“ALL VERY DELIGHTFUL.”

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 86, 10 April 1912, Page 3

“ALL VERY DELIGHTFUL.”

MR. H. B. IRVIXG'S VERDICT OX NEW ZEALAND.

Mr H. IJ. Irving, