PLEASURE – LOVING WELLINGTON. A Volatile People.

Free Lance, Volume III, Issue 139, 28 February 1903, Page 8

PLEASURE - LOVING WELLINGTON. A Volatile People.

WELLINGTON takes its pleasuie often and m large lots. If it promises itself a Queen's statue, you may depend that it will have one, even if it costs each citizen a three penny piece. It is its pleasure, and it likes its pleasure long-drawn-out. We are a gay, debonair lot, we Empire Citizens. What matter if that judgment summons and the baker's, will aae due to-morrow, so long as wehearMelba to-night ? It is only a guinea, anyhow, and who cares? "Sans souci" is our motto when we throw down the pen, the pick, the spade, the saw, or the soldering iron. * *• * Visitois to Wellington, and theatrical advance agents, will tell you that Wellingtonians are the most businesslike people in New Zealand, and that Wellington 1 is the best show town in the co'ony, and, seriously, our disposition to work hard, and afterwards abandon ourselves to the pleasures of the moment, is a trait tha,t we need not be ashamed of. None but a vigorous, prosperous people could combine the two "virtues". We suppose the number of people who turned out to attend the four crowded entertainments held in Wellington on Monday last is a record for the colony, and if it is found that the Magistrate's Court summons list is not heavier than usual during the coming month, we may take it for granted that many thousands of people in this city are thriving pretty comfortably despite the price of bread, the minimum wage — which the workers 1 complain is also the maximum — and the Government. * * * It is not quite clear whether the City Council agrees with the expenditure of large sums of money by the people in entertainments. It may be that its displeasure is signified by sending fewer cars the greater the crowd at entertainments. It is refreshing to observe, however, that some responsible persons have been endeavouring to direct the traffic in front of the various houses of entertainment during the week, and that no one was actually crushed to death in a car crowd. We wonder if the publio mind is expanding p Be that as it may, the number of clergymen who attended the various entertainments during the week was quite astonishing. * *■ • Of course, Melba might be patronised by a saint, but the solid phalanx of parsons who gave way to unrestrained merriment when "Facing the Music" w r as presented, are to be congratulated m setting a healthy example that would have met with horrified expressions of disapproval at one time. There has never been a time in the history of the colony when, so many excellent shows have followed each other, and there certainly has been no* time when the people have patronised them better. As the theatrical business is not run on a credit basis, it is assumed that cash is plentiful, the disposition of the people cheerfully optimistic, and that this optimism is an indication of the general prosperity of the country. * * * It is obvious, too, in Wellington that the publio taste for entertainment has become highly educated. This has been exemplified by the awful "freeze out" some companies with indifferent material have undergone— companies that twenty years ago would have been compelled to put up "standing-room

only." Really, the pleasure-loving trait is not to be denounced. Its indulgence lias a highly educational effect on the minds of citizens, and, excepting for the probable occasional "wait" of the man n ith the bread bill, money spent on anything that will reuse laughter, drive dull care- away, instil a preceipt, teach a truth, or point a moral, is well spent. A povertystricken people have not this avenue of education open to them. Wellingtooiians have. So soon as the people cease to be able to patronise amusements largely, so soon shall we bei able to write lugubrious prophecies about the coming bankruptcy of New Zealand.