PLEASURE.

Nelson Evening Mail, 29 October 1880, Page 4

PLEASURE.

< "Civi?" in the Otago Daily 'Ames writes i l — It was concerning an age long | ago that these lines were written of a 1 woman — " Q-race was in all her steps, Heaven in her eye, in every gesture dignity and love." But in those days clothes were not an encumbrance. I should like to know however,, if woman has evoluted downwards instead of up- ! wards, and she now delights in. concealing her true grace and dignity under a cloud of ghastly gewgaws. 1 ; worships : the sex— at; ■! & respectful distance — but ifc is with an effort 1 hat I discern the woman " nobly planned " 'through her present terrestrial enveron■menta. Then there'a another ' -thing that puzelea me, and that is the low standard of popular amusements.; ,The workman's paradise was measured by the old rhj m'. — " Eight hours for work, {eight hours for play, eight hours for ;sleep, and eie;ht shilling a day ;" abd I have not thpj least; objection, only I: often think the eignt tiours' play as the, hardest work of all. In the Btreets I jsee crowds of hobbledehoy 'larrikinß. ■after five o'clock Who have, been at work 'at something during the day, 'amusing [themselves in smoking, horse play, and the use not unfrequently of disgusting llanguage. In the theatre the dingy and unclean pit is best filled as a rule by the most outrageous sensational pieces. The public-house is always comfortably full, and the united fumes of bad tobacco and indifferent beer and spirits, doubtless, afford . high-elasß nourishment to the ideal instincts and the social faculties. Now and then "it is our pleasure to be drunk," but that no doubt, less so than it used to be. On Saturdays — speaking for the working classes — a very few assemble at cricket or other out-door games, and occasionally enjoy the delights of a broken leg or dislocated shoulder at footbali. Some few, no doubt, cultivate the sweet pleasures of the garden. But, on the whole, don't we take our pleasures rather sadly, and somewhat expensively? If we have a ball we must drees up, pi?, rather down, for it, and sit up or fctflod up all night to bug;

or be hugged by figures bekizdned appropriately for ifae occasion, in a heated atmosphere, to the sound (mostly) of execrable music. Couldn't we dance a little more often and not quite so late? Coulda't we dance, indeed, without bedizening at all! " [' JTis a mad world, my masters." Tide ridiculous things we do in the name of pleasure, and onehalf of which things I cannot even hint at, mark iis as nearer the ape than we think, and that we are very' slowly "working out the beast." Amongst the many • societies to : effect social reforms we need one (and why have we it notP) which I might for brevity term the anti-extravagance and vulgarity in dress and amusements society. It's a more important reform than even funeral reform, and the more I think of it the more the magnitude of the subject appals me. "Life would be tolerable but for its pleasures." But will our modern Pharisees touch such subjects with one of their little fingare? If they want to Christianize men, why don't they try first (or last) to humanise them a little*