SUNDAY NIGHT IN QUEENSTREET.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 10972, 28 January 1899, Page 1 (Supplement)

SUNDAY NIGHT IN QUEENSTREET.

[IIT MAIURA.J

SrxDAY night in Queen-street, and a sky dull; with heavy rain-clouds rolling slowly in from the north. The air is warm and moist, with a strange, soft feeling, and over all the widespread city there broods the deep quiet of night and the Sabbath. The factories are silent, tho shops are closed, and from the great chimneys issues no smoke. The churches and chapels have just been emptied of their worshippers, mid a threat of rain should frighten promenaders. Hut through one artery of the city human life pulses strongly; from the end of the wharf far out in the harbour, where the swirling Waitemata tides gurgle about the totara pales, to the great lamp at the junction of Upper Queen-street and (irey-strcet, there is a moving mass of people, a living river, and yet not a river, for it flows both ways. It is the Queensi reet promenade, the Sunday evening stroll, and it .marks a curious feature of colonial habits, not only a colonial habit, but a British habit, for all through England and all through her world-wide Empire, in ever)' village and town where outside life is possible, there is that Sunday night stroll. The Aucklanders' promenade seems, however, to possess some features peculiar to itself. What they are it is difficult to say. It may be that they are such lovers of outdoor life that they express it in some inexpressible way. Tho stream nf promenading Aucklanders is lightly shod, but if one listens one can hear the low thunder of their footsteps, a rythmical, gladsome sound that tells of yruth and vigour. There is a character in the sound of a walking crowd. In America the crowd's footsteps sound hurrying, reckless; in most English cities it is slow and measured: in many other places it is sad. There is a magnetism in that living stream of Auckhnders; a striking vitality. One can feel it if one stands near it with nerves attuned io feel impressions. There is no sign of decadence, no evidence of languiduess, though the air is heavy and warm, and the outer silence should discourage energy. And look at that crowd as it flows ceaselessly. Look at it by the soft light of the incandescent burners. The tall, active, well-dressed young men; the tall, lustylimbed, broad-chested girls. Move with it, and it carries you downwards to the wharf, where the lights of the vessels show the smooth, deep water, and a cool breezo drifting ip from miles and miles of sleeping ocean carries away the smell of tobacco and oppoponax. The crowd flows to tho wharf as a river (lows to the sea; but when it reaches the edge of the harbour it turns again, and one can drift with it up Queen-street again, and when it reaches the big lamp at the fool of Grey-street there is a tidal set-off— branches of the stream flow Ponsonbywards, by way of Grey-street, and others flow up Wakefieldstreet and Upper Queen-street. The set-off from the stream gathers into a small crowd near the great lam]), where, under flaming kerosene torches, an open air service is being held. There is a harmonium, and a young man is playing it, and in a circlo round it are those joining in the service. The addresses must have been over when the tide drifted me there, for I heard only a service of song. And strangely well it sounded out there under the roof of black clouds. Hymn tunes, world-wide in their popularity, that have gripped the hearts of a score of generations. The singers were varied; one stalwart man, bearded like a Viking, tall and holding a great torch, pours- out deep notes from his expanded chest, as one of his ancestors may have poured wild songs of wild old deeds. Against the harmonium is an old man in spectacles singing alto, such a man as that whom Longfellow describes, who "sang in cathedrals dim and vast." Occasionally, some of the crowd join in, and when the last verse has been sung the big Viking catches up the tune again, and the alto voice follows. There is a familiar sweetness, a melody in some of the tunes, that louche.- hidden chords in some of that listening crowd. Two old men standing by me know the air. but they do not know the words, so they hum a running accompaniment. Two young girls in light slimmer dresses sing solos. They have sweet voices; but they are nervous. The timehn uured "Old Hundredth" is given, and hats go off, and deep voices from the darkness join in the grand old hymn. Then the harmonium is closed, the flaring torches extinguished, members of the congregation part with hearty handshakes; the service is over. But still that living stream floods Queen-street, and after the music one hears a different tune in the beat of footsteps, a deeper note in the rythmic thunder, that promises sometliing wider and better and stronger than the mere enjoyment of promenading ; it is a sense of the grand possibilities that lie before a free, young nation, and to which those vigorous footsteps can march.