THE CLUBMAN.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, 21 November 1912, Page 6

THE CLUBMAN.

“ M.C.K.,” in the “ Dominion,” throws out an important suggestion re strikes, but I would beg of the knights of the pigskin not to take the talented journalist too seriously. Referring to the Waihi trouble he discourses: —‘‘Tell me, Hippolyte, is this Monsieur Semple hanged yet? There is a man of the most brave. He declare he will go to the gallows before surrendering. He cry, ‘show me the gallows, that I may defy the world entire.’ But the policeman say to him, ‘move on, dear Mister.' Bob weeps; he implore that one bring the gallows. No one respond. For there is no gallows. Is the strike not a success? One tells me Monsieur Semple says he has scored a victory of the greatest.’! To which his friend responds) —“He has been as victorious as the Turks, my old, He chose the wrong place for the strike. If I wish to paralyse society, I know what to do—l will convert the jockeys. Figure you. A strike of the jockeys on the morning of the Cup. Bourn! Society would ccl apse! No other strike matters.”

The age of chivalry is not past! Witness an incident which is recorded in a London paper: —There was a crush in the pit and the anaemiclocking girl stood with the latecomers behind the last bench. The young man in front of her, comfortably seated, was not too absorbed in the musical comedy to note that the girl looked tired as she doggedly stood out the first act. He rose when the curtain fell. ‘‘Would you,” he asked pushing past her, ‘‘like to mind my seat while I go out for a drink?”

The irony of fate was vividly exemplified in the case of one of the entombed Mount Lyell miners, whose disastrous demise has arrested public sympathy. In the case in point the miner had bought a ticket in Tattersail’s sweep on the Melbourne Cup, with the result that its number annexed the £lO,OOO prize. The sweep promoters have forwarded the amount stated to the relatives of the deceased, with kindly expressions of sympathy, and the hope that their anguish may be somewhat assuaged by their unexpected monetary betterment.

The question of tipping appeals to us all, and decry the prevailing practice as may, the whole of us are responsible for its existence. And ever will be, for every man on the move hungers after that little extra attention which brightens up life and tends to make one smile in the face of his brother man. Worthy services rendered additional to those demanded will ever command increased recompense, and an obliging hotel waiter or housemaid knows well the truth thereof. As to the amounts gleaned by the excess attendance, they may be guaged by the statement of an employee in a Christchurch hotel. Speaking on the Show Week rush, he said that it brought grist to the mill, but did not attain the plane of Riccarton Week. For the past two years the agricultural and pastoral carnival had £l5, and he considered that sum to be about the average of what a popular man in his position who did his duties faithfully might expect.

A New York correspondent of a scientific turn of mind forwards me the following thesis which may prove of interest to those of my friends who frequent Point Chevalier, Cheltenham, and other such attractive retreats:—A- lovelorn microbe met by chance, at a swagger bacteroidal dance, a proud bacillion belle, and she was . first of the animalculae, or organism saccharine, she w r as the protoplasmic queen, the microscopical pride and pet of the biological smartest set, and so this infinitesimal swain evolved a pleading low refrain: ”O lovely metamorphic germ, what futile scientific term can well describe your many charms? Come to these embryonic arms then hie away to my cellular home, and be my little diatiom!” His epithelium burned with love, he swore by molecules above she’d be his own gregarious mete, or else he would disintergrate, this amorous mite of a parasite pursued the germ both day and night and ’neath her window often played this Darwin-Huxley seranade—he’d warble to her every day this rhizopodical

this roundelay: “O, most primordial type of spore, I never met your like before, and though a microbe has no heart, from you, sweet germ, I’ll never . part, we’ll sit 'beneath some fungus growth till dissolution claims us' both! ” There’s music and music. Music that hath power to charm the savage breast, and the other sort that arouses all the savagery of primitive iran. St. Matthew’s bells come under the second category. Is there any demoniacal din compared to them, when they commence their cacophonous chimes? They make night hideous! I venture to suggest that there is more profanity propagated in the purlieus of St. Matthew’s through their jarring discordancy, than could ever be outweighed by the prayers ottered within its sacred precincts, and I do not hold this belief alore.

I am in receipt, in common I suppose with hundreds of others, of a circular setting forth the merits of a Hamburg State lottery. The possibilities of securing a more or less large fortune are depicted in glowing colours, and the information is attached that as the stock of tickets is very Lmited, an ear.y application for such is imperative. Which really reminds one of our own tricks of trade. The circular is accompanied by a specimen ticket and a portrait of an English labourer and his sweetheart who are alleged to have won £12,100 by an investment of six shillings. The allurements of the scheme are striking, and it really appears as if prizes are going to be thrown at subscribers. But one can hardly image the authorities of Hamburg inviting Dominion residents to violate the anti-gambling law, and it is problematical if any of those desirous of essaying their fortunes in the way suggested will succeed in passing their postal matter through our new palatial Queen-street building.

