Sister Cities.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 7, 3 October 1907, Page 5

Sister Cities.

lI.—CHRISTCHURCH. ... \ '. ■ < ' SLEEPY-HEADED MONOTONY. Almost as soon as you arrive at tho quiot and friendly railway station of Christchurch you realise that you are in a town full of atmosphere. Tho very porters seom . placid, settled iron, with the rooted Southern disinclination to wander to. less peaceful: regions. You "ha'vo conic, no doubt, from Wellington, on a fine Horning in early summer,-and as you gather your baggage and pass through, tho-station to 'the; 'roc of, gesticulating cabmen perched on the dickeys-, of their sparkling hansoms, you admire tho beautiful horses audit ocpurs to you that- they ' look so .well because they havo no hills to climb, but spend their lives' spinning along smooth wido .streets plentifully hemmed' with quiet trees arid, sleepy gardens. You expand—there is iv lift to-the heart in this glorious blue morning with its air of warm yapourised gold, and if you have any poetry in you-it comes out' in tho drive to your hotel. ' Not a hotel of ■■bricks and iuortar, facing other bricks and mortar, -gloomy in a shadow. Ten to one it. has trees about it, or near it , - with birds in them, and perhaps, bright flowers,' and.'the lawn along the river bank is hard by. ; Not in a Hurry. People in , Christchurch are not in a hurry:' • The concentrated haste of Lambton Quay and Willis Street occurs to you as; a, painful thing. Bicycles spin rapidly through • the ' streets, to :be sure,' but ; the , streets are wide, and :tho riders so amazingly skilful that, you almost; overlook them.. '; The very tramcars are urbanely broad and comfortable, and almost noiseless in comparison with the ; squealing and .roarihgv juggernauts that lurch through the',deep canyons of our own; streets.- Cabranks are plentiful, and 'tho .cabmen are placid and look as if they would under-chargo.; yon. But even m ' Christchurch the cabman- is riot-what he" seems. And through 'the bland and dignified orderliness, breaking, ilito'wide squares and'spaces, full of . distances. aiid, green>trees, the river winds--so softly and -so brightly.. "What ir it is only of creek dimensions ? Its banks are wide lawns from end,to end, studded- with elms and- oaks, sycamores and chestnuts, and: "bordered in ' the ,water-margm with.great'daTk-grcen glossy willows that-droop down, into tho quiet river. Very English. Christchurch people like- you to say. that their city is very English. If to be full of trees, grey stone buildings,red, • wide streets, , bright . gardens,"- all in'_. a- /harmony under tho bluest of skies, is to be English, Christchurch is certainly so. And a notable -English;characteristic .is obstinate - immovability, and hostility to: progressive ideas.; In that" respect Christchurch is so English that it would have hanged Darwin. For pocket reasons it has developed a .business in frozen mutton, and embraced elcctric 'last. of tho cities to N -fall into line —but in its. 'heart,'.it is Tudor,- AnglrirSaxon, and" it experiences a. comfortable homo-, like feeling when it roads of the days before; the - Norman ■ Conquests ■ Flatness Preferred.,, -./■ Most . visitors, oppressed.; by- , the.calm -tlvat gives, the city the.air.of, being engaged in perpetual .obsequies; complain that the city is flat. " I like ;it .-flat," the Christchurch: man retorts,; much!like the man'who, assured: by his harber that his hair was thin, said he-'liked it thin, and. further ! assured that, it was scurfy; said he,preferred it scurfy. The flatness of Christchurch has bred 'into, the Christchurch'' man those qualities that distinguish him when ho js abroad. It has narrowed i his outlook, driven him'in upon himself, and given him ,a -healthy contempt for hills curved streets. ~. It has made him a landsman, and restricted his sea-fondness to a regard'.for the wetness; of the long breakers on the New,, Brighton , beach; It lias so enclosed him that lie has divided up into sets and classes, and lias settled down into hisjgrooye beyond removal. This- is.: the most Interesting thing about the.Christchurch people. Theiraristocracy, middle class, and lower class are as sharply defined as in England. The Wellington man' rushes about all day, with his brain locked to a business " idea. In Christchurch - he .. strolls -, leisurely through the day, thinking : most of the- time of his fellow-citizens. Christchurch people' aro more personal,. more self-conscious, and more critical and .contemplative of each other than the citizens of . Wclling T ton.' Fixed Habits. They aro full of habits, too. They have fixed habits in respect "of. thoir tailors, their amusements, their tobacconists, their tea-shops) their hotels. Class caste is very.' strong. And; .yet in some little things the aristocrats are_ oddly, unconventional; Lounge suits in the dress circlo" of tho theatre are quito common. " The thing" - - and. "not the thing" are mighty phrases in . onr pleasaat , Southern' city. . The folk go \.on ■ knowing and not knowing tho same people .till the end. _ How the visitors to the Exhibition must havo disturbed ' the community's. comfortahlo east !, . Fancy having Aucklanders and Westlandors jostling in I Sacrilege I Open-Air Folk. Curiously, Christchurch, except in spots, looks almost shabby on Saturday nights—the time when Wellington is at'its best and brightest. On Sunday morning tho square is full of people bent-on" tho Brighton beachj the rocks and sands of Sumner.' or tho bracing climb over tho Port Hills to Governor's Bay, and the trams fro away packed—leisurely, onon-air folk these ■ Christchurch people, with a keen nose fcr pleasant sunlights and holiday decorum. Ideas are scarce in tho South, and so they, are never tired of comparing 'Sumner and New It is the staple subject of. conversation, next to the nor'-wester; Ages hence some palsied man will he telling the other palsied veteran that he still prefers Sumner. On holidays tho crowd that packs the Square, in which . all the" tramlines converge, is an exhilarating collection of pleasure-sceker3, something like an English Bank Holiday crowd, with graeiousness and clean;'pleasant .ease in-place of noise-and vulgarity. But who can forget the .Square on Saturday night? The, Cathedral bell bangs in colossal " dongs" that set the world shaking; the cars whirr,' or, at rest, quiver with the drumming of the brake pumps; the Salvation Army blares with hymns, torches and brass; a socialist orator yells revolutionary remarks near "by: a little hand around a harmonium sing.nlain'tivoly ; drunk men fight in the midst of o crowd; the founders of the. ninetv-soven most -recent religions are dotted, all 1 over the■■ Square and deliver raucous- sermons ; each has its crtwl and its noise; and through''the bewildering clangour tho thour-auds rpa-ch and pass, and the newsboys yoll the eight'-o'clock editions.

