EVENTS OF THE DAY.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 5730, 27 October 1905, Page 4

EVENTS OF THE DAY.

THE STANDARD OF BEADING IN NEW ZEALAND.

English publishers often show a deplorable ignorance of the colonial taste in literature; bub few reputable London publishing houses would make the blunder recently credited to Mr John Long. Ho remarked to an interviewer that “our kinsmen over seas want something light and sensational —what may be called a good yam. The class of author Urey prefer is Nat Gould.” The statement, of course, is absurd, as applied to New Zealand. In order, however, to obtain actual refutation of an imputation upon our literary taste, inquiries were made at various booksellers’ shops in Wellington, which serve to show the popular taste is for a much higher standard of literature than that purveyed by Nat Gould. Thus one leading bookseller: “Nat Gould is dead. He certainly was popular for a time; but now people would not have his works at sixpence a copy.” Generally speaking, this is the opinion of all the Wellington booksellers. One encouraging feature brought to light during the inquiry was the fact that our young people have a decided preference for technical books. The tendency of our public is to buy light literature, but of a better class than Nat Gould’s. There is a growing demand for American authors, large stocks of their works being kept in all the shops. Only at tho railway station bookstall was it found that Nat Gould was wanted; and the clientele of a railway bookstall anywhere in the world does not ask for literature. “The taste for literature in New Zealand is much higher than in Australia, where I was in tho trade for years,” said a Cuba street bookseller, “and people here will pay a 'price' for

a book, which is not noticeable on the oilier side.’’ It is rather painful to contemplate the amount of money that Mr John Long will lose if he goes on dispatching “Nat Goulds” into a country that has outgrown that particular species of light literature.

FOOTBALL AND THE SPIRIT OF SPORT. “That is the worst defeat we’ve had yetwas the comment of a New Zealander yesterday, as he scanned tho notification on tho “Times” board recording tiro rather small score of the New Zealand team against tho Dovonport Albions—2l to 3. Even one of the crack club teams in England—last year they were tho champions of the West of England, and tho previous year they lost only five matches out of thirtyseven in club football—could not stop tho triumphant progress of the colonials. The match attracted the largest crowd that has yet witnessed the play of our team ; in a town of approximately the same population as Wellington there wore 20,000 spectators of the game. This largo proportion of onlookers is a striking confirmation of tho immense and growing devotion to sport in the Motherland. So noticeable is this tendency that already writers are deprecating the excessive popular interest in athletics. ■ In tho "National Review” appears a strongly-worded protest against this national tendency. “It would scarcely be an exaggeration,” remarks “An Old Harrovian,” “to say that nowadays sport is the only thing taken absolutely seriously in England. Tho unfortunate practice of instituting international competitions in almost every branch of athletics is having the worst possible results. It is not to bo wondered at that athletes take themselves and their pastimes in such deadly earnest when they arc for over being reminded that they arc the champions of England against the foreigner and tho colonial. It would seem that tho public are more jealous that tho athletic pre-eminence of the country should bo maintained against all comers than her commercial supremacy. The rival merits of cricketers and other athletes are discussed with as much eagerness as was the relative prowess of gladiators in ancient Romo or of matadors in Spain. The names of prominent keters are household words. Every one has hoard of Maclaren, Jackson, or Fry, but how few people could give without hesitation the name oven of the admiral who cqjnmands tho Channel Fleet or of the general commanding in South Africa ? The composition of 'the Australian cricket eleven is critically discussed by the man in the street, who, needless to say, has not the vaguest idea regarding the constitution of the Australian Commonwealth.” With all our interest in the doings of our team, we do not think that such a charge of excessive devotion to sport could, ho brought against Ndw Zealanders. The conditions of life in the colonies develop a wider and more rational range of interests.