BY THE AUTOGRAFIC IDLER.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XI, Issue 49, 9 December 1893, Page 494

BY THE AUTOGRAFIC IDLER.

. _ „ When I lived at Notown, ou the West Coast A One-Horse of the South Island, we used to think that it City. was a one-horse sort of a place, because only one real gentleman resided there (he being, of course myself). But this city of 30.000 inhabitants is really an awfully one-horse town, too ; and in some respects surpasses even Notown in the matter of one ness. A great many people want to have the pick of two Premiers ; but otherwise two or more of any mortal man or thing is not required or tolerated within a radius of fifteen miles aronnd Mount Cook Gao], which occupies the site in Wellington which (in any other community in this world) would have been reserved for a cathedral. We have, then again, three newspapers published every morning ; and although the whole of them are of about equal size, and printed very much alike, containing, also, much the same news, and not very different from each other in the matter of advertisements, or style of leading article, still only one of these newspapers is ever mentioned in conversation or discussion, and what either of the other two think or say, appears to be a matter of no earthly consequence to anybody. Yesterday a New Zealand crow on his travels alighted on a fir tree in the grounds of the Departmental Buildings. There he sits on a twig at this moment; there he must sit or drop dead, awaiting the return of Dr. Walter Buller : for no other man capable of finding a definite name for the crow, in Wellington exists ; and although I and others know perfectly well that this crow is a crow, we daren’t say so in a confident manner, afraid some wiser naturalist—in the absence of Dr. Buller—might try and prove it to be an English blackbird undergoing a process of development. In the last Parliament we had one Mac representing the city, and he did so tolerably well that a section of the people thought it would be a good thing to double him. An additional Mac was brought forward : * the two Macs’ was urged as apopular ticket. The collapse of both was the consequence: the public couldn't stand a second Mac, no more than a second anything else. And now, instead of a Mac being at the head of the poll, ‘ there isn t (as I heard a sad Scotchman observing at the close of the election) a Mac in it.’ There is only one shop where one can buy an orange without being grinned at horribly by a Chinaman. Nearly the whole fruit trade is in the hands of one race—the abominably industrious, frugal and filthy Celestial. As for lunacy, it still requires two medical men to certify that an eccentric individual is mad, but the second medico generally knows as little about lunacy as the first does ; so that we are in the end, driven to fall back on the one infallible authority we fortunately possess : Dr. Macgregor—who, of course, knows all about lunacy ; and a great deal about lunacy that no other man living knows or ever heard of, and that no dead mad dector ever dreamed of ! As for geology, if Hugh Miller were to come here with his hammer, and break up any of the stones about Mount Victoria, with a view to establishing with some certainty, the age of the earth, we would at once put forward Dr. Hector to show that Hugh Miller knew nothing at all about it—and that the world was revolving just as it is now ; either fifty million years before the time Hugh Miller said, or else live thousand years after the period specified by the Scotch geologist—it matters not which. Then is there, in all New Zealand, a single man who knows anything about the weather other than Captain Edwin, and what man in Wellington can hold a candle to him in predicting storms, which generally blow over, and in telling you to expect rain from a cloudless sky ’ It is quite true that we have three Rail way Commissioners. If we hadn't we would not hear so much about them as we do ; were there but one Commissioner, the only persons who would make any noise about the Railways would be the two persons who weren’t Commissioners. Mr E. Tregear is the referee on all questions as to Maori race and language, and his erudition is such as to take in the whole of the South Sea Islands as well. 1 believe there is, too, one Supreme Court or County Court bailin'. I don't know, I’m

sure, how he exists, or what he finds to do. One seizure a month isn’t sufficient to keep the body and soul even of a respectable bailiff together. For my part, I don't care whether they are kept together or not. I don’t know the gentleman personally, but am informed that he is quite an exceptional sort of bailiff - , and am pleased to learn that he deals with his occasional client with a tender mercy which is utterly unknown amongst the bailiffs of other cities, but which has been quite the usual thing in Wellington distress levy cases for twenty years. ‘The Profligate.’ Plnero ’ 8 B reat P ,a -V. ‘ Tl >e Profligate,’ was produced to-night—l think for the first time in this city—by the Myra Kemble Comedy Company. This play was written about seven years ago, and was first acted at the Garrick Theatre, London, in 1889, since which period it has been on the boards in pretty nearly every civilized town in the world. • No original English play produced on our stage has stirred its audience so deeply at the time of its representation, or has sent them home with so much to think over, to discuss and to remember.’ This was the criticism of a leading London journal on the first production of the piece. Mr Pinero has every reason to feel gratified with the impression made upon audiences by his new play, and the success that attended its initial representation ; but at the same time it must be said that he had also to combat some pretty severe critical strictures. In writing ‘ The Profligate, he made an attempt to write a play which should ‘ by means of simple and reasonable dramatic deduction record actual experience,’ and which should at the same time, ‘ embody lofty ideals of conduct and character.’ Whether he did or did not successfully carry out his intention was f and is still, a matter of controversy. This question, however, in no way affects the popularity of the play, and its discussion is merely an intellectual recreation—leading, as most such recreations do, to no conclusion in particular. a Bad There isn’t, from beginning to end, a line of . _. . . humour in ‘ The Profligate,’ nor does the and Dissolute > author make the smallest concession to melodramatic sensation. He sets out to show that a bad and dissolute man must be an ineligible husband for a pure, simple hearted woman ; that the man who marries a good woman, knowing that his past life is not as spotless as hers, ‘ grievously wrongs his wife, and fools himself.’ As for reformation—Mr Pinero does not believe in it ; does not think it affects the matter at all. The old saying of the reformed rake making the best of husbands finds no favour with him—and the whole of the four acts of the play are written to establish the very contrary : — ‘ It is a good and soothfast saw, Half-roasted never will be raw. No dough is dried once more to meal, No crock new-shapen by the wheel; You can’t turn curds to milk again. Nor now, by wishing, back to then; And, having tasted stolen honey. You can't buy innocence for money-’ A Lawyer with ODe asks whether the result of Mr Pinero’s labours is an ordinary set of characters, the answer is no. The characters introduced may be natural ; they are not ordinary. The central motive of the story is not ordinary, for the simple reason that at the end of this century the mental condition of Leslie Brudenell (the heroine) is not very conceivable ; in real life we meet no such.lofty ideal. As a matter of sober fact, I think it may be said that the young boarding school lady of the present day is not by any means shocked by the gallantries of any sort or condition of men whatever. I am not sure that the most popular men in London and other aristocratic society are not persons whose history would horrify Leslie Brudenell—but not many else. Nor is Hugh Murray, the serious minded, lofty matured • lawyer, who can never restrain his tongue when he sees wrong-doing, but can be nobly, piteously silent when he must bury his love deep down in his lonely life ’ until he nearly breaks his heart, —such lawyers are unreal. The play, however, is a great play, and there is a good deal

