Etching From The Empire City

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XI, Issue 43, 28 October 1893, Page 342

Etching From The Empire City

Biand Holt Th* 9 > s the fifth night on which the Bland

Holt Company have appeared at the Opera and Other r J 1 r r House for the 1893 season. A house crowded People. . n some p ar j g almost uncomfortably has faced them on each occasion, and promises to do so throughout their present visit. If the people seem to be quite delighted with them, they, also, have every reason to be quite prond of their enthusiastic, not to say affectionate, reception. A packed theatre is, in itself, the best tribute a discerning public can accord.to stage merit; but the Holt Company have had a good deal more than this from the Wellington citizens. Thunders of applause, baskets of flowers of especial beauty handed nightly across the footlights, and repeated calls before the curtain testify to an earnestness of appreciation not in these severely critical times very common. There are many good reasons for this enthusiasm. Mr and Mrs Holt are old favourites ; their name is of Australasian celebrity ; the lady herself is one of those actresses who can, with a mere glance charm the gods above, and the men—and women too—of the circle. The only play performed up to this date —and it appears as though no other would be needed for some time—is Pettit's ‘Sailor’s Knot.’ This is a melodrama which is of precisely the order that human nature, in all ages, likes. There is a good deal of sensation, many improbable but still strikingly effective situations ; much love, some hate, one murder (and quite enough, too): no end of patriotism, and of virtue (seen very little of in real life) and villainy (of everyday occurrence. Then the scenery is simply splendid. The action of the piece, also, moves most smoothly, and of the large crowd (of some sixty or seventy persons) occasionally on the stage, there is not one who appears to be in the wrong place, or who appears to be in the way of any other person. But I don’t think I have yet mentioned the best of all reasons for the favour extended to Mr Pettit’s production. The story is perhaps a little difficult to realize, but anyhow it does show us something of the life and times of those who gloried in the name of Englishmen when Lord Nelson swept the main, and when even Buonaparte was vanquished by the Britisher. Patriotism was, perhaps, a more real thing in those days than it is now ; but patriotism is not dead. What is more, it will not, and cannot die while the. true Englishman lives ! There is one scene in the performance in which the greater part of the deck of H.M.S. Dauntless occupies the space where the stage was before that Royal frigate bore down upon us. As the sailors ran up the Union Jack, and as we heard the cannon thunder the cheers that arose convinced me that Britannia would still rule the waves ; and long may she do so, for her destiny has been, and is, to give liberty to the wide world I I don’t know that you would care to have the plot of a melodrama, which you will shortly see, presented to you. To my mind, the unfolding of the plot of a play beforehand is a mistake. We don’t want to be told how a good novel ends. But I may say that the ‘ Sailor’s Knot’ is the tie that binds two foster brothers, between whom ensues such a contest of magnanimity and selfabnegation asisdelightfultoseeevenon a stage. The heroine of the drama (Marie Delaunay) is Miss Edith Blande, a lady of striking presence, and a well known and highly popular artiste. Perhaps the highest compliment of all the many paid by the audience to the various performers, is the torrent of hisses heaped on Mr Charles Brown, the malignant villain of the drama, when called before the curtain. The poor fellow—as the other demanded actors and actresses do—comes in front of the cnrtain at one wing and walks across the stage to the opposite wing By the time he gets there, he has received such an accumulation of hootings and groans that he really looks, as be makes his final bow, a very guilty culprit indeed, and quite ashamed of himself ! The play, I may add, is exceedingly well written, and altogether of a different order to the average melodramatic production. The dialogue is smart, and occasionally quite as humorous and as witty as is the dialogue of a good comedy. The quaint costumes of the period are strictly adhered to, and altogether the play suggests a good deal with regard to the lives of those soldiers and sailors who made Euglaud the

THE AUTOCRATIG IDLER.

first of nations about a hundred years ago. The press gang is an institution which rather puzzles the young New Zealander, but Bland Holt is the only Briton who is allowed, at the close of this century, to get such a gang together and to carry on ashore and aboard ship such nefarious proceedings. In 1801 the press gang was quite a common thing. When Mrs Bland Holt gets on a mantelpiece to hang up some mistletoe and when the young man below removes the steps, so that she cannot get down until she gives him a kiss, the incident doesn’t seem at all an old thing. Lovemaking goes on, apparently, precisely as it always did ; and one hundred years have wrought little or no change in the methods of ‘ carrying on ’ that truly delightful, albeit perplexing and altogether ridiculous pas time.

