OUR THEATRICAL POPULATION.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1914, 13 April 1880, Page 3

OUR THEATRICAL POPULATION.

The delay which has occcurred in publishing the census returns, coupled with the rapid growth of the colony (says the “Post ”), deprive the statistics given of a good deal of their value. Still there are some facts disclosed which even at this late date may be read with a certain amount of interest. For instance, we learn that on the 3rd of March, 1878, there wore eighty-seven actors and eighty-seven actresses in the colony. Of these by far the greater number were located in Wellington, which possessed thirty-seven gentlemen and twenty-four ladies connected with the stage. For some mysterious reason, billiard-table keepers and markers are included under the same sub-order. Of these there were 115 in the colony. There are also silty others described as “ corrected with exhibitions,” and some curious examples are included in this category. For instance, one gentleman describes himself somewhat vaguely and ungrammatically as “ Italian Opera House Business,” and another calls himself a “Thespian”—whatever that may mean. Then we have one child performer, one acrobat, one trapcnist, one gambling house keeper (Chinese), nine gamblers (also Chinese), and one lady modestly describes herself as simply a “theatrical.” Three bookmakers are also placed by the Registrar-Gr.oral, some what facetiously os we think, under this heading. No doubt they are sometimes “connected with exhibitions ” —and those not altogether of a very agreeable or edifying character—but it is hardly kind of the Registrar-General to intimate as much in his official returns. The classifications adopted in these statistics, however, do seem a liitlo eccentric nometimes to outsiders. For instance, a man whoso occupation, although not very savoury, is certainly quite indispensable until we have settled our drainage difficulty, is for some occult reason described as “ working and dealing in clav, earthenware, and glass.” A comcterykeapor comes under the heading of “ Others connected with religion,” and a lessee of Turkish baths under that of “Others engaged in board and lodging.”