THE ‘SYDNEY BULLETIN' ON AUCKLAND.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XV, Issue V, 3 August 1895, Page 126

THE ‘SYDNEY BULLETIN' ON AUCKLAND.

HIGH-FLAVOURED COMMENT. Auckland—a city of saints, largely of Scotch origin, who won’t let either trams or ’buses run on the Sawbath. A howling desertof dull monotony setin the midst of lovely scenery—no life, no gaiety, save awful mockeries called • high-class concerts ’ where Scotch people pay from 6d to iBd to hear Scotch persons rasp out Scotch ‘music.’ At 10pm a funeral gloom settles down upon the streets, deserted save for small bands of childish nymphes da pave ranging from loto 15 years; probably the predominating Scotch element among the males has driven the older nymphs to other cities for a living. No restaurant where one can obtain decent meal—not one. No hotels where there is a first-class bar, such as you would meet with even in a N.S.W. country town. Some of us asked for vermouth, and at each place the melancholy-looking barmaid didn’t know what it was ; in one case the landlord was summoned, and in a raucous Highland accent said, with a stern manner, that there ‘was nae ca’ for siccan leeker in Auckian’.’ We went to an office to use a telephone ; a tall young person in shirt-sleeves and viole*jt red hair seized hold of the handle of a machine like an turned it with furiousenergy for seven minutes. He told u 3 to come in again and he would ‘ get on.’ We got out. From 3to 5 is filled with women —some of them very pretty, but all dressed badly, very badly, a good many Maori halfcaste women among them, often better-looking and healthier than their pakeha sisters who affect to despise them. Hut, for all its dolefulness, there is not to be seen in Auckland the same grim poverty one sees daily in Sydney—in fact, the only things that go a-begging are fine fish (kawai), three for 6d, and the aforesaid youthful street-walkers.