Latin and When — ever so many years ago—l first Lunacy entered the Lunacy Department, I made,you may be sure, no end of mistakes. For one thing, my knowledge of lunacy was of the most limited character. I had been to a first class academy in the Old Country for I don’t know how long ; but the pedagogue (who I may remark was the selfsame man who, a decade or so before, had applied the birch to G. V. Brooke and to the slim youth who is now Lord Wolsley)—this pedagogue, I say, devoted his almost entire attention to Lanin and Greek, and seemed to think that knowledge of all other kinds was either not required at all, or would come by nature. And why all this attention was bestowed on two utterly dead languages I never have been able to understand. I never knew Latin to be of the least use to anybody in the business of life ; and the fact is, that it is almost totally forgotten in a few years. In the Australian bush I have now and again come across a shepherd who still remembered something of Latin, and who had, indeed, a ‘ B A.’ to append after his name, had he seen any use in it. Latin is no earthly use to a shepherd. On the Bendigo and Ballarat goldfields there were at first numbers of persons who were really excellent classical scholars. Latin never enabled them to find a nugget or a good rich • pocket.’ When I was on the West Coast of the South Island Mr Rolleston came around there, and I think I heatd more Latin from him than I have done since I left home. He has kept up his knowledge of Latin, but I am not aware that the Leader of the Opposition is a bit nearer office on that account; and I noticed that when he wished to grow eloquent about sheep, and the grass at Temuka, he spoke good old Saxon and didn’t trouble about the georgics of Virgil. It used to be said that a knowledge of Latin was essential to enable a man to be thoroughly master of English, but John Bright knocked down that absurdity for ever. John Bright never learned any Virgil or Homer. He was the first orator, for all that, of the century, and his pure and delightful Saxon English will be quoted with admiration long after the world shall have heard the very last of the most renowned of mere, modern, classical scholars.

The Civil 11 was my intention to follow the above remarks up with some observations on Lunacy, about which I think I may now claim to Social. know something—having served a thorough apprenticeship in the Department. But, as everybody seems to push Lunacy aside, as a thing that can very well stand over, I also will exhibit the same indifference, and we will go with all the other Departments, if you please, to the Annual Social of the Public Service Association, held away down at Thomas’ Hall. Last year the Graphic readers had a full account of the first of these annual celebrations. On that occasion the hall was a sort of Civil Service Museum in which all the various things in the Service, worth seeing, were shown : guns and armoury : various telegraphic and telephonic implements and appliances : curious books : machinery: what not. This year the event was signalized in a different way —by a concert and dancing. The concert, I cannot say, was very good. I don't know why, l’m sure ; for of musical and vocal talent there is really abundance available in Wellingon. If one must—as one must—speak the truth, the concert, as a whole, was not the success that it might have been. The company

present was very large, and one need not say, very select; and if ever three or four hundred persons who could appreciate a good concert were got together, such an audience was in Thomas’ Hall on Wednesday evening. Mr Hugh Pollen opened the proceedings with a short speech. He is Chairman of the Local Association, and, as I need not say, a most popular public officer. Next year, Mr Pollen said, perhaps the Association would have a picnic in the country, instead of meeting in town. What, to my mind would be better would be—far more frequent meetings for reunion, than annual ones. I don’t see why these assemblages should not be got together even monthly. Mrs Webb was in good voice, and secured approbation for her song, ‘The Shipboy’s Letter.’ Glees were contributed by Messrs Hickson, Clothier, Gray, and Edger. Mr Pope sang ‘ The Two Grenadiers;’ Messrs Clothier Rumsey, Morgan, Marks, and other gentlemen rendered good service. The recitations of the two latter were excellent. I think all these entertainers could have done much better than they did, had there been anybody present bold enough to break the ice. The atmosphere was cold, and the audience were not enthusiastic. First class music was furnished for the subsequent dance by Cemino’s band. There is a really capital floor in the Hall for dancing, and this latter part of the celebration was decidedly the best. A committee of ladies, consisting of Mesdames James, Redwood, Burns, Pilcher, Alport, Hales, Pollen, King, Evans, and De Castro, dispensed refreshments at intervals during the evening. Mr V. Sullivan, the efficient Secretary, was, as usual, as efficient as need be. The absence of some prominent Civil servants was noticeable, and it is to be hoped that the next reunion will be a still more numerous and altogether more heaity one.

a Sunday announcement that the Payne Family musicians would give a sacred concert on Concert. . Sunday evening drew an enormous audience together. Five minutes after the doors opened there were one thousand people present in the Theatre Royal, hundreds being afterwards turned away for want of room. Although there were four hundred and seventy eight threepenny bits in the collection plate, the total amount contributed was satisfactory. The concert itself was well worth the usual prices to the various parts of the house. ‘He Shall Feed His Flock ' was the opening selection by the company, and was of itself worth going a long way to listen to The Misses Payne are excellent violinists as wellasvocalists. ‘He Wipes the Tear’ was re-demanded even on Sunday. The part song, so quaint, and in certain bars so startling, ‘Steal Away to Jesus,’ was perhaps the best of all the vocal numbers, and was sung by the company with the best effect. It gained an encore, and then came Haydn’s hymn; but the most effective of all parts of this unique concert was the performance on the handbells by the sisters Payne and the male members of the troupe. The ‘ Armour bearer,’ ‘The Life Boat,’ ‘Sweet By-and-bye,’ ‘Over There,' ‘Ring the Bells of Heaven,’ • List to the Convent Bells,’ and ‘ Come to the Saviour,’ were all so splendidly played that the performers each time were re called amidst the subdued sort of applause suitable to the Sabbath. This family come, as is well known to most people, from Ballarat, where their people have been for thirty years highly esteemed for better reasonseven than their wonderful musical ability.