Wellington’s Sight Life.

Hokitika Guardian, 15 January 1926, Page 1

Wellington’s Sight Life.

YOUTH AND ACE—AND THE JAZZ. Night life! how the expression calls up mental visions, indistinct but the more alluring therefor, of New York’s “Great White Way ”; of Paris and the Montmartre, the Latin quarter, the Moulin Rouge; of London and Giro’s, and the various other night clubs of that world metropolis. Halfknown. or totally unknown, the vagueness of the average person’s knowledge imbues these places with an opalescent allurement, whose swiftly changing tones preclude the possibility, as the desire is also precluded to examine too meticulously. Night life! it is something exotic, something foreign —something that the average citizen does not connect normally with Wellington, for instance. Tt has been said by the master of paradox, G. TC. Chesterton, that “it is possible to so concentrate on a molehill that one forgets that one is standing on a mountain.” Conversely it is possible to stand so close to a mountain that one is conscious only of the molehills. It takes a fresh mind seeing everything with the unstalcd completeness of a. panoramic vision to get the picture complete. ECONOMY TN DRESS.

A “Times” reporter recently set out to discover if Wellington really boasted n night life proper. He was somewhat doubtful. Wellington seemed so ultra-respeetahlc—so business-like despite the shortness of its flappers skirts, and the challenging glace of provocative eyes. He thought that the winds and the rain washed such things out of Wellington’s mind, and he set put to see.

Cabarets! that was tho idea! Night life was associated in his mind with cabarets and jazz. Of course there must he cocktails, and low-hacked dresses preferably. So he drifted into one where the blare of a saxaphono drifted out through open windows to the crowded street below. Blaring, clanging, with tho insistent tantalising rhythm of jazz, the music filled the room with swirling waves of sound. 'l'lie floor was crowded; couples slid, trotted, syncopated to the jangling dash of tho orchestra ; at tables round the room others were sitting, smoking, and watching the dancers intently. Intentness seemed to he the keynote of the scheme.

The dance finished, and the dancers drifted to the tables. Everyone lit cigarettes, talked somewhat feverishly, disconnectedly. A bottle was lifted from the floor and everyone drank . laughed some more. A girl swung her hare shoulders and tapped with her foot to the rhythm of a tune which was running through her mind. Another called up to a member of the orchestra, using a nickname. Tt was a. request for a particular dance, and he replied accommodatingly: “Surest tiling vou know, kid!” ON COMMON GROUND. The reporter glanced round the room curiously, anxious to know who these people were. The democracy of modern dress ensures that provided the wearer possesses the conventional evening clothes it is impossible to tell externally whether they arc peers or popolicemen, society women or sales girls, A reporter's acquaintance is a varied one, however, and Here there was no mistake ; practically the whole clientele of the place wore shop girls and clerks out for an evening’s dissipation. Tn their faces, their jerky conversation and.movements, there was expressed tho conscious determination to he dissipated. The music started again, and the tables were deserted. Everyone danced. All were young—in the early twenties. Rut there was no gaiety apparent on the floor. No one spoke; eon set nus effort was expressed on all faces—no. not all, for occasionally a girl danced with eyes shut in an abandon of enjoyment. Here at any rate all were young, and youth dances as naturally as it breathes. But at the next place he went to youth was conspicuous hv its absence. The clients of this establishment were mostly middle-aged—men and women. Here the cocktails were more conspicuous, as if those consuming them required their aid to acquire vicariously the youth that had passed. Hero again the seriousness apparent in the other cabaret was even more pro-

pounced in the races of the dancers. They tool,- their pleasures sadly, and required the cocktails to keep going. Perhaps they realised that they had only n few more years in which, even with the help of the cocktails, such things would he possible, and were making the host of them. Iliov were all respectable, and deadly, deadly dull. YOUTH .AND AGE. But a third place proved more exciting—or perhaps the fact that it was approaching midnight allowed the cocktails more time to molt the reservation imposed by convention. Youth and ago wore here mixed indiscriminately "tables were littered with cigarette butts and empty coffee cops. Puddles of liquor were on their polished surfaces and dripped on to the floor. A girl who looked 16. and was proliabl.v more, hanged on the table with a glass to attract the attention of the half-dozen other people of her party. “I’ll tell you a story,” she erieii and laughed. “There was once n jew- —” The story was decidedly risqueo, but no one appeared to be interested. and she relapsed in sulky silence. At the other tables, despite the fact that the story’must have been audible over half the room, no one even turned round.

“ Let’s go down to .Jack’s flat. It’s too early to go home,” someone sug-

gests. The idea is hailed with delight and chattering the party moved out of the room as the hand, in the hush of the midnight hour, played the conventional bars of tlio National Anthem. A whispered word attracted the reporter s attention: “ No, we’re waiting for supper. Better stay too. Plenty of room for evervbodv. YYon’t mind. RETROSPECT. Outside the moon was shining brilliantly from a cloudless sky. Over the eit-y was the calm of eternal night—the

natural time for rest. In the wide sweep of the suburbs, the homes of the citizens of Wellington lay darkened, hardly a light showing save where tlie lines of lamp-posts indicated a street. A peace breathed over the city which was in strong contrast to the jazzshattered atmosphere the reporter had left. And suddenly ho remembered the inimitable Mistber Dooley’s summingup of New York’s night life: — “ Five thousand people in New York,” he said, “do the things that get into the pa-apers. The other five million do like me friend Hinnessev. They go to the children’s break-up concert at the school, and to Coney Island of a Sunday, and they wurruk at a useful thrade every day.” Wellington has its night life—the ennhrets are only one phase of it—hut it does not affect the large bulk of the people. And, frankly, even what there is of it does not seem very convincing. Sinners should not tie conscious of sin, and cocktails and smoking only become harmful when those who indulge in, them cease to feel that by so doing they are being daring.