Ten minutes from the Squaro is (loop peaco in the'heart of the beautiful park anil gardens—a heavenly woodland of elms and oaks and chestnuts, gold'and russet in tho autumn, beyond tho great lawns and dreaming trees and bright blossoms. And then tho rough turf rolls away to a distant belt of trees, over which ■ yon seo tho whito peaks of the far-away Alps. On fine mornings, afternoons, and nights, the river- is crowded with boats, winding in and . out of tho trees. And here the Christchurch folk doze away their days', in the intervals of mixing in. their civic business and gossiping of each other. Considering, ail these incentives to sleopy-headed monotony of type, it is surprising that so, many notable characters should 1)0 associated with the city, from tho Pilgrim Fathers idown through the years, to Mr. J. S. .Uuiiro. 'Is not Christchurch the home of learning? Are not Canterbury ColIgo and the Museum divine ."Abana and Pharphar, lucid streams" ? Is. not lliccarton Racecourse a 'Christduirclr institution ■ Did not Tony 'Wildin I *, and Mr. T.. E. Taylor come from Christchnreh ? After all, per-' -iiaps the Oiiri-ilcliurcli man really has .much to bo proud of. Ho is proud of his public men, and he knows 't.honr all, with affection or dislike, and! leaning against a post, has he not time to meditato. upon them? Is not the policeman too leisurely to movo him on? . ■ Intensely Civic. The citizen, in fact, is intensely civic, and' lie will pilot you for days through tho town to show you the beautiful improvements,. thn lawns, the flowerbeds, thd bridges, i tho daffodils under the gum-trees,'; tho • Victoria Squaro, where lawns and flowers have replaced the piles of mud and rubble, • near Tuck's old bakery where the writer bought biins in his schoolboy days. ' The newspapers tako keen delight iii discussing civic projects. They write fifty leaders per annum upon the 'Bunk ■ corner, fifty more ec the. proposal to turn John Godley's statue into, a pillar-box or pump, and they bristle with solemn considerations of questions relating to tho Museum, tramcars, college students, the college, tho Bishopis sermon, and tho marram grass'on the Sunmer beach.! It is a grave and pompaus society, in which everybody takes everybody olso very, very and nobody sees 'anything humorous ;'in;'anything—' where the civic spirit has reached its climax of an infantilo interest in' everybody's affairs—the affairs, that is to say, of everybody who is anybody. 'And the somebodys are kept in an official list, apparently. Or is it that, stay-at-homeuess and permanency have given Christchurch , tho, "strong parish spirit., of a little oldworld village? Certain it is that years seem to make no change' in tho I " well-known citizens." ■ Rus in Urfae. On Saturday you get tho " rus in urbe." ' The countryfolk are in town!in their Sunday clothes', wideeyed and lounging heavily, glueing their noses to tho windows, and thunderstruck at the bustlo! The bustle !1 .So once/ driving ;to Skippers, the writer bed pointed out to' him a shanty n3ar Deep Creek, far in the gorges beyond Quecnstown, in which lived an old lady, a pensioner, who once went to Queeustowii for a holiday-. She returned in two.days: she "could -not stand the rush of city life." BustJe is only a question of degree. \ And tho Christchurch people always each other on Saturdays that they- can pick out the. rural Visitors. 'Wellington visitors 'to - Christchurch.' cannot . detect the difference. , Yet in Carnival week, when the willows are in soft -.leaf, and* the ■ spring is .swelling into summory and tfie city. ,is ,a rush of cabs, frocks, theatres, starlight and warm nights, the Christchurch \mah hurries. -It takes him'the other fifty-one, weeks to recover. ,

What one remembers longest of all are the clamour of a thousand bells on still. Sunday mornings—it 'is a city of churches—and the nor'wester ihat swells in, hot and dustladen, and leaves you limp and longing for- a sea wind. ■ 1