The most commonplace incidents of the hero's life took on a cosmic importance; and while de Lesseps did push through the Suez Canal in spite of great difficulties and suffer in prison for the intrigues and waste of the Panama venture, this scarcely justifies the dramatic eloquence which endowed him with all the attributes of the (Jod head—with one or two exceptions. Mr. Hjorring's delivery, enunciation and pronunciation were excellent (except for those d's and t's), and his eloquence was astounding—the whole conspectus of Pagan and Christian mythology, both theological and secular, contributed to his effects; but i cannot help thinking that if mark had been given for congruity of style with subject, he would have crashed very heavily indeed. In spite of the remarkable number of his virtues, he reminded me irresistibly of a combination of Allan Wilkie and Stanley Warwick, I can only refer him to Hamlet, Act III, Scene II. The discerning reader will realise that in spite of all this, Mr. Hjorring displayed real oratorical talent. His gestures were unimpressive.

Mr. Davidson again spoke on Rabrindranath Tagore. Considered on its matter, this was easily the best speech of the evening. It was lucid and well-reasoned; it expressed a distinct point of view without labouring it; the polemic matter was excellent; the whole thing was far more of a thought-out interpretation of the man's character than any of the oratorical displays which provided the spice of the evening. It was, above all, sincere—it laboured no extraneous points and tore no passion to tatters. It was, in fact, a very refreshing and well-balanced speech indeed, although it did not, I think, express the whole Tagore. But Mr. Davidson lost a good deal in the mechanics of eloquence: he has not the naturally impressive endowment of voice of some of the other speakers; he never varied his tone nor changed the essentially didactic character of his delivery, and his gesticulation smacked of the soap-box, monotony of our good friend Peter Fraser.

Mr. H. I. Forde, who concluded the list, was another disappointment. He spoke on Julius Caesar, but he did not know his speech, and the effort of reading it and trying to give the impression that he wasn't quite deprived him of the chance of indulging in any of the graces. His matter was not well-chosen and he let the attention of his audience wander far too much. Mr. Forde should have done better than this.

During the judges' retirement, Mr. Byrne sang and Miss Cooley rendered a monologue for our delectation. Mr. Evans did not recite. There was conversation and boredom for a while. The judges returned. They ascended the stage. Sir Joseph advanced to the front and put over the usual general compliments. The judges had had great difficulty indeed in separating the men. There was a tense moment/ Mr. Hjorring had been placed first, Mr. Baume second, Mr. Hurley third, Mr. Davidson honourably mentioned. Cheers. The Sphinx wagged its tail and yelped for joy.

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Sir Joseph presented the medal. More cheers. John Tod McCaw ascended the platform, sat down at the piano, and hitched Up his trousers, .Mr. Downie Stewart made the shortest and quite the most enjoyable speech of the evening. G.G.G. beamed. Bobby thanked the judges. More cheers. John Tod burst into the strains of the National Anthem, and we all joined in the grand old words, with some difficulty in supporting John Tod's measured pace. The audience, well filled with the things of the spirit, dispersed in search of more carnal refreshment. I left the hall rather staggered by the worth of the great men with whom I had been, as it were, by proxy hobnobbing. They are all Historic Characters. They are all dead. Sic transit. It is a humbling thought.