Expo hits half-million visits

The attendance at the Exhibition yesterday brought the total number of visitors to date to more than 500,000.

The circumstance is one upon which the authorities may justifiably congratulate themselves. It is an evidence of success already attained in unexpectedly high measure and it holds out the promise of a result far beyond the most sanguine expectations of everyone concerned in the enterprise. The belief that was commonly expressed before the Exhibition was opened was that if fine weather were experienced in its early weeks the fillip that would be given to it would carry it on to the success which was hoped for it. As it has happened, the weather has been more or less unkind since the first few days after the opening ceremony. Yet it has not deterred the public of Dunedin, from which the patronage of the undertaking has so far been mainly derived, from crowding to Logan Park in numbers that could only have been attracted by a display of an exceptional character and a variety of entertainment of a peculiarly inviting kind.

The holiday season lies ahead of us, and the influx of visitors from north and south is only beginning. It is permissible to believe, therefore, that the attendance at the Exhibition will increase steadily day-by-day during the next few weeks and that the second half-million of attendance will be registered more rapidly than the first half-million. The Exhibition has already advertised itself as the finest enterprise of the kind that has been presented in the dominions and, as fresh features of interest are being added to it from week-to-week, there seems to be every reason to believe that the attendance will be satisfactorily maintained throughout the entire duration of it.

— editorial

Wooden prose

We have been shown a most interesting specimen of the cabinet-maker’s art in the form of a book of octavo size cut from a piece of heart of kowhai by Mr James Knox, of this city. The tree from which the wood was taken grew on the property of Mr D. McQuilkan, Whare Flat, and was cut down about 16 years ago. It was a very large specimen of kowhai, with a diameter of 4 feet 6 inches. The grain of the wood is very pretty, and the imitation book is highly polished with a painted representation of the kowhai leaves and flowers on the front. 

— ODT, 23.12.1925 (Compiled by Peter Dowden)