"ALL VERY DELIGHTFUL."

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1398, 26 March 1912, Page 6

"ALL VERY DELIGHTFUL."

MR. 11. 11. TUVING'S VERDICT ON XKW ZEALAND.. Mr. 11. ]i. Irving, who returned to Sydney yesterday (says (he Sydney "Daily Telegraph" of Man:!! i:i) sneaks in glowing terms of liis experiences in New Zealand. "It was all very delightful," is hi-; verdict. "Tile people are iino audiences to play to, and do yon know that 'Damlof was tar and away the most popular play of :i!i over there? That is something one can bo proud of, is it not? Next niter 'Hamlet' came 'The Bells.' "They are certainly [.'mat theatre-going people in Xeu- Zcai-.md. A iact worth noting is that prohibition does not seem to affect the theatre-going tendencies of the people—and this, it seems to me, is a very good answer to (hose temperance people who assert that tl>.o theatre is a place of ?iii. Why. even in luvercargill, I am told, the theatres .since prohibition have been better attended than before." For Inverceivfdll, be it remembered, is one of the "dry areas." A member of the company relate-i that in ij.e street one day a man in the worst state of intoxication ho had ever sc-.ni bumped against Mm, and then, in a hoarse whisper, exclaimed, "-Don't tell anybody, but I'm sliickered." It is not Sir. jrviiig who tells this story, but it reveals that erring human naturii may be much the same in prohibition ureas as elsewhere. Invited to state what lie, as a visitor, thought of (he effects of prohibition, so far as accommodation for travellers was concerned, Ifr. Irving said he thought generally ttic effect was not very μ-ood. in Invercargill, however, a new hotel, io bo conducted on teetotal principle?, was being erected, and it would be interesting to sec how this experiment resulted. It puzzled him to knaw why the prohibition movement should have been so actively taken up in New Zealand, which was not a drunken country v "Jt is not -half so drunken,'' says lie, "as the- United Kingdom. I was also struck very much by the fact that , the Governor of the Invercargill prison, when I visited that institution, told me that he considered that th-3 chief cause of crimo was not drunkenness at all, but that the want of parental control was one important factor, and the other was idleness. In the places in New Zealiuid where prohibition lias not been carried, for instance, the people seemed to me to drink very little." Mr. Irving, whose interest in criminology is well known, took the opportunity in Ni-iv Zealand to acquire a great deal of information upon this subiect, and was particularly interested in t'ho records of the famous Kaiwarra murde rcase, in which a man named Chei:iis was sentenced to death, had \\i> sentence afterwards commuted to imprisonment for life, was released at Hie time of the celebration of the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria, and P'.uk'd by committing suicide. In his visit to.(he ir.verearciU prison, he found an interestiiig experiment proceeding in the Irc.itmeiit of criminal.-.. They oro there encouraged to learn trades, and one man was actually studying to become an cnsinesi , . Visitors are allowed to converse with them, , and ho spoke to several, and altogether lie was very impressed with the humanity of their treatment, as compared with that in some English prisons.