LOCAL GOSSIP.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 8842, 2 April 1892, Page 1 (Supplement)

LOCAL GOSSIP.

"Give me audience for a word or two." —Shakrtprrr, The question of whether or not Hamlet was triad does not trouble me much, and considering the contradictory way in which the character is developed in tho play, it does nob seem as if ''"3 problem had seriously troubled Shakespero. But, whether or not any particular man is or is not mad is exceedingly difficult to settle. I do not know any man who has made himself conspicuous respecting whom it might not be argued, that he was not now and then, when, as Hamlet puts it, the wind sat in a particular quarter, ioss or more " off." We shall soon have to decide whether Williams, or Deeming, or Swanston, is not mad. I am quite clear myself that he was insane. A man who could gush over with protestations of love, who could be quite uneasy owing to the absence of the object of his affections, and at the same time be preparing her grave, cannot have a mind constituted like that of an ordinary human being. Williams seemed to pass his time between murdering and falling in love. Ho found these very delightful sensations. My opinion is, that they are both very dangerous amusements. The only man in fact or fiction whom I can recall who married for the purpose of murdering was Bluebeard, and ho has always been considered as solely an effort of the imagination. Henry the Eighth got rid of a few inconvenient wives, but then when he married them he had no idea of sonding them to the block.

But, although I am of opinion that Williams had a mind that differed from the kind of thing possessed by the majority of men, I would on no account, absolve him from responsibility on that account. The supreme purpose of the law in dealing with men who commit crime? against their fellow?, is to relieve society from any trouble concerning them in the future. When there is a doubt about sanity, society, I contend, should have tho benefit of it, and should be relieved from the troublesome individual. There is a man now in out Lunatic Asylum who committed a murder a short time ago in a moment of furious recklessness, and who is as sane as the writer of these lines — let me use a stronger expression, and say, the reader. 1 do not see that society was bound to charge itself with that man's board and lodging till he died. All men who commit crimes are more or less mad ; all men who do a wrong action are insane. We punish for insanity ever} - day, but when a man commits a murder then he has a great chance of escaping punishment altogether, and being maintained in idleness all the days of his life.

But all this is a digression from Hamlet, Which was the topic I started with. I should be safe in saying that he had not a very well-ordered mind, and was occasionally deficient in common sense, not to mention that he manifests traits of exceeding heartlessness. I went to .--ee Mr. Benley in "Hamlet" for several reasons. In the first place, I was curious to see what readings he gave the character. It is impossible to avoid making comparisons between Bentley's rendering (not " rendition," O gentle reader ') and that of Miln, the last exponent cf the character. The objection I took to Miln was that he made Hamlet tragic in every word he said, whereas I have always thought that there are many light and even frivolous phrases put into Hamlet's mouth, for the purpose of bringing into more clear relief the truly tragic portions, and that these should be spoken in liixhc tones. For instance, when Hamlet comes in, and finds the gravedigger digging a grave and singing at the same time, he says: " Hath this fellow no f< eling of his business that he »ings at grave-making ?" This remark, and the talk which follows up to the time when Hamlet thinks on poor Yorick, as given by Ben cloy, is in a light and easy tone, while with Miln it was the depth of tragedy. Bentley 1 think to be the true way * at least, it is the way in which I will play the character if I ever take to the stage.

Next, I went to see Bentley, because many year? ago I used to go and hear his father preach. The dear old Doctor, with all his fierceness of bigotry, his Sabbatarianism, his hatred of the theatre ! I can see novr his fine Roman nose, his great big head, standing up like a tower, and bear his denunciations of the backsliding? of the time, and the falling away in godliness and in the true observance of the "Sawbath." He was a man of " wecht," was Dr. Begg, the leader of the most intolerant section of he Free Kirk, a survival of the days of the Covenanters. Times change, and we change with them. That is, the forms around us change. Probably, this actcr now on our stage thinks, a-* did his father, that he has a mission to teach the people, and is as positive and resolute about it.

I did not quite like the way in which the Women's Christian Temperance Union thanked "the editor of the New Zealand Herald for the very excellent reports he has given of our meetings," seeing that it is added, "We think that, considering we are 'only women,' we have been very handsomely treated." This looks a little like a sneer. It seems as if the first thanking was done for the purpose of bringing in this little piece of mock humility. Let women do all the good they can, and even meet together and consult about it. Women are very important personages now, and when they get votes they will be more important still. But Ido feel a little disposed to grumble when I find that women, when they associate themselves together as reformers, have such a dreadful tendency to set out on the work of reforming men, taking it apparently for granted that there is no possibility of effecting any reform amongst themselves. The first thing reforming women want to set about is to shut up all the public-houses, so that men shall not havo an opportunity of obtaining a glass of beer of an evening. Suppose men were to start in something like the same fashion, and to insist upon the shutting up of all those establishments in Queen-street which dazzle the eyes and the minds of girls and women with displays of jewellery and gay clothes. These are the temptations for the female sex. and perhaps if we could know all, the desire to possess such things is the potent causo in the fall of many women and the cause also of very much trouble to us poor men. Would it not be more natural for women to begin at home, and have a society to teach each other how to be better wives and mothers, and how to aid in the reformation of the fallen of their own sex ?

