The Optical Magic Lantern Journal (August 1900)

96 The Optical Magic Lantern Journal and Photographic Enlarger. cues, retire with the manuscript to a desert place where no one can hear you, and repeat the whole as far as possible by the cues alone. After about the third time you will be able to go ahead without the cues even. On the platform remember two things :—Go slow—it seems awful to: wait a second or two between sentences, but it is a necessity—and never turn your back to the audience to point to things on the screen. The audience can’t hear your reflected mumbling. There is no need to shout—a high-pitched voice will reach to the corners of a large hall—but beware of dropping the voice at the ends of sentences. Practice what seems oan exaggeration of the final syllable. It will soon come natural. Lastly, just talk to the man in the last row; then you will be all right. Cinematographic Entertainments in Australia. By E. H. STEYWENSON. N account of the entertainments I had the pleasure of giving on board SM GZ the ‘‘Omrah”’ on my voyage out to DEY Australia was published in the ENN February number of the OpricaL Sp Macic Lantern Journau. I will es, now give a few details of my inJe» teresting experiences in Victoria. Suppose I write of just one series of engagements, lasting exactly a week. Well, on Good Friday I left Melbourne at five in the afternoon, at eight I reached Fallarook ; here I changed trains, and the journey along to Yea was certainly most wonderful and picturesque. The carriage was provided with a platform, so that passengers could walk out into the open air, and in the moonlight enjay the journey to the full. To the right of us for many miles was the Dividing Range of mountains, from 3,000 to 4,000 feet high. On our left was a deep ravine, at the bottom of which flowed the Gobur, a rapid river. I reached Yea at eleven, where I was met by the Vicar, the Rey. J. T. Baglin, at whose house I was to stay for some days. Here let me say that the clergy out in the Victorian colony are equal in every way to our clergy at home. The vicar of Yea— a small township nestling among the mountains —I found to be a scholarly and accomplished gentleman, and for real hard pastoral work I have never seen his equal, thinking nothing of preaching at Yea in the morning; then taking & journey of 25 miles on horseback, perhaps in the pelting rain, to preach in the afternoon ; then another long journey through a mountainous district to preach at some distant settlement at night. My first entertainment was at the Yea Shire Hall on the Saturday night. Jor hours it had been raining in torrents, and as the bulk of our audience—if we had one at all—would have to travel some miles to be present, we gave up all hopes of having an entertainment. Nevertheless a good number turned up, and £9 was taken at the door. On Sunday I took the service, and preached in the English Church. On Monday night I gave another entertainment in the Yea Shire Hall, and this time to a full house. On Tuesday we were due at a settlement called Strathe Creek. This picturesque spot is 27 miles from the nearest railway station. My lantern, Bioscope, gas, screen, etc., went on early in the day, and I should think lantern apparatus never had a more remarkable journey. The various boxes were securely roped on to a buggy, and for 27 miles they travelled up hill anddown dale, then over mountainous roads, now lost in the bush, then dragged through a swamp. The vicar and I followed in a trap specially built for travelling in this mountainous district. In due course lantern and lecturer arrived at the church on the mountain side, from which, look which way you would, not a single habitation of any kind could be seen; nothing but mountains and valleys bathed in the moonlight, as far as the eye could reach. But before long the church was packed to the doors, and I need not say that my unique audience were as attentive and interested as any I have faced in the Old Country. We arrived back at Yea at three o’clock the next morning, tired and worn out. On Tuesday I was expected at Gobur, 25 miles in quite another direction. As before, my apparatus was sent forward in one vehicle while we followed in another. The journey was a charming one, through valleys, dales, and mountain passes all the way, with mountains rising on either side of us covered with bush, scrub, and forest trees to the very summit. There were only four houses witkin sight of the hall at Gobur, and the majority of people came from stations and sheep farms on the distant mountain sides, and many from over the ranges. We stayed at Gobur over-night, being most kindly entertained by a deaf but sweet old lady at a sheep station. On Thursday I gave my fifth entertainment at Spring Creek. We hada charming journey