LOCAL GOSSIP.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10347, 23 January 1897, Page 1 (Supplement)

LOCAL GOSSIP.

i'l*t me have audience for a word or two." — Shakespirt. jj has sometimes occurred to me that a few useful reflections might be indulged in touching the audiences at the theatre. I would not for a moment trench upon the awful province of the theatrical critic, by presuming to give an opinion upon the merits or demerits of the actors or actresses. But to my mind, philosophising being my strong point—or weak point, if my readers frill have it so—there is sometimes as much to be seen in the auditorium as on the stage. The theatre i≤ to my eye one of the most pleasing sights to be found anywhere. I mean when there is a good attendance. There you eee a number of wel!-dre3sed people, looking a3 if they were all in a position to enjoy life. Very rarely indeed do you see a man who is in liquor, an d seldom is there any disturbance or want of harmony amongst the audience. UJbey are all animated by a common anticipation of being gratified and pleased with the spectacle. This subject might be treated historically, and wo might deal with great audiences from the time when the people of Athene assembled to witness "Prometheus," to an Auckland audience gathered to see "The Second Mrs. Tanqueray." The Grecian audiences had at least one advantage, that they enjoyed their plays in fresh air and in a cooler atmosphere than we had at the closing performance of the Potter-Bellew company on Monday last.

The first remark I would make about the audience is that the vase majority were women. When the doors were opened there was a rush into the stalls, and several seats were at once filled entirely with ladies. Now, the complaint is an old one that women mostly fill our churches. It is said that the Rev. Sydney Smith once preached a sermon on tlietexb, " Oil, that men would praieo the Lord!" laying special emphasis on the word I have put in italics. If that is true the complaint 13 of old standing. I fancy that even the reverend fathers of the middle ages found it easier to deal with the women than the men. Of late years the desertion bf the churches by the male sex has become almost scandalous. One satirist goes so far as to utter the very shocking assertion that devotion and church-going are "uterine affections." But hero we are now, and we are bound to confess thab our theatres are becoming wor.se than our churches. I was at one of our largest city churches the other Sunday, and without professing to have the genius of the Calculating Boy, I make a confident estimate that there was a larger proportion ot the male sex there than at the Opera House last Monday night. This estimate is, of course, proportional, as the one place was thinly attended, while the other was crowded.

We have all arrived pretty conclusively at the reasons which keep men out of the churches, bub what i>ll earth can keep them out of the theatres? It is supposed that they have the most money, yet they don't come. In some cases, no doubt, the husband stayed at home and kept the baby to let his wife go to the theatre. But is my sex losing interesb in life, and becoming worn out and exhausted? Are women going to be the leading sex, and we only to shine by reflected lustre? Is this the fin de siecle decadence coining upon the sex ? For some considerable time past there has been steady complaint that hostesses cannot obtain gentlemen enough at an evening party to get up a dance. And now, in a crowded theatre, more than three-fourtha of the audience in the circle and stalls are women. Women had better have a care in exercising their rights, or they will crush us too completely. It would appear that men have been compellod to yield up to them what has been considered, man's dearest privilege—the lateh-key.

And perhaps inosb wonderful was this, that we had on the stage one of the world's famous beautiful women—Mrs. Brown-Potter—a professional beauty about whom people have been talking for years. To judgo by the remarks one has been hearing in town, the whole male sex of Auckland would have been running night after night to worship her as a vision of loveliness. Even this failed to draw the men. Moat dreadful of all will it be if men are losing their susceptibility to female charms. On the other hand, can we think that the women were attracted in any measure by the correct features and shapely limbs of Kyrleßellew?

When I considered that the play was Bulwer-Lytton's "Lady of Lyons," and saw so large a mass of feminine humanity around me, I concluded that there would be a plentiful display of emotion at the many tearful situations developed. I have seen a crowded theatre much moved at thi3 play, where the audience contained a large proportion of men. But on this occasion the sorrows and the sobbings of Pauline, the patho3 and the weeping of Claude, elicited no display of emotion. For my own part, I cannot rave over the loveliness of Mrs, Brown-Potter, and I have seon better actresses. But still the whole play was well done. But the audience seemed to take things very coolly, and were inclined to laugh when they should have cried. Pauline declaims a good deal about the duties of a wife, how she should submit to a husband, and how a wife is "the temple of her husband's honour," and so on, in the somewhat bombastic style of Buhver-Lytton, but at all these grandiloquent sentences the audience were inclined to snigger and sneer. Is this also a sign of the timee 1

Buhver-Lytton, although a man of last generation, is, I fear, a good deal more antiquated and out of sympathy with the spirit of the age than Shakespere. Claude Melnotte's description of the Lake of Como used to be in every reading and recitation book, and now it is deader than even "My Name is Nerval." When the other night Claude came to the climax of his enamoured J adta to Pauline, b> telling her that they would Bib and look at the heavens, and think . '{.-, What star shall be our home whan love becomes immortal? .. , the girls in the audience seemed inclined to lauoh, and some of them did laugh, Alas! alas! has sentiment) passed out of love-making ?

