PASSING NOTES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25802, 24 March 1945, Page 3

PASSING NOTES

Our present day method of celebrating Anniversary Day seems casual and half-hearted when we compare it with the festive joy and revelry that marked its observance by our forefathers. When the first anniversary occurred in 1849, although the town population was only 485, it took the settlers two full days to express their feelings in various sports and pastimes. At that time most of the picturesque little settlement lay between “ two small hills in Princes street,” not far from where the Stock Exchange now stands. From the hills behind one looked down on the little church with its public library attached, and Captain Cargill’s residence, while further south could be seen small wooden houses with pleasant gardens. Nearby stood the homes of Mr Valpy and Mr Kettle, the chief surveyor. A confused cluster of buildings surrounded the Commercial Hotel and the Royal Hotel, the latter being on the present site of the Bank of New Zealand. These were the more prominent objects in the picture. On a “ swelling hill ” behind the town in the midst of Nature's life and loveliness lay the graves of a few settlers, and this is now the Arthur Street Cemetery.

Here and there showed up the pointed tops of gipsy-like tents and rustic dwellings of clay and grass “ peeping from among a bower of trees.” There were two hotels, a newspaper, a gaol, a jetty, and two great immigration barracks, comfortably fitted up. We had a police magistrate, two physicians, one solicitor, three merchants, two bakers, and various other shops and tradesmen. In those days the Maoris, who mostly lived at Taiaroa Heads, served as hewers of wood and drawers of water for the settlers, and supplied them with potatoes and fish. On high days and holidays the Maori ladies came to town in gaudy dresses, straw bonnets, white veils, and coloured capes and ‘ribbons. As for the Maori men. they appeared in blue shirts, frock coats, and trousers. There were no duties on the nec cr saries of life, and food was cheap for most items. Then, as now, domestic servants were scarce, but if you were lucky enough to get one, wages ran from only £l2 to £2O a year.

It was in this setting that the first anniversary was celebrated. On March 18 a public meeting was held in High street in what was later the Club Hotel to consider the best mode of celebration. We are told 'that the meeting was “numerously and respectably attended,” and Mr M. Evans, of Port Chalmers, presided.

" It was a custom,” he said; " which had been established in all the other settlements to have a day or two set apart on the return of each anniversary for promoting hilarity and concord for the enjoyment of all classes of the community. He could not see why this settlement should not be as proud of its progress and more so than any other settlement, for it was acknowledged on all sides that no other colony had prospered or progressed in the same degree within so

short a time.” Captain'Cargill and the Rev. Dr Burns wished to make the day one of humiliation and prayer, but although church services were held, the people preferred to give up the two days—Friday and Saturday, March 23 and 24—to sports and enjoyment. There were horse races at Montecillo, a regatta in the bay. trials of st’ength and rural sports on the cricket ground, and a ball at Watson's large room in High street attended by 40 or 50 ladies and gentlemen, who did not separate till “ morning's grey light was beaming.”

The Otago News concluded its reDort of the celebrations by saying:

“ We are happy to state that no accident of a serious kind occurred during the two days” sports, and that eacn and all seemed highly gratified with the endeavours of the. committee for their amusement. Some few were in a state ' to remember a mass of things but nothing distinctly,’ transforming themselves wjth ' joy, revel, pleasure, and applause into beasts,' but we have "ever ssen a greater feeling of unanimity pervading so large a mass congregated for the same purpose."

In such manner was celebtated the first anniversary. Happy little settlement! With your eager hopes and joys and your friendly sports by way of relaxation after the first year of hard toil! Is it possible that you held the secret of happiness and knew the art of simple pleasure in a way that we seem to have lost? Was it the smallness of your numbers, the hardship and simplicity of your lives and the sense of comradeship in a new venture that enabled you to enjoy such nappy revels? Would that we of these later days could renew your youthful zest of life and your community of spirit which even now shine out so clearly from the pages of history like some idyll of a golden age that is gone!

The resignation of the Duke of Windsor from the governorship of the Bahamas could not be expected to arouse the same breathless interest as his resignation from the Royal Throne. The press and the public seem only mildly interested in his future. He himself speaks vaguely of going to England “some day.” Meanwhile he plans to visit New York, his Canadian ranch, and Europe. Is there not something wistful and pathetic in his saying: “ I will fit in anywhere I can be useful. Men with experience will be badly wanted after the war”? But men with what sort of experience? He’ was certainly highly experienced and successful as a Prince, but that is a job that is so exclusive and so remote from ordinary life that it might now be more a handicap than a help. In his early days as a king he showed the same tireless devotion to duty as his father until he entered on that strange adventure that led to his abdication. It is easy for his critics to say how they themselves would have behaved, but fate never called on them to occupy the fonely eminence of a bachelor monarch. e Yet if we allow full marks to the Duke for most of the time in which he was before the public as “ a man of experience,” the demand for experienced princes and kings seems to be at a discount in most countries. The few remaining royalties are being invited for the most part to stay away from their native lands and are warned not to interfere

It is no disparagement of royal persons to observe that much of the glamour that surrounds them flows not so much from their own personality as from the attributes conferred on them by the people’s love of an idol—more particularly one surrounded by splendour, tradition, and long ancestry. Some philosophers tell us that Nature gets credit for the scent of the rose or the song of the nightingale whereas it may be the magical secret chemistry of our sensory nerves that transmutes these qualities and transmits them to the brain. We know not how a rose smells in reality and perhaps a prince without the aura we create for him might often be commonplace enough. The Duke of Windsor will recgll that when he was Prince of Wales the young men of New York dogged his footsteps in vast mobs and constantly changed their ties and socks and hats in a desperate endeavour to keep in fashion with his frequent changes of attire. But will they do so now?

Yet the fact remains that the Duke has a genius for making friends with men who would not be blinded by his rank. One of his close friends and admirers was the late Will Rogers, who spent most of his lime “spoofing” the rich and great. Did he not stoutly defend the Prince against the popular cartoonist who made jokes about his poor horsemanship? They played polo together, and the Prince had some spills. “Are the Prince and I,” said Rogers, “ supposed to stay up in the air when our horses fall? Every fall the Prince has had was due to a falling horse and not by being thrc%n from one. The only thing that makes me sore is that I haven’t got the nerve to do some of the riding stunts the Prince goes aftsr. He goes over Jumps I wouldn’t have the nerve to climb over on foot.” And again: ” I saw a picture of one of his falls where the horses had fallen trying for a wa. jump. Why! that Jump was so wide that I bet we haven’t got a joke writer in this