Anything AND Everything.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume II, Issue 68, 12 November 1891, Page 1

Anything AND Everything.

sweep oh !

Rabid reformers are prone to confuse the instrument itself with the abuse thereof. Drink, billiards, racing, betting, sweeps, cards, etc., must be bad per se because some people come to grief through excessive indulgence in one or aU. “ Est modus in ?ebus" was Bishop Welwyn’s motto. Be temperate in all things. Temperance and prohibition are two widely different positions to hold. “ Because thou art virtuous are we to have no more cakes and ale ? ” Sit Toby remarks to Malvolio (happy quotation I) in “ Twelfth Night.” Sweeps must be swept off the face of the earth because some employees embezzle money and because those who are lucky enough to win large sums are liable to become demoralised. By parity of reasoning, banks, companies, stocks, shares, etc., should be annihilated because much robbery, gambling, swindling, and iniquity has been perpetrated by the abuse of such mercantile conveniences. The spirit of gambling is an impulse, which, like other human energies, becomes good or evil according to the channel into which it shall be directed. Even when it runs to excess, and in the wrong direction, it is a stream which may to a certain extent be controlled, and forced to produce some good out of much evil. Speculation in some form the British public will have. New Zealand, like virtuous Malvolio, abolished sweeps. Australia, like Sir Toby, continued to indulge. But the matter did not end there. Reciprocity was wanting. All our investments went away, and granting that, according to the logic of chance, a proportionate share of prizes, fell to New Zealanders, still the ten per cent, on £lOO,OOO, or some such trifle, was annually annexed by our Australian cousins. Well! either let us have “free trade ” in sweeps or absolute protection. £lO,OOO a year is too much to pay for a sentimental fad. Can it not be saved ? Certainly. Remove the embargo upon sweeps in New Zealand ; trust the public investors to look after their own interests, but let Government exact a substantial guarantee from promoters of sweeps, and tax the money put through a sweep as they do totalisators. The proceeds of such a tax might be set apart for some special purpose—say subsidies to Charitable Aid Boards—and would in a way be a “ compulsory insurance ” fund, the contributors to which would undoubtedly enjoy a full share of the benefits. After all, most of the pounds invested and lost in betting and sweeps would probably be worse spent. Legislation in such matters is practically of no avail. The world is full of dangers and temptations; he who succumbs to any one may, like a little child, “ beat the naughty chair against which he knocks his head ! ” That is about as rational a proceeding as to blame the thing itself for its abuse, instead of . bearing in mind the old adage, “ It is not always what you do, but the way in which you do itl ” There is a golden mean between the miser and the prodigal, the puritanical hypocrite and the abandoned profligate. Surely it is possible to hit that mean

without the interminable interference of grandmotherly legislation.

ON THE LAWN AND PADDOCK AT ELLERSLIE. Some of the most noticeable dresses were worn by well-known Auckland belles. Mrs. W. Bloomfield was a vision of loveliness in a dovegrey cashmere, with large grey hat and ostrich tips. Another exquisite costume was worn by one of our favourite belles, Miss Nessie Kilgour. She was arrayed in a black and white tweed, white vest, and ostrich feathers. Mrs. Deniston, in dove-grey cashmere, trimmed with white silk and braided with silver, made a decided dead heat with Mrs. W. Bloomfield for the honours of “ belle of the lawn.” Grey was the predominating colour worn. Amongst other, Mrs. H. Jackson. Miss M. Firth, Miss C. Firth, Misses D. and M. Taylor, Mrs. Dr. Lewis, Miss Minnie Buckland, Mrs. Dr. Purchas, Mrs. Duthie, Miss Ethel Buckland, and Miss Gipsy Walker all wore the favourite colour. Miss Annie Lewis looked very sweet in a salmon tweed, black velvet Gainsbro’ hat and ostrich feathers. Miss Masefield looked very charming in a well-fitting fawn tweed with large hat and feathers to match. Her little sister was seen flitting about the lawn in a pretty frock of peacock-blue and large white hat and sash of surah silk. Mrs. Devore wore a dress of black silk and bonnet of scarlet poppies, which suited her admirably. Her daughter wore fawn tweed, with hat to match. Miss Whitaker wore grey spotted sateen with white silk sleeves; Miss Wilkie, salmon pink silk, covered with black grenadine; Miss Pierce, well-fitting black silk and black feather hat, very stylish. Miss Clara Berry looked very pretty in a fawn dress trimmed with brown velvet and sailor hat to match. Her companion, Miss Fannie Dickey, wore a blue spotted print with Vandyke lace trimmings. Miss Mary Macdonald, in black and white silk, made a pretty picture. Mrs. Morrin, in brown tweed costume, looked very stylish, as also did Mrs. H. Norton and Miss E. Firth, in dark blue serge and scarlet pipings. Mrs. Forbes {nee Miss Cashel) also wore dark blue, with pretty bonnet, white lilies of the valley clustered together on her soft fair hair. Mrs. Walker (Ellerslie) looked very handsome in a heliotrope cashmere, braided with gold, and bonnet to match. Although so many pretty govvns were worn, the tout ensemble was cold and cheerless until Miss Heywood, a visitor from the South, relieved the monotony in a dark red cashmere, trimmed with silk to match, and white ostrich feather hat. She looked very stylish indeed, and certainly does her Southern sisters credit for maintaining their well-known reputation for style. Miss Wood and Miss King, also visitors from the South, were respectively dressed in neat frocks of blue and cream delaine. Miss Knight, in white a,nd heliotrope, looked very nice. Miss Jeannie Thompson, in sea-green delaine and bonnet to match; Mrs. Blair, grey costume and bonnet to match ; Miss Beatrice Elliott, in blue (navy), with white spots and sailor hat, looked very sweet and ladylike. There were many other pretty costumes worn, but the exigencies of space forbids their notice on this occasion.

