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and younger members had been attaining greater efficiency, and Mr. Elliott was not now the leader. — The original motion was ultimately carried to have an evening band only and for the Hastings Band to be engaged. The members of the said band voted and thus made up the majority. The band appeared on the parade in the following week with a new leader, and was generally judged to have improved. At the same time the following letter appeared in the Hastings News: —
- “Sir, — On the grounds of public justice, we the undersigned, feel it incumbent on us to make a few remarks on the recent self-engagement of a portion of the Hastings old Band, in which their display of selfishness and bad taste was so ably and so justly exposed in your last week’s leading article. As you are aware, and as their late leader honestly testified, they have been lying comparatively idle for two or three years last past, and have suffered in efficiency thereby. In other words, they have been partially disbanded, and, in a musical sense, out of practice. But whilst they have been declining, another band has been progressing, and attained to a considerable amount of efficiency; and, but for the bribing of one of its members by the principal or principals of the Hastings old Band, would have been at the present time in a position to have offered its services for the parade. We are members of that band, and therefore regret the circumstance, in as much as from the fact of our having made no application at the public meeting, many persons will, doubtless, infer that the Elphick-Meadows Band is the only one of local origin that could be brought into competition with the Germans. Now, the German band, as everybody knows, is a good band, and we the Brass Band at present dare not assert our equality with them; but when we find parties employing those strategic energies — for which we know they have an aptitude — in getting themselves elected to a post which both their previous and subsequent performances prove them to be unequal to, we do not hesitate to avow that although (prudently we hope) unwilling to compete with the Germans, we have, nevertheless, brass enough, to compete with their would-be-thought superiors. It may seem strange that at the meeting to which we have alluded, our bare existence should scantly have been recognised; but when it is remembered that meeting was comprised chiefly of Germans, on the one hand, and the members, as well as the partizans of the Hastings Band on the other, it no longer becomes a matter of wonder. Add to this that our pains-taking managing member, Mr. T. B. Brett, was ill, and knew nothing about the meeting, or, we do not doubt our claims would have been honestly represented. We only regret that one member of our band should so far lose sight of the propriety of conduct as to listen to the bland persuasions of Messrs. Elphick and Co., when he knew so well that everything had been done by them to annihilate that band of which he was a member. We trust that he has seen his error, and that -
