WEDNESDAY EVENING CONCERT.
Thanks to the kindness of the Military Governor, Major-General Pretyman, the concert in aid of the "Widows' and Orphans' Funds," London and Bloemfontein, will be held next Wednesday evening, instead of during the afternoon. Major-General Pretyman has conceded that upon the date in question, Wednesday, 18th inst., the pass regulation will not come into force until midnight. That means that citizens may move about after 8 p.m., or until twelve o'clock, without requiring any special pass or being called upon to produce a permit.
The committee of war correspondents declare that the entertainment will require no booming. It is to be a red-letter day in the calendar of concerts given for charitable purposes in Bloemfontein, both in respect to talent upon the platform and to the celebrities who will crowd the Town Hall that evening.
Amongst those who will appear will be Miss Fraser, the Free State nightingale, who will sing original verses written by Mr. Rudyard Kipling for the occasion; Miss Leviseur, Miss Jessie Fraser, Lieut.-Colonel Townshend, C.B., Surgeon-Major Beevor, Scots Guards, Lieut. James Forrest, Captain Nugent, the celebrated vocalist; Captain Wright, R.N. (The Skipper); the Lightning Cartoonists, alias The Gemini; Mr. Preshaw, Major Jones, R.E., besides, in the language of the entrepreneurs, "a coruscation and galaxy of stars of the first magnitude too numerous to mention in the brief space afforded." It is hoped that the military band will be present, but, at any rate, that the concert will be high-class without being dull is guaranteed from the fact that Messrs. Ivan Haarburgher and King are in charge of the musical arrangements.
Tickets may be had and seats booked at Messrs. Borckenhagen and Co. Prices: 5s., reserved seats; gallery, 2s. 6d.; soldiers in uniform to gallery, 1s.
CHAPTER XXIX
Adieu to "The Friend"
We made a money profit as well as a good newspaper—but the entire experience thus quickly passed into history.
Thus ends the history of this new departure in war and in journalism. Of it Mr. Kipling wrote afterwards, "Never again will there be such a paper! Never again such a staff! Never such fine larks." It has been impossible, after all my good intentions, to tell of scores of the peculiarities of the paper, and its editors' experiences. Sometimes copies of The Friend did not look twice alike for days at a time, as we strove to make it more and more workmanlike, and more and more original and attractive.
We began, as I have said, with advertisement "ear-tabs" on either side of the heading. Then we put the Royal coat-of-arms in their places. Next we put the arms in the middle of the title space and published mottoes and notices in new "ear-tabs." At first we put double leads only between the lines of the leading article each day, but presently we dignified the cable news and Mr. Kipling's contributions in that way. We once put some editorial notices in rhyme, and set them up in black job type—when we changed the price of the paper to one penny for everybody.
We knew that our money returns were in confusion, but because we had taken over a business manager from one of the two commandeered newspapers, whom we could hardly expect to be in sympathy with us, and because we had established two prices for the paper and were being victimised by some of our customers, we could not see how the finance of our venture was likely to come out.