It is a well known custom of the cognuscenti of this Model Settlement of outs to characterise every entertainment which has enjoyed a fair measure of success, ut "the best thing we have ever seen in Shanghai," and to our great we heard this remark applied to Friday night's entertain. tment; and in good sooth with reason, The programme was short, every item was enjoyable, and the result was that one went home at a reasonably early hour, feeling that a very jolly" evening had been spent. We need not refer to the comforts, ethereal and material, provided for the members and their guests, as the hospitality of the Suciety is so well known that it requires no further comment at our bunds than our thanks for the way in which the celestial myrmidons under. the direction of their terrestrial Achilles ministered to our wants, We were quite, quite contented and felt that for the moment earth held no woes for us. With the accustomed commendable " punctuality the new President of the Society, Mr. Bredon, ascended his dais, was received with around of welcoming applause, clanged his monitorial bell, announced the first item of the programme, and, to quote the words of a somewhat well known song,—swe were in it, fairly in it." Messrs, Vinay and Bowring' opened the concert with Mendelssohn's Scotch Symphony arranged for four-hands on the pianoforte, and when we take into account the difficulties with which this piece abounds, we cannot but say that their rendering of it was excellent. To the President's address, which followed the first number, we shall refer later. Mr. Jones sang a song by W. Smallwood, of Pianoforte Tutor fame, entitled "Lead them straight", in which he informed us that "no one should rail at England." We sincerely hope they will not—but we also hope that we may have an opportunity, at no very distant date, of hearing Mr.' Jones something really good. He certainly showed great powers of vocalisation and voice, but we always feel a certain sadness when we hear really good amateurs wasting their time on songs of this order. Now of all vocal concerted music, to our minds, 8 male voice quartet isthe most pleasing, and certainly the rendering by Messrs, Fleet, Franks, Lanning, and Gratton of Mendelssobn''s *Turkish Drinking Song" was very creditable, and the more so from the very catchy time, and constant recurrence of fugue in the piece, if such a term maj be applied to a quartet. Their, well deserved encore was "Two Roses." In the next comer, Mr. J. Whittall, we found one of those candles from whom the bushel should have been lifted long ago. He has a fine baritone voice of perhaps not immense power, but still of such pleasing quality and evident education, that it was with much satisfaction that we joined in the vociferous demand for a repetition of M. V. White's lovely Absent yet present", to which Mr. Whittall kindly responded by singing the last verso. In the second Pinsuti's Queen of the Earth with excellent rt of the programme Mr. Whittall gave
effect, and sang as an encore the ever popular Yoeman's Wedding Song. The next number was a comic song in which Mr. Wedemeyer gave his opinion as to the efficacy of a Conuering Concertina, and in response to the wish of the audience for another effort, sang I'm tired of the moor, my love and myself, the former song being by Saloon, and the latter by Grossmith. Tu the second part this performer gave, in nigger costume, a sung and dance entitled
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.