Mr. William Farquhar Young , who is well known as a bass singer and elocutionist throughout New Zealand, is a native of Dunedin, and, from his youth, was gifted with an exceptionally fine voice. He also received a good training under Signor Seychne, an artist of great repute. Up to seventeen years of age Mr. Young's life was passed in an atmosphere of drama and opera, and he enjoyed the friendship of, and derived instruction in elocution from, such men as John L. Hall, John Musgrove, and many others, including the late Mr. William Hoskins, acknowledged the best exponent of Shakespeare who has visited New Zealand. Mr. Young's first appearance on the stage was with Mr. Hoskins in “Formosa,” and he subsequently played numerous small parts, as a lad, in opera and drama. About 1885 Mr. Young made his adult appearance as the sergeant of police in the “Pirates of Penzance”; his rendering of the part was a brilliant success, and he afterwards made most successful appearances in a succession of operas, including “Les Cloches de Corneville,” “II Barbiere de Seville,” and subsequently in almost every production of Messrs Gilbert and Sullivan's. Mr. Young has sung at classical and national concerts of all kinds throughout New Zealand, at the Melbourne Liedertafel concerts, and at various other large Australian centres, and in every instance page 222 his musical abilities have been much appreciated. He has been the guest of the Union Steamship Company in seventeen of their excursion trips to the West Coast Sounds and South Sea Islands, and his talent has invariably added greatly to the pleasure of the excursions. For over ten years Mr. Young sang in St. Paul's choir under the leadership of Mr. A. J. Towsey, now of Auckland. According to the votes taken by the “Triad,” the New Zealand musical journal, Mr. Young was voted the most popular bass singer in New Zealand. The editor of that journal, a high authority, who was recently judge at the Dunedin Competitions, published as his opinion: “Mr. Young has one of the loveliest speaking voices I have ever heard.”