LOCAL GOSSIP.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19221, 9 January 1926, Page 1 (Supplement)

LOCAL GOSSIP.

BY MEUCUTIO,

All good things come to an end, and the holidays have done that all right, unless one happens to he u lawyer or Eonie similarly favoured mortal. In that event the supreme joy of getting hack to it, i;. just ahead. For the work-a-day world bathing suits have been put back ■where they can be brought out only once or twice a week, tennis racquets have been relieved of doing service all day and ♦•very day, the car has learned what the inside of the garage looks like, and all the incidentals to an outdoor life have been relieved of continuous overtime. The ghosts of good things which almost came off but just missed now hold undisputed 6 way on the lawn at Ellcrslie. In short, the holidays are over. Lite new skin is creeping down the bridge of the nose and the collar does not, chafe quite so badly. W1 lat does the retrospect she w T A good season enjoyed to the full. True there was, at times, a little more wind than anybody but the yachtsman really approved. New Year's Day didn't look like a good resolution for 1926. Otherwise there was enough sunshine to go round among everybody, enough warmth to make even thin old blood circulate, and enough enjoyment to send folk back to the iob with memories to sustain them until the chain is loosened once again. Take it all round 1925 had a good farewell and 1926 a happy introduction, which js as much as .anyone can expect in an imperfect world.

Botorua seems to have dono its very best to cater for all tastes during the holidays. Tho geysers are reported to have played regularly and consistently, thus doing their bit to maintain the reputation of the place. Them there was s. frost on New Year's morning a:ad a display ofthe Aurora Australis on the night of January 3. Any visitor asking for more than that in the way of holiday specials would be unreasonable. There's nothing like a little competition. These demonstrations can be taken 'as following the increased popularity of Taupo and the National Park—to say nothing cf tho exhibition at Dunedin.

It is remarked, apropos of a picture of Wairua Falls exhibited at Dunedin, that this waterfall is sometimes called the Niagara of New Zealand. It is understood that tho comparison has not yet made tho real Niagara jealous.

Returned from representing New Zealand at Wembley, Mr. A. F. Roberts had a few things of interest to say about tho Empire's great show. He characterised its educational value as one of its greatest features. Absolutely the greatest, no doubt,was tho debit balance.

It is reported that when tho Niagara ran into stormy weather on the voyage from Vancouver to Auckland some of the passengers received a severo shaking and even minor injuries. It is an even chance that some of them also sought the rail, illustrating, if not necessarily feeling, that it is more blessed to give than to receive.

In the Chess Championship just held at Dunedin only four rounds were fought before a decision was reached. Here is an example for many boxers appearing before a critical* public; their contests often go to 20 rounds, and even then the result is not always decisive. Descriptions of the chess struggle have not been very extensive, or, to those who do not speak the language, very illuminating. Private advice says several of the rounds were marred, from the spectacular aspect, by too much in-fighting.

One of those peculiar people with a passion for ctatistics has been investigating the Hansard record of .'last session's verbiage. He has calculated that if all the printed matter produced were strung out line by line, end to end, it would cover a distance of 14 iniles. He can have tho answer all to himself. Nobody is likely to check his figures either by experiment or by figuring. But this calculator missed a great opportunity. Somebody who had looked into the situation announced a while ago that if all the bagpipes in the world were laid end to end on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean it would—be a very good thing. New why did this Parliamentary statistician not work out some bright idea of that character to cheer us up ? The opportunity was there.

Authoritative critics from overseas have been declaring, in nice, tactful sentences, that pictorial art in New Zealand has been rather stagnant, but is now showing signs of movement. They put it much more gently than that, but the meaning was there. When one of them suggested that painters had been '.rather overwhelmed by the magnificence of the scenery, so that they tended to become mere copyists, he was evidently trying to let someone down lightly. Also he was apparently passing mild censure on those unimaginative craftsmen who insist on making a tree look like a tree, and not like a vivid presentment of the artist's inner consciousness. But there had better be no more of this from "Mercutio." It is treading on dangerous ground. Anyway, as Oscar Wilde once said, there must always bo differences of opinion about art ; only an auctioneer is bound to admire all pictures. Art values have been a good doal debated in England of late. Some of the things artists and critics have said about one another have been woll edged. But an inexpert commentator got in with the best, suggestion. Sir Frank Dicksee had been held up as the standard of good sense and good taste, as opposed to the modern freak school. The commentator said it might be a very good thing to find English art ■"Going back to Dicksee."

Once again it is necessary to go abroad for news from home. A reputablo London journal—no less a publication than the Answers associated with the great tame of Harmsworth —tells a most pathetic and touching story of the way a visiting violinist, Toscha Seidel, Was overwhelmed by Maori enthusiasm. According to the tale the natives were so impressed by his playing thai he was made a hereditary chief of the Ruakawa tribe, invested with the god of luck, and offered twelve dusky brides. The chieftainship arid the charm were accepted, but the brides blushingly declined, They say New Zealand needs publicity abroad, and there it is; but it was probably given because some professional showmen want publicity wherever and whenever possible, find in whatever form it can be obtained. In other words, as Shakespeare didn't say, with so much pathos, "sweet are the uses of advertisement." The paragraph did not expressly say that these favours from the Maori were reserved for violinists, so a settler or two with polygamous instincts may be attracted to the Dominion by it. Let it pass at that.