Reflections of a Rover.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4865, 3 December 1883, Page 3

Reflections of a Rover.

[ [Specially wbiitbn job the " Stab. 11 ] I Obristohuroh people tell me that summer has set in with more than usual severity this year. In most parts of the North Island the weather we hare now, and hare had for the last nine months, would he considered aa winter. Of course Canterbury people say that they never knew suoh a winter. People never acknowledge in the Colonies that the olimate of the pjtaoa they live in is bad. Why ? Simply from pride. They reaaon thus : if I acknowledge that the olimate is a bad one, the obvious question arises, why do I live here P Now I oanaot allege, as people may do in the Old World, that i do not like to leave the home of my ancestor*, where the ashes of my forefathers lie buried, kx, &o. Then will come the only other reason, that I cannot afford to leave it. Ergo, it is better to stand ug for the olimate through thick and thin, rather thanoonfess that " my poverty and not my will " induces me to live here. Henoe it is that you find people actually defending such horrible sequences .of mete^rologioal phenomena as ooour , in Dunedin and Invercargill. I always understood that Christ' ohuroh was a warm, pleasant plaoe. I know no plaoe in New Zealand that v has a polder, more unpleasant olimate, exdeptj, perhaps, Dunedin. . . . '. It is wroßg to use the word olimate — olimate implies something that is continuous. Now, the weather here is never the same for 24 hours, and one sever knows what to go out in. One thieg that strikes the stranger in Ohristohuroh very foroibly is the number of elderly fat people there are here. . They look comfortable, well off, and happy. They were, no doubt, the early birds, who scoured the first worms. There are no worms now— ah ! miserie ! lam full of Patience— not the virtue, but the opora. I went all the way to Kaiapoi to see it performed by amateurs. To say the truth, I fully expected a lamentable breakdown — one of those performances that make the sympathotio man shudder for the performers, and of which you gladly hear the olose with a " Oh ! so oharming— thanks very much !" aad a little feeble applause. I sup* pose some of my younger readers have not heard the story of Bishop Wilberforoe, who, after listening to an atrocious performance on the piano, said, as he led the lady aw*y to her seat, " Now, Miss , when you say you can not play, we shall know how to believe you " But it is not given to everyone to be able to make euoh happy replies as Bishop Wilberforoe could. The Kaiapoi amateurs deserve to be congratulated on their spirited and most successful attempt to perform Patience. I do not hesitate to say that the parts were quite as well acted and sung as they were by the laat professional oompany that played in Christ* ohuroh. Mr Champion's Bunlhorne was quite as good, if not better • Mrs Champion sang the musio allotted to Patience better, but her aoting, though fair, was net quit* so good ; the three youngladie« i who took the parts of the Ladies Angels, Baphir, and Ella both eang and acted better than the profetsioaale. Miss Winterbourne, who took the part of Lady Jane, showed remarkable talent, aa also did Miss B. Monk, in Lady Angola. The audience were delighted, and the applause that came from a crowded bouse was rapturous, like the maidens. Although the stage was too small to allow of the fuU number of performers to appear, and therefore there I were only ten " lovosick maidens," yet the choruses wer« juet an well rendered as they iwere by the Opera Company. I was sorry ► that they omitted the concluding chorus, j Now, having said bo much in praise, I must '

just hint at one little defect. Some of the performers were so tickled by the ludicrous oharacter of the opera, that in some of the humouroui parts they allowed themselves to .smile. I think the lady that acted Lady Angela (Miss E. Monk) was the only one who .did not err in this respeot. , Some extraordinary yarns reaoh Europe about theie Colonies. I found in an Snglish paper the following, whioh anybody is at liberty to believe who likes. I don't. "We referred the other week to the Ohinese funeral customs. It is evident that Chinamen, when they dir, like to be comfortable on their journey, for a correspondent writes to say he once saw a coffin containing a dead Celestial being opaned at Dnnedin, New Zealand, and they found in it two bottles of brandy, a pair of socks with the tops out off, so that they might be put on without much difficulty, a hat with the leather out out, two boxes of cigars, and fifty sovereigns. , Imagine a Chinaman burying fifty sovereigns !