Mr. G rant's letter has been very much admired for the logical style of its argument. He says that the Board spent £94,000 last year, while all he charged for attendance at ten meetings was £27 10s. This style of argument reminds one of Warren Hastings' defence. He was arraigned for having acquired enormous wealth by plunder in India. His reply was to tell of the enormous treasures which he might have helped himself to, and say, " My God, gentlemen, when I think of what I might have done, I am amazed at my own moderation." In like manner, when Mr Grant looks at that £01,000 which last year slipped through the finders of the Board of Education, and at that paltry £'27 10s for travelling expenses to ten meetings, he is amazed at his own moderation, and that anyone should have the audacity to say anything at all about' such a trifle. As for the "Kennel up,' etc., I have heard of a candidate who, in a moment of irritation at his political opponents who were howling at him before the hustings, used the phrase, and he did not raise himself in anybody's estimation by doing no. But that a member of the Board of Education should descend to this vulgarity is quite painful. Who are our young folks to look to for an example if not to members of the Board of Education ?

Any outside reader of the New Zealand papers within the past few days must, think we are a queer people, and are somewhat loose in our domestic relations. In every town and village some woman has claimed that Deeming or Williams is her long-lost husband. Wellington has, I think, three claimants, and the newspaper reporters who have been told oft' to interview them, declare that they possess " considerable personal attractions." That perhaps may only be the innate gallantry of the average newspaper man, who is always disposed to be complimentary to tho weaker sex. Most of those women are somewhat hazy about their missing husband. They know they were married some years ago to a man whom they knew nothing about, and with whom they had only had a few weeks' acquaintance. They know, too, that after living with him for a few weeks, their husband took flight, and they have never heard from him since. They believe tho portraits of Williams published in the papers resemble the lost one, but they are not quito sure, and they do not seem to be positive if they could identify the man whom they took for better or for worse if he stood before them. Has marriage come to this in New Zealand?

The case tried recently at Otahuhu of alleged disturbance at the Salvation Army Barracks, is a very fair illustration of what may happen to a policeman in a small country township, where the angel Gabriel could not satisfy everybody. I have no intention of dealing with this particular case, but with general principles. It. is rather a novel charge to bring against a constable, that ho should have shown undue anxiety or apprehension to prevent a body of Christians from being disturbed at divine worship, and should have erred on that head, instead of letting matters slide. My experience of the Salvation Army—and I was at the very first service they belli in the colony—is that they are greatly to blame by contributory negligence for much of tho larrikinism manifested at their services. I have seen hoodlums in the Salvation Army Barracks almost helplessly drunk interrupting tho service without let or hindrance, and complaints made, "Where are the police?" Vet when the police have acted, and the law has been put in motion, to its logical issue—the punishment of the offenders—the Army, instead of sustaining the hands of the police authorities bygiving the necessary prosecuting evidence, have backed and tilled : " We don't want to press the case ; we don't want to prosecute ; they were drunk, and did not, poor fellows, know any better; we don't want their names to appear." The case falls through, the police are discredited, and then, when the next instance of larrikinism at the Barracks occurs, the old cry of " Where are the police" is again raised !

Speaking, after a twenty years' acquaintance of Constable Walker, I should say he is just the sort of man a rural Little l'edlington needs—a man who is neither to be wheedled nor bullied, but one who goes on the good old maxim, "The police know their duty, and they mean to do it.'' Even Otahuhu lias known by painful experience that there are constables and constables. Conscientious, self-reliant, resolute, Constable Walker is one of those men who know their own mind, and contrive to let other people know it also, and notwithstanding the late legal episode at Otahuhu, I should imagine will go on doing his duty to the best of his ability, instead of picking up the goose-step and marching at tho tap of the drum ecclesiastic.

The other day there was some trouble at the Hospital over the indiscretion of some members of the Hospital and Charitable Aid Board having, with those " best intentions" whish go to macadamise a wellknown road, practically meddled and muddled with the dietary scale of the patients. I have nothing to say against the largess of fancy biscuits which Mr. Lennox in the largeness of his heart was prepared royally to dispense, but will simply recount what took place under a former regime through misdirected benevolence of visitors. Among the traditions current is that it was not unusual to smuggle in a "toothful" of sarsaparilla to some thirsty patients. One patient in the last stage of consumption got surreptitiously his fancy — pork sausages ! A friend of mine visiting a patient not long for this world, asked the dying man what he could do for him, and received this startling request, "I say, 'old man,'the next time you come you might sneak in a red herring !'' It is needless to say that the red herring has not yet been procured. One of the medical staff coming to see a patient, found his pulse had increased greatly. Being at a loss to account for it, he made enquiry, and found that a screen had been put at the foot of the man's bedside to prevent a draught. Two visitors in passing along saw the screen, and the one said to the other, in tones which reached the sick man's ear, " That fellow is going to 'peg out,' don't you see that they have put the screen up; the nurses always do that when the patients come to die." It is no wordier that the poor fellow's pulse went up. One man, whose zeal was not equalled by his discretion, actually wanted carte blanche to visit the Hospital when and how he pleased, but the Board drew the line there. There are a good many things yet needing reformation in the big building on the hill, but 1 hope that the medical men will not allow members of the Board to " meddle and muddle" in matters which ought to be solely in the domain of the hon. medical staff, but will relegate them to the duty of issuing relief rations, of which they may know something, and where, to use medicM official jargon, they arc doing as well as could be expected." Mercutio.