PREACHERS AND PLAYERS.

Inangahua Times, Volume IV, Issue 27, 11 June 1877, Page 2

PREACHERS AND PLAYERS.

" Snyder " thus moralises in the Poverty Bay Standard on Preachers and Players :— 1 There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in yotir philosophy.' I think I could tell my friends there are things in thi3 which, if his philosophy did dream of, he would have to call in a first-doss interpreter to make them understood. Here we are in the midst ot dull times. 1^ know it because people tell me so. Things were never so bad ; never, sir, upon my honor. You couldn't sir,— you couldn't get change for half a crown all over the town ; and what a pound note is like has faded out of memory like a vision of the past. I hear this and more of the like but then I can't understand it. A theatrical troupe passes by, and puts out some flaming placards; a eha'ge of five shillings is made for the right of occupying a few inches of rough plank, with ever so many splinters about iis, and there is a rush of people— mad to be first for the buying of tickets. In a few minutes after the doors of the hall are opened there is close upon a hundred pounds of money stowed in the place, and probably two hundred pound 3 worth of milHnery. I don't object to this any more than the proprietor of the theatrical company. But what I do object to 13 that, while we often spend, at the '' vcrv shortest possible notice, a hundred pounds to hear the singing of songs we allo«r our churches to remain in a state of indebtedness, and our ministers to wonder where there is a probability of tlie-current qnarter!s stipend being paid-, the said stipend being considerably less than a journeyman carpenter makes upon a bit of contract work. I don't think ifc very creditable, but I believe it to be too true —that a clever actor of the presrnt day will draw more money than mosJt eioqnent of preachers. I heard one little story, in which it was stated that when a dramatic company wis announced to appear, upon an elderly laundress applying for her washing bill, instead of receiving the money, she. was. asked for the loan of five shilling* for the purchase of a ticket. The laundress lent it like a cherub.