Wellington Jottings.

Pahiatua Herald, Volume II, Issue 147, 11 May 1894, Page 3

Wellington Jottings.

(From our own correspondent),

\ Wellington is threatened to be overrun with musical artists during the next month or two. Miss Jeanne Hamsay, a vocalist, who has lately appealed at ballad concerts in Dunedin, is engaged to appear at Tytherleigh’s Saturday pop, and the lady is being well advertised. It is said that her fee for one night’s singing is only 22 guineas. “Lo ! Here the gentle lark” (Bishop) is the only song announced to be warbled by her that has any merit in it by whieh she can be criticised, and in this song Mr C. D. Macintosh tootles an obligato on the flute as an acoompaniment to the artiste's singing. I know this song will fetch ’em when Miss Jeanne does the trill. And if it dosen’t do it—well—there’s nothing else that will. Then there is that clever lady violiniste, Miss Bessie Doyle, all the way from Leipsic, Germany, where she received her musical education in the Conservatorium, under Herr Hans Sitt. Miss Doyle hails from Sydney side, and from all accounts, is an exceptionally clever instrumentalist. Mr Alf Hill, our local artist, was a fellowstudent at the same Conservatorium as Miss Doyle, and also studied under the same master, and, no doubt, will assist the visitor. By the way, it is said that Mr Hill has composed, during the last four months, au opera with a Maori plot, and has already orchestrated the work, which he intends to submit to Williamson and Garner, of Melbourne, for thsir approval, and with a view to having it produced. The Brisbane Gaiety Company, at the Opera House, is nightly greeted with crowded audiences, the pantomime business being & novelty in Wellington. Bertha Faning, young Parlatto (of Newcastle, N.S.W.), Mons Provo Callaghan, and Florrie St. Claire, are the mainstay of the Compuny, and their acting and comicalities take immensely. On Sunday night last they gave a ttacred concert, which was more secular than sacred. J. C. Bryant is still running “ Fun on the Bristol” at the Criterion, and doing ’ fairly good bi;'.. The feminine element, which is in abundance in the Gaiety company, attracts our Johnnies more than Bryant's show, and the latter has had all the wind taken out of his sails. Messrs Bridge and Jones’ comic opera, 14 The Monarch of Utopia,” will be given in Dunedin shortly. Mrs Miller, a Melbourne soprano, now resident in this city, essays the leading role, as hitherto.

ON TUB ALERT. A correspondent to the Post, in Featherston, has been writing auent the demi* monde fraternity that lately inhabited our slums and alleys. He says that our city fathers will have a lot to answer for bye-and-bye for having been so hard-hearted t> s to drive these poor unfortunate women from the city. What rot! He further asserts that it is, in many instances, not the women’s fault that they lead such degraded lives. If these drunken, depraved, foul-mouthed female outcasts wish to commence life anew, and to abandon their

▼ile avocations, it is easy for them to do I so. The Salvationists, and other Christian i workers, will heip them, and even pay j thsir passages to other parts where they are not known, where, if they choose to. they can reform, and again be admitted 1 into decent society. It is never too late j to mend. It is & blessing to the city these powder-and-rouge unfortunates have been compelled to leave, and it may, perhaps, ! turn the lives of many, and bring them to ! a sense of their proper position. The j police are on the alert for any stragglers, ! aurl tharo nc* Q few hut their atHV is; I

limited, and their faces, which bear either the imprint of the gaol or alcoholic drinking, betray them to the police. UNBMPLOYBD. Destitution ia rampant amongst the unemployed here, sleeping out —very pleasant, this cold weather —no food, soleless boats, Ac. Soup kitchens, doss houses, co-operative works, relief committees, and such like, are all trite themes that become monotonous after a while, and suggest to one an idea of New Zealand—well, at all events, Wellington, and Wellingtonians think Wellington the favoured and only spot in New Zealand—

partaking its share of the miseries existing with the poor as in older countries. Such are a few of the suggestions thrown

out by correspondents to the local press. The unemployed do not want to be classed as paupers, and it is an insult to suggest or even hint anything similar to what 1 have mentioned to any able-bodied person who is unfortunately out of work What is wanted is work to do, and in a young and prosperous country like this, where we have piendid land lying idle and non productive for want of labour to cultivate it, it is a disgrace that men, women, and children should starve. Our country wants populating and opening up. Here we have the bone, sinew and muscle to do it, but no capital available to assist. As the Premier truly said on last Labour Demonstration Dav : “ The unemployed

must go in the country and toil on the ! land.' but they cannot go into the country | and starve on the land. Then there is I getting the permission to go on the land, j and the small deposit requisite is not in hand, m the majority of cases, so it acts in a prohibitive manner to our unfortunate brethren out of collar. Thero are many persons, both employed and unemployed, who are desirous of having a little homestead in the country, and would readily avail themselves o! an opportunity to get such, but Dame Fortune will have to untile on them in some other better ani brighter period than the present. A YOI'THFt.'L FRIO.

As a footballer was playing with his team on Satnrday a youngster was busily engaged going through the athletes clothes on the annexing game. Luckily he was seen, and departed a sadder and wieer lad.

PONBKK.