The Procession.

This year marked an innovation in our Capping Carnivals. For several weeks a band o enthusiasts devoted their time and energies to the preparation of such a students' procession as those which for some yours have marked Diploma Day at our sister Colleges. Weird structures began to take shape at the rear of the College, and on the day appointed, a strange and motley assembly foregathered on Cleburne Parade. Mohammed and Mephistopheles rubbed shoulders in the front of the procession, and the way being cleared by an Indian Chief and a mounted policeman, strange, indeed, was the crew that followed. The strains of the Kilties Band would have roused the blood of any loyal Scotchman (or anyone else's for that matter).and the Drum-major was the envy of all the small boys, and the admiration of all the nursemaids in the city. A group of Territorials (as they ought to be). With uniforms almost as varied as those of a volunteer battalion, preceded a stalwart group of Maoris entrenched in the State coal wagon, jumping down at intervals and dancing realistic hakas. Hard upon their prehistoric heels came a many-footed dragon, of wobbly gait. Pugilists found a Jeffries-Johnson contest in full swing, in which, however, the verbal knocks that actual fighting. A Salvation Army Biorama was recording every blow, but the operators were once compelled to defend themselves from outraged members of the real Salvation Army, who were not in the procession. The operations performed by a gang of budding surgeons upon a suffering local body presented all the most gruesome aspects of the operation theatre, and were marked by the frequency and freedom with which they were performed. The coolness and complacency of the charming nurse (her name we cannot tell) were the subject of much comment on the part of the admiring public. A bride with a magnificent Chanticleer hat of Brobinagian proportion excited the envy of the female sex. The Chief Justice (smoking !!!), Dr. Gibb, Re v. J.J. North, the Henry-Potts Mission, and a host of other notables added to the representative character of the page 34 procession. We had, however, nearly forgotten one item which excited great amount of speculation on the part of the crowd, and that was a draped figure bearing some resemblance to picture of Lot's wife we once saw in an illustrated volume of "Pilgrim's Progress. "Some considered that it was symbolical of one of our chief industries, the frozen mutton trade, but were quite wrong, for it was none other than the shade of Napoleon Bonaparte, who, deigning to forego his annual appearance on the platform at the Plunket Medal Competitions, where he has been a source of perennial amusement, mounted a ward to participating in next year's procession.

The motley array wound its way through the principal streets, stopping in the Post office Square, where a speech appropriate to the occasion was delivered by "Sir Joseph Ward" dressed in the Windsor uniform, which is so inseparable from State occasions. Altogether the new departure proved a success, and we are all looking forward to participating in next year's procession.