Lancings

Free Lance, Volume II, Issue 103, 21 June 1902, Page 8

Lancings

Heie shall the Press the People's right maintain, Unawed by influence and unbnbed by gain , Here patriot Truth her glorious precepts aiaw, Pledged to Religion, Liberty, and Law "

SATURDAY, JUNE 21, 1902.

the man finds he is the only angel in the partnership, and the woma 1 gets a like hallucination This is usually called incompatibility of temperament "It is not good foa man to live alone, and the gentleman used m the illustration does not. It ends by the case being brought into the Divorce Court * * * Neither the Divoice Court noi the law of divorce is responsible for the incompatibility or the possible immorality The Court assists morality by parting "incompatible" persons who aie driven by domestic jars or incurable bias, or other cause, into leading irregular lives If there was no escape from what is to some a veritable hell upon earth, according to our correspondent the general morality would be higher Putting aside the old idea that matches are made in heaven, which, in these days of marriage registrars, won't hold water, is it not an equityable provision that persons who trangress the marital laws, and. shamelessly ignore their obligations, may be sundered ? -<• •* * If it was a case of a heavenly match, the persons wouldn't transgress anyhow There would be no temptation so to do The people most averse to divorce are those who are most happily married. Dame Fortune has been kmd to them They do not want escape Why should others not be obliged to put up with the miseries which marriage has bi ought upon them ? "They have made their couch ; let them lie on it 1 " But, is it quite fair that a person whom Providence has not overburdened with foresight and discrimination should be hampered all his or her life with an unfaithful partner, who may also be a drunken sot or a habitual criminal? <• •+ ■* To any ordinarily sensitive person it opens up a vista of the liveliest horror. Until science can devise some means whereby people can be, with certainty, brought into touch with their affinity, the Divorce Court must do its work. All the hands in horror upheld at the alleged immorality of divorce won't alter the facb that a human being's character is not revealed m thousands of cases until after marriage. Experience teaches that the person who rushes into matrimony, discovers his mistake, and tries to rush out per medium of the Divorce Court, has usually had sufficient punishment for his mdisci-etion. We can only congratulate our correspondent on having had more discrimination than many of his unfortunatelymated fellow beings, and hope that he may never need to have recourse to the knot-untying machinery of the Divorce Court.

Mr. John Gieger, an Amenoan trick violinist, has started on the Dix circuit m the South, and will soon be heie. • * * The engagement of Miss May Beatty to Mr Chas. Carter, of Pollard's Opera Company, which was contradicted some time ago, is again announced. * * # Mr. Harry Rickards lias his hands pretty full at present. He is the only Australian managei wlio is the lessee ot a theatre 1 in every capital of the Common w ealth Peace Night, Prince of Wales/s Bnthnight, and 'Recovery" Night weie evenings of much GaiPty m Dixs land throughout New Zealand. The collections amounted to £440 Auckland £170 Chnstchuieh £170 and Tom ins; Company in the Noith Island £100 Max O'Rell defies a good singei oi a good instrumentalist to make a hit in England or in America as John Smith Tom Brown, oi Dick Robinson Re says, you will not easily persuade an Englishman that an Anglo-Saxon can be a great aitist He must Italianize or Germanize his name before he can hope to oatch on. « * * At the ''Times" social, on Saturday night, I had the pleasure of listening to Miss Murphy and Miss Sime, the clever Dunedin girls, who are to play the leading feminine roles in the forthcoming amateur production of ''The Yeomen of the Guard." They are both very winsome young ladies, but I need not dwell on then looks, as I undeistancl their pictures appear in this week's Lance, and speak for themselves. Miss Murphy sang Tosti's "GoodBye," and displayed in it the charms of a well-trained and flexible soprano voice, very even in its quality, and notably bright and clear in "the upper register. In the part of Elsie I have no doubt she will make a gieat "hit." • • • Miss Si me, who is to take the part of Phoebe, which many people think lias even greater scope for display than that of Elsie, did not sing. But she recited. And her manner of recitation quite convinced me she has a good deal of histrionic talent. It was a smart colloquial piece, introducing several speakers, and the subject was a ballroom incident — a girl allowing herself to be kissed. Miss Sime sat down on a chair facing her audience, and ga\ c the first part of her recitation Then she stood up and finished it . It wa& a complete success. Miss Sime has taken up her residence in Wellington, and will" be a distinct acquisition Little Miss Bannister bv the v.a\ haft also elocutionary talent The wav she recited on Saturday night placed that beyond doubt. • • ♦ The Messenger Boy" wa& to be pioduced by the Pollards at Dunedin (for the first time in Austialasia) on Wednesday this week Percy is cast for the title role, "Tommy Bang " and Harry Quealv Is Captain Pott. Al f Stephens is Paul Cloris Achille Isidore Mane de Fleurv and Miss Alice Edgai is Mrs. Bang, while Messrs O'Connor and Carter, and Misses Gertie Campion, Connie Buttel, and Alice Pollard also have good work to do "The Messenger Boy" is said to go with a swing from start to finish There is not a dull moment in the whole performance. Harry Quealv has just received a South African letter from his old Pollard confreie and pal, Eddie Nable. and part of it runs, as follows —^Grahamstown April 24. My Dear Harry, — A few lines trusting they will find you well. I have been out five weeks, and you will be oleased to hear that thine?, are still going well I produced 'My Friend from India' last night for the first time in this country and it was aji enormous success I engaged the finest actress in the country to play in it Her name is Miss Dora Nazeby I sent down to Capetown for her. lam producing 'Niobe next, and she is to play the part She is about the size of Jennie Opie I have had a big week here, finishing, to-morrow , and open in Cradock next " • < • The comic opera of "The Thirty Thieves" is, of course, a skit borrowed from the Arabian Nights story The thirty thieves, who are costumed magnificently in eighteenth century suits of ■'Coronation" red satin, are gentlemen who have been ruined by swindling financial companies, and who, therefore, band themselves together to rob tl c houses of the promoters of companies. There is a woodcutter named Appy, garbed in a mosaic of patches, who may be taken to represent Ah Baba while the Lord Mayor of the eomedv an American millionaire wading neckdeep in speculation, stands for Cassim Baba The) old robbers' cave is represented by a secret room filled with treasure in the splendid mansion occupied by the thirty" thieves, and Mariana the resplendent servant of the wood-cutter, is a very modern Morgiana.