WELLINGTON IN RECESS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XV, Issue XX, 16 November 1895, Page 610

WELLINGTON IN RECESS.

CHIT-CHAT FROM THE CAPITAL.

(BY ‘

FLANEUR.’)

WELLINGTON is not a well-built city. Indeed, no one to look at its shops would imagine it to be the prosperous, progressive town that it is. Nevertheless, though we have loitered behind our compeers so far, we do move. Yesterday an auction sale took place which bore witness to this. The premises so long occupied by the Evening Post and a certain well-known chemist were put up for auction and realised the handsome sum of ,£8,400. The Post is on the wing, and in another four or five months is to be established iu a handsomer, more spacious, and more solid mansion. Theu rumour has it that we are to be treated to an eight-page evening daily at last, in which case I should think that the morning journal will have to put its best foot foremost, not to be utterly distanced in the race for popularity. Our remissness in the matter of buildings provokes much criticism from the tourists, who about this time of the year land on our wharves in such numbers from the direct steamers. One recognises them at once as they stroll down Lambton Quay, the women in their straw hats, the men tanned with the sun and sea wind, and with less hair on their British faces than the average colonial. Not very long ago two ladies of the tourist persuasion were lunching upstairs in one of our larger hotels, where they had encamped and proposed to stay for a day or two. Unluckily some one observed in their hearing that the building was entirely of wood. ‘What! a three-storied building of wood!' They could not stay a night in so terrible a death-trap. After a good deal of search and enquiry, they discovered a hotel in another part of the town which is not of wood. But the owner of hotel number one was a humourist and a man of resource. He arranged with a friend of his to sit alongside the nervous English spinsters at dinner time at the table of the hotel where they had taken retuge. In the midst of the dinner with which they were recruiting their shattered nerves, this gentlemen remarked in a drawling casual way that it was rather a risky thing to spend the night in a brick hotel in Wellington. * Why ?’ • Because, of course, Wellington was notorious throughout the southern hemisphere for the frequency and destructiveness of the earthquakes !’ Tableau : the ladies packed up their trunks and retired to spend the night on the direct steamer which had brought them to this dangerous and uncomfortable city.

Nature has awakened and politics have gone to sleep. Even Wellington, distinguished as it is by a plentiful lack of gardens, looks almost beautiful now in this lovely spring weather. The grass on our steep hillsides has in it the living green of English meadows. Yachts with white sails are sprinkled about the broad harbour. The newspapers are devoting the long columns which for many months have been wasted on the frivolities of Parliament to the serious business of cricket, boating, and lawn tennis. Light spring dresses enliven the streets —when the wind is not in the south. Men have forgotten that such things as Bills, debates, amendments, and conferences ever were. I saw an Auckland M.H.R. solitary in the street to-day; he looked like a ghost of the past. By day their talk is of cattle shows and the price of wool at Bradford. In the evening Brough and Boucicault reign, and the only debate that is sustained with any interest is on the absorbing topic of whether Mrs Brough iu the ‘ Amazons ’ looks better in knickerbockers or in her own distinctively feminine attire.

Stay, there is another subject which arouses the gossips. This is the week of sweeps and lotteries. Wellington has not distinguished itself in carrying off any great prizes at St. Albans or elsewhere. Perhaps we are not a speculative people ; perhaps we do not draw lucky numbers. More fortunate is Mr Spackman, solicitor, of Christchurch, who pockets /13.500 from the great Queensland sweep. I think I may say that if any man deserved a stroke of good fortune he is that man. When I last heard of him, at the beginning of the session, lie had been for many months lying in bed crippled and helpless, struck down in the prime of an active life bv a ruthless disease. His friends then told me that his health was at last mending, and that a gradual but steady recovery was looked for. I hope that such has been the case. When well, Mr Spackman was not only assiduous iu his profession, but was one of the best known anglers in the colony. He is the author of the pamphlet on trout fishing in New Zealand, which is the best thing I know to send to a friend in Australia or the Old Country who contemplates paying a visit to our shows to try onr rivers with rod and line. For such a thorough sportsman as Spackman to have to pass month after month in bed is an affliction which deserves

some compensation at Fate's hands. So I don’t grudge W.H.S. his Z'13,500. May he live long to enjoy it I

The Premier, with the Treasurer and the Minister of Lands, are like many other fortunate people, disporting themselves in festive Christchurch to-day. Though Wellington still keeps three Ministers, only one of them is fit for duty. Sir Patrick Buckley, who has the Judgeship still under offer, is convalescent, arid Mr Cadman has also taken a distinct turn for the better, but I don’t think the latter will be fit for hard work yet awhile.