ROUND ABOUT WELLINGTON.

Otago Witness, Issue 3782, 7 September 1926, Page 34

ROUND ABOUT WELLINGTON.

By

Pencarrow.

(Specially Written for the Witness.) September 2. Bishop Molyneux is in New" Zealand enjoying seven weeks’ leave of absence from Melanesia. He has spent four days in Wellington, and has been staying at Karori with Mrs R. E. Hayes, who gave a small At Home on Monday night in his honour. The bishop preached on Sunday morning at St. Paul’s pro-Cathedral. He is looking very well, though very much thinner than when he was in New Zealand .10 months ago. He expects to be away from the Dominion three years this time, and is rejoining the Southern Gross at Auckland on Friday. Miss Mistayer, who for many years 1 as undertaken the work of collecting extra comforts for the Melanesian mission, reports that this year’s effort has received the usual sympathetic support, and a fine collection is ready to go over by the mission ship. It seems that light novels are very much appreciated in the mission station, the climate making heavy reading difficult. At this late hour friends are interesting themselves, and are collecting extra books, which are to be sent up to Auckland and placed on board the Southern Cress. The ship, going round the islands, leaves parcels at the lonely mission stations, and a few., books add very much to the value of them. Books and papers go from place to place, and the isolated planters, who are sometimes visited by the ship on its voyage, are as grateful for books as are the missionaries themselves.

Dr Fox, who has spent many years as a missionary in Melanesia, is expected over here on leave before very long. His interesting book on Melanesia, published a year or two ago, is the standard work on the subject, and represents years of patient toil and observation. Dr Fox is a son of a former canon in the Waiapu diocese, and is an old Napier High School boy. Mr F. D. Thomson, C.M.G., permanent head of the Prime Minister’s Department, is also an old Napier High School boy. He is again going to London, where he is a familiar figure. At a gathering in the Parliamentary Buildings last Thursday night he was presented with a gold stopwatch plus chain, and farewelled with much goodwill by members of both Houses, departmental heads, and other “big wigs,” who felt they could not let him depart without thanking him for having been so good and faithful a servant to his country during more than a quarter of a century. This, I fancy, will be the seventh time he has accompanied a Prime Minister to England.

All the young things—and the old—have been “going to the dogs.” To be “in the movement” it was necessary to do so. Yet they have remained quite respectable—or so we hope and trust, for these dogs are spelt with capital letters—and they have now moved elsewhere. It was an attractive vaudeville entertainment presented by the Williamson Company, in the Opera House. The main feature was the appearance of the bricklayers—performing dogs —who gave a delightful exhibition. The tiny creatures were dressed as men in the garments which custom decrees. They performed their building operations with zest, each dog doing his bit—and no pause for polite conversation. We have not yet heard what the officers of the Bricklayers* Union think of it all. There

is no evidence of intention on the pan, of the dogs to limit the output. They work. How they were taught to do it is a mystery. “All done by kindness,” we are invited to believe—and in proof the master of ceremonies fondles a tiny creature at the end of the performance, and its tail wags ecstatically. Yet “a spaniel, a woman, and a walnut tree,** etc.—and in any case these dogs are terriers. fcjchool holidays are on. Parents are having a hectic time, for parties are all the rage, and the children who would be called flappers if they had pigtails spend half their time accepting or issuing invitations. There are mothers who persist in reminiscences. In their days* it seems, they wore simple white frocks, with pretty sashes tied round the place where their waists were supposed to be, and they had bread and butter with hundreds and thousands on it, also jellies, as well as cake and fruit salad for supper, whereas nowadays we have sandwiches and savouries, though we still love meringues and fruit salad, and we prefer our gailycoloured frocks of taffetas or crepe de chine. In fact, we advance with the times, and sometimes (with a very pleasant smile) remind our elders that in those prehistoric days mothers did not shingle, nor did they smoke. Thus, the retort courteous. “Pencarrow” has a great affection for the modern child, and likes is independent spirit and its outlook on life, but wishes it would grow a pigtail, which could easily be cut off again if shingled heads are still fashionable a few years hence. Parliament is working overtime, and some of the members are beginning to look a little jaded, though the session has been so short. The Prime Minister, who works harder than them all, retains his spruce, alert appearance. Some interest has been taken in the Competitions, which have provided cheap diversion for the public. Now we have the beauty contest, which will supply still more, this competition also being Dominion wide. There are to be more than a few starters for the Wellington first prize, and it is rumoured that their friends believe Miss New Zealand will eventually be chosen from among them. So, though the session is soon to be over, we shall have other interests.