"ALL VERY DELIGHTFUL."

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 14314, 27 March 1912, Page 2

"ALL VERY DELIGHTFUL."

MR H- B IRVING S VERDICT ON NEW* ZEALAND.

Mr H- 8.. Irving, who returned to Sydney yesterday, speaks "In glowing terms of his experiences in New Zealand (says the "Daily Telegraph" ot Wednesday last). "It waa all very delightful," is his verdict- "The people aro fine audiences to play to, and do you know 'that 'Hamlet , was far and away the most popular play of all over there? Ttat is something ono can be proud of, is it not?.. Next after 'Hamlet' came 'The Bells.' . "They aro certainly great tbeatregoing people in New Zealand. A tact, worth noting is that prohibition docs not seem to affect the theatre-going tendencies of the people—and this, it seems to mo, is a very good ansiver to those temperance people who ■ assert that the ■thentre is a place or sin. Why, even in lnvercargill, I am told, the theatre: sinco prohibition have been better attended than before." • Invited to state what he. as a visitor though; ot the effects of prohibition, so far as accommodation for travellers was concerned, Mr Irving said he thought generally the effect was not very good In Invercargil!, however, a new hotel, to b& conducted on teetotal principles, was being erected, and it would be mtcres:iug to see how this experiment resulted. Tt puzzled him to know why the prohibition movement should have been so actively taken up, in New Zealand, which was not a drunken country. "It is not half so drunken," says Tie, "as the United Kingdom- I was also strucii very much by the fact that the Governor of Inveycftrgill prison, when I visited that institution, told mo that he considered the chief cause- of crime was not drunkenness at all, but thai the. want of parental control was or.c important factor, and the other was Idleness. In tho places in New Zealand where prohibition has not been carried, for instance, the people seemed to mo to drink very little-" \ 3fr Irving, whoso interest in criminology is well known, took the opportunity in New Zealand to acquire a great deal of information upon this subiect. and was particularly interested in the records of the famous Kaiwarra murder case, in which a man namrd Chemis was sentenced to death, had his sentence afterwaids commuted to imprisonment for life, was released at the time of the celebration or the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria, and ended by committing suicide. In his visit to tho Invercargill prison, ho found an interesting experiment proceeding in the treatment of criminals. They are there encouraged to learn trades, and one man was actually studying.to become an engineer. Visitors are allowed to converse with them, and he spoke to several, and altogether ho was very much impressed with the humanity of their treatment, as compared with that in somo English prisons.