A few days ago, the Hbkald published a narrative which has several points of interest. Some time ago, a pair of homing pigeons were sent from Victoria by a friend to the Premier. One day the pair were out flying, but only one returned to the cot. Nothing more was heard of it till the announcement) was made that the musing . bird had turned up at its former home in Victoria. These facts are stated on the authority of Mr. Seddon himself. When I fead them, I felt some misgivings, and thought that I would like to consult on the subject Mr. Frieker, or some other of our local fanciers, or "experts," to uso the fashionable word. Bub then I reflected upon the encyclopedic character of the Premier, and concluded that he must know all about pigeons, and that he always sticks to absolute facts. But I see that the statement is widely questioned, which ehows that the days when Mr. Seddon was considered infallible are ac an end. But at all events I can safely notice what an appropriate present these innocenb creatures were to our Premier. They were typical of him in every way, of his soft and gentle character and'speech, of his attachment to home, and of his eminence in all domestic virtues. I have a theory that people in these days read too much, and that ab least threefourths of the books, especially *e novels, that issue from the press should, be at once burned. This habit of starting one story as soon as another has finished is -debilitating to the mind and is bad for the body. Ib may be objected that) to • carry out my proposal would deprive a ■ number of persons of a livelihood, whose businoss it is to write stories. W ell, as ■nine-tenths of-our fiction is written by women, I am clearly of opinion that they .would be better employed in knitting ;•■ •■■ ■ , . ■ - . ■

stockings or darning them, unless these occupations have entirely gone out of existence. lam glad to see that) my opinion is shared in to some extent by so prolific and distinguished a writer as Dr. Conan Doyle, who in proposing the toast of literature at a banquet lately said: "It might be no bad thing for a man now and again to make a literary retreat, as pioua men make a spiritual one; to forewear absolutely for a month in the year all ephemeral literature, and to bring an untarnished mind to the reading of the classics of our language. (Cheers.) It was hi 3 fate—if for an instant lie mighb descend to autobiography—to make such a retreat under compulsion. For seven months he was shut up where he could neither read papers nor see any new books. The statement sounded suspicious (laughter),andto preventpainful misconceptions he hastened to add that he was (hiring those months on board a whale-ship in the Greenland ocean. (Laughter and cheers.) They had a few books with them—a very few — bub among them were Boswell's Johnson and Macaulay'sessays and Goethe's plays, This i 3 the opinion of a professional maker of books. It must always be understood, however, that I except the newspapers. They are a necessity of life,

A good deal was said last session about political lying, and how far a politician may be allowed to go beyond what is considered the lino to be observed by ordinary men. An M.H.K., who had been talking over the subject with hid wile, laid down the rules, in confidence, which governed him, as follows — I tell the truth while I am able; Still, I confess to many a fable. But who, with office close in view, Would lose it for a lie or two ? Nay, do not curl your pretty lip, hies are the life of statesmanship. When I'm in trouble, I deny The facts, and say "It's all a lie," If half my speeches were but true, If what I swear that I would do, I always stuck to, through and through, The party's prospects would be blue, No! in strict confidence, believe, For once I swear I'll not deceiveWhen once the masses can descry The difference 'twixt truth and lie, Wisdom and folly, black mid white, Better and worse, and wrong anil right J Then only, then, can Heaven decree That I an holiest man shall be. Anil now, to make my meaning clear, A whispered word, love, in your ear: While voters innocently find My honied falsehoods to their mind; Or while they're false, and I am blind; So long I hold my place secure, And of my services they're sure; But when each learns to scorn deceit, They lose my aid, and I my se:tt.

An enterprising coster keeps a donkey stabled somewhere in the vicinity of the High-street Law Courts, Occasionally it makes night hideous by hee-hawing. The other evening it was on the job, when a resident, hearing the reverberations, ran ontsido to see what was the matter, as he could not define the origin of the noise. He asked a passer-by what all the row was about. The cynical joker said he suspected that " it was the echo of the Court!"

A settler .the 'other day had occasion to visit the building in which the Orakei Block case was being investigated. He asked a Maori in the vestibule what was going ■ on inside ? The native promptly replied " There are'* some tollows inside milking a cow.' . It scarcely dawned upon the settler at first blush that milking operations could bo going on in such a palatial blockof buildings, and helooked incredulous. The Maori reassured him, "Oh, yes; good cow, plenty more milk !"

The new wing of the Hospital Nurses' Home was opened during the past week, and some of the members of the Board put in an appearance at tlio opening, with "the giddy young things" of the- nursing staff. One member was greatly in evidence, showing that lawn tennis, like music, has charms to soothe the Savage breast. Mr, Bollard and Mr. Swales must have considerably fluttered the Volsciaua when they got on the racket. Some of the members ot" the Board who recoived invitations and wore not present, were real mad when they learned what "a good time" the "other fellows" had been privileged to enjoy with the ladies of the staff, there being neither fluff, feathers, nor frills.

The annual meeting of the Prohibition League was not without its humorous incidents. One member moved that all the ministers of the district in sympathy with the League sholild be put on the list of honorary vice-presidents. A second member suggested that the doctors should be treated in a like fashion. Whereupon a third member wanted journalists placed on the bead roll also, mid one Prohibition " ehinine light" on che press was enrolled. No one suggested that the same measure of courtesy should be shown to reporters, and it never dawned upon anybody present that thoy could ever qualify as V.P.'s of a Prohibition League. One wag in the meeting asked if the Kevs. Beatty and Lush were vice-presidents, but the President smole iv sickly smile, and said he was afraid they were nob on the list. Mkkcutio.