DO THE PEOPLE BEHAVE ?

Marlborough Express, Volume XLII, Issue 5, 7 January 1908, Page 3

DO THE PEOPLE BEHAVE ?

-■«•>•' -- A FEW CONTRASTS

Outsido the dress circle of the Opera House the people of Wellington behave very welf. according to Police Inspector Ellison. There is less whisky-drinking than there used to be," he remarked, casting a reminiscent eye over the years. He glanced back at the days when the hotels in various parts of New Zealand were licensed to retail fermented and spiritous liquors up to midnight. Those weer roaring times when the old year was burbled down the hill of the ages with a broken bottle after it. The New Year was welcomed with hiccups. It was a period when hard drinking was deemed to be " quite respectable." On 31st December. 1907, the hotels closed at 10 p.m., but even while they were open there were no remarkable ■ excesses, so far as the police are aware. " The young fellows seem to shout at the top of their voices, sing and show off their musical talent with various instruments,';' said Mr Ellison, mentioning the most noticeable element in the reeent street scenes. These persons seem to find a safety vent for their animal'spirits in a " gazoo " or " tinwhistle. They blow off steam which might be put to worse purpose; they make a horrible noise, but perhaps the community is better off with the noise than it would be with the mischief which the steam might work in other directions.

In former times there was more horse-play in the streets in the eve of. ths New Year, and some individuals believed that a little damage to other people's property was necessary to give the old year a proper farewell. _ Gates were lifted and suspended in lamp-posts; fences 'were shaken down; footpath bridges were swept away with more completeness than any flood could ever accomplish. Many a burgess, glancing out of his front window, had all good resolutions upset, and began the New Year with violent ,language and a keen1

thirst for vengeance. Gradually the desire for destruction as a diversion has faded away, and property is held in more respect. Tjp to noon the police had received no reports of New Year vandalism or hooliganism. One difference Inspector Ellison has with some critics who moan now and again that New Zealanders are losing respect for things which their ancestors in the Old Country held sacred. This officer maintains that the people of these islands are no worse than" their contemporaries' in other lands. Visiting Britons make allegations, but they forget their own country. There . the evidences of facts or tendencies 'are not so patent, for it is a very large community. Here, with a population of under a million, everybody's business is almost everbody else's, and scarcely anything escapes notice. t "There is safety in numbers" appears to be a saying applicable to holidays, in the opinion of the police. It is an axiom that energy effervesces in man, and finds vent in various ways, from the blowing of a "kazoo" to the shattering of a plate-glass window. Holidays give an opportunity for the same. explosion of the elemental forces, and if there is a fair number the damage done by one particular detonation •• is not serious. It is when the spirits have long bee^n pent up that the trouble comes. To support this theory, Inspector Ellison referred to the holiday crowds, among which drunkenness was not a noticeable trait. '." Even at the racecourses," he concluded, "you will scarcely see any signs of drunkenness." Generally, the police say, people are as good as they were, or even better.— Post.