of realism in it too—so much, that audiences are held spellbound by the performance. Lord Dangars, the dissipated voluptuary, is real flesh and blood ; so, also, is Janet Preece, the victim of Dunstan Renshaw. Mrs Stonehay we very readily recognize as a lady we have constantly met in our travels. • The Profligate ’—as originally written by Mr Pinero—ended with the death of the penitent gallant at the moment when his wife is coming to him with forgiveness. But this was too much like the irony of reality to be in place on the stage. Theatrical happiness in the last act is what the public want before the curtain (since they can get no happiness of any kind, anywhere else), and so the curtain falls on an affecting scene of reconciliation. So used to laughter have been Opera Honse The Versatile audiences of late, and the play being new, Myra Kemble, and I may say unknown, that, for a while, after the first scene opened, the house was completely puzzled. lam not sure that disappointment might not have ensued during the earlier part of the play, had there not been a forecast of what was coming in the incomparable acting of Miss Myra Kemble, from her first entrance on the stage. She looked the character exactly — how she contrived, or contrives, to do so, I don’t profess to know : but there she was, a schoolgirl in dress, appearance, movement, speech. One could fancy she had not an hour ago kissed her schoolmates, and promised eternal friendship to every one of them. This sweet-looking girl, tastefully but simply dressed, makes her first appearance, however, to—be married ; and the flutter she was in was very girlish and, under the circumstances, very natural. It is in the third act, however— ‘ the faultless act ’ of the play—that Miss Kemble, on discovering the real character of her husband, shows her full power. In the final scene she was also most impressive. She riveted the attention of every soul in the house, throughout the piece, on her every movement : no sentence fell from her lips that escaped the spellbound listeners. And when one remembers that this intensely girlish girl, this happy wife in her honeymoon, this tragic, shuddering creature, so awfully pure in the presence of her guilty husband whom she bids go from her for evermore—when one remembers, I say, that this same accomplished actress can also keep the house in the most delightful merriment for hours together with the most irresistible humour in comedy—one can only marvel at her wonderful all round dramatic genius. Mr Sass, as Dunstan Renshaw was excellent: he appears, however to infinitely greater advantage in parts where a gentleman is on the stage—not a gentleman who has once been anything but gentlemanly. Janet Preece, the betrayed girl, was very well acted by Miss Halkett, and Miss Ansted made a capital Mrs Stonehay, while Irene, her daughter, was well represented by that general favourite—Miss Gwynne. Altogether the performance will be a memorable theatrical event in this city. I have rarely seen an audience so enthusiastic. Even on the conclusion of the first act—when very few present had much idea of ‘ what it was they had come out for to see,’ there was a burst of plaudits, and a demand for the appearance ot the performers. The applause was renewed at the end of each act—one dare not interrupt the progress of the play before the curtain was about to fall, else there would be a general cry of ‘ Hush !' We are all very sorry that Miss Kemble is leaving us shortly for Auckland. We shall be but too glad to welcome her, we hope soon, back again. I think the really admirable arrangements After the made by the proprietors of the New Zealand Elections. Times and the Evening Post to place the public in possession with the results of the elections throughout the country, are deserving of special notice, and I rise on behalf of the citizens to propose a vote of thanks to those gentlemen. The display of electric light made by the latter journal would certainly have been admired even in London. It was a curious circumstance that although the reflection of the Post electric lamps lighted up the residences of people on the Flagstaff Hill, quite a mile away, yet there was not, in the vicinity of the Post corner, the slightest unpleasantness to the eyes, caused by the intensity of the light. I dare say there were some 10,000 persons congregated around this spot up to midnight. There were still some hundreds of persons there—amongst whom were some ladies—when I went home at 230 a m. The defeat of the old member, Mr M’Lean, was entirely due to disunion. I won’t say more on an unpleasant subject—for cui bono? The two persons most unconcerned that I came across during the whole evening—from 5 p.m. till 2 a.m., were the Premier and Sir Robert Stout. Neither seemed in the slightest degiee put out or anxious. Both were pleasant, calm, and in, apparently, a most happy frame of mind. Mr Bell was somewhat intoxicated with his election — intoxicated with success. He, apparently, felt the honour to be a great one ; and his friends and supporters cheered and chaired him for hours. George Fisher was intoxicated too—intoxicated with defeat. But there was not one single drunken person to be seen in the streets, and I don’t think a trace of bitterness or of ill-feeling was exhibited by anyone from first to last.