Writes a woman correspondent:— “Until the advent of the suffragette the principal fund of humour from which the penny-a-line joke-maker and twopence-a-scratch caricaturist derived his livelihood was the. curiosity of wcman. Of the curiosity of man there was nothing said —or

what was said was promptly howled down and disbelieved. A huge crowd • at the bottom of Queen-street the other day—ail of them men, too — made the average passer-by wonder what was in progress—a murder or free fight. Men jostled and pushed each other and tried to climb over each other to see what was happening. A lew hardy specimens even climbed up the fire-escape of an adjacent hotel. .People asked questions, trod on each other’s toes, and kicked each other in the efforts to see over the heads in front of them, and what do you think was the cause of this gathering of representative man —for representative it was, from learned legal lights to the loafers and newsboys? An old horse attached to a dray was getting its hoofs blacked by one of the bootblacks who sit in the gutter down in Customs-street! The curiosity of woman! She hasn’t

any, that is, if you make the comparison cdicus, and place it alongside the curiosity of Man.” * :1: * The tone of politics appears to be improving. Which of course is sarcasm. Once upon a time it was the “hon. the member for so and so and the party with whom he is associated.” ' Nowadays it is au fait to say the ‘‘lying individual who last rent the atmosphere w.th h's cachinnations and the contemptible gang of swindlers and thieves who are behind him!” More than one member of the Opposition will perhaps find that the can fits. « * * A ballot has been taken of London actors and actresses on the question of the Sunday opening of theatres, music-halls, and cinematograph houses. Three thousand have declared themselves against Sunday performances, while only one hundred and twenty-eight were in favour of the suggested seventh day’s labour. Life on the stage is not wholly strewn with roses, and of all caterers for enjoy-, ment in this life it must be conceded 1 that those who stand behind the footlights have most need for one. day’s actual rest. £$ $£ ifS $ The members of the Karori Borough Council some' time ago granted the use of the municipal recreation ground

to the Lawn Tennis Association, in order that devotees of the game-might follow their bent on the day of rest. This has incensed the unco guid section, and at a recent meeting of the Council an endeavour was made to rescind the permission. Councillors, however, looked at the matter in a calm., critical lights and decided not to interfere with existing arrangements. One expressed the opinion that if the Council were conscientious they would prohibit work in the borough on Sundays, but he could not see that playing tennis was in any way worse than working. The trend of thought is fast seizing upon the fact that Sunday to be really a day of rest must be enjoyed in a rational manner, and it is only reasonable to argue that if playing tennis is wicked or contrary to religious belief, then travelling by ferry boats, trams, or vehicle of any sort is likewise perditions. With the approaching summer, young New Zealand is making wide arrangements for his and her Sunday enjoyment. Our fleet of yachts will, in the course of a few weeks, be once more in active commission, and I doubt me if many in this community will be found to condemn the healthful and altogether sane way of spending one’s day of labour cessation by boating on the sparkling waters of our magnificent harbour and gulf way, or by indulging in a game of tennis on any of the fine courts to be found at some of our picturesque week-end resorts.

I am occasionally asked by visitors to our city why free organ recitals are not in vogue at the Town Hall. The number of people who so far have heard the magnificent tones of the municipal organ is very few, and the bulk of the community have no idea of the value of Mr Brett’s generous gift. For it is now the property of the people, and it is due to them that they should enjoy the upliftingstrains which, under the master-hands of our gifted organists, are made to peal throughout the Concert Chamber. But at one shilling per head for admission the people are not going to, revel in music’s charms. By the last'-Snail from Australia I received programmes of the grand opera organ recitals now being performed in Sydney Town Hall. There, Mr Ernest Truman, the eminent musician, draws crowded audiences to hear his monthly masterly renditions of Wagner s “Das Rheingold,” Offenbach’s “Tales of Hoffmann,” Wagner’s “Ring des Nibelungen ” and his charming “Walkuren” and other masterpieces, whilst intermediate recitals of lighter operas are regularly given. The admission to these treats is free, and the poorest Sydneyite has the opportunity of attending the feasts of melody. And moreover, the -Sydney municipal authorities provide free mid-day recitals whereby the tired business men can, for a brief period, find respite from, the cares of the world. Why not a. similar state of affairs in Auckland?

The introduction of moving pictures into a Sydney church has aroused the ire of Australasian divines. A few, a very few, of the more advanced clergymen, discern, however, that the Church must move with the times, and as almost every conventicle now provides a more or less concert programme to attract . the straying wayfarer, there is nothing illogical in presenting further enticement and. appealing to congregations through their sense of vision and love for the artistic. But lantern services have for years been in vogue in England and America, and even as the old Calvinists had at last to bow the head to the “box o’ whustles,” so the modern parson will in time become appeased to twentieth century modes of worship. As I wend my way in and around the various halls of worship in this city I find provided for me beautiful little musical surprises, and in some cas'es a full programme of entrancing vocal and instrumental excerpts. The power of the preacher to draw a congregation is almost a thing of the past, for orators are few and far between, and the bulk of the modern men who have been called totheir high office are disastrously dreary in their utterances.