At amateur performances amusing incidents often occur which are not always recorded. In the island of Jersey on one occasion a hand-

some stripling was cast for the part of “ Pauline” in the “ Lady of Lyons.” He was a great masher, and thought no small beer of himself and his histrionic powers. Having persuaded a number of lady friends to provide bouquets for an ovation at the end of the second act, he played his part with such confidence and ardour as to secure the raising of the curtain at the proper time, besides— ent re nous— tipping the curtain men in order to make assurance doubly sure. The piece was given in winter, and as it was bitterly cold, our Adonis, in dressing the part, fortunately did not divert himself of his unmentionables, but merely rolled them up as far as the knees. The curtain fell on the tableau amid rounds of applause, and the word was given to raise, it again. Pauline, in anticipation of a magnificent ovation and bouquets galore, stepped forward, but alas! got just too near the roller, which catching his robe rolled it up as the curtain ascended, revealing to the astonished audience, first a pair of shapely legs in white stockings, and next a very loud check pair of “continuations” rolled up above the knees. The yells of the delighted gods drowned the frantic shrieks of the unhappy youth, who was elevated in mid-air before the stage-manager became aware of the contretemps and rang the curtain down. Pauline could not be persuaded to face the music again, and the play came to an abrupt end. Most of those present were' content with the entertainment, and did not ask to have the money returned. In a recent issue of one of our contempories an anecdote is related of Sir George Grey and a young civil servant, the motif of which turns upon the alleged kleptomaniac tendencies of the youth. The story reveals a deliberate cruelty so foreign to Sir George Grey’s wellknown kindliness of heart as absolutely to convince us of its falsehood. But another little story which we give is quite characteristic of the Nestor of New Zealand. It seems that some person at Wellington really canvassed the Auckland members in behalf of Dr. Laishley’s K.C.M.G. In due course Sir George Grey was approached and sounded on the subject. He is said to have gravely replied that without doubt Dr. Laishley had spent much time, money and trouble upon the collection and compilation of most valuable educational statistics, but that for services so signal, the empty title sought he deemed far too inadequate a recognition to be entertained for one moment. The combination of sound sense with diplomatic tact and gentle irony displayed in such a reply is quite in keeping with the character of one who is not only a statesmen, but the modern example of Chaucer’s “ perfect gentle knight.”

Various accounts have been published of the newspaper printed in a mangle by Henry Falwasser in the year 1 of this Colony, but so ! far credit has never been awarded to the actual printer. It was Mr. John Williamson who made the ink, set up the type, and most ingeniously turned a common washing mangle into a fairly effective substitute for a printing press. For three months Mr. Williamson continued to print his newspaper with his novel machine until the importation of a real printing press relieved him from so arduous a task. Pity it is that the historic mangle in full working order, with type and rollers fixed, could

not have been preserved. No more interesting relic enriches our Museum or Art Gallery. It is almost needless to say that Mr. John Williamson became one of our foremost public men, and left behind him a record which for usefulness and probity is unsurpassed in the annals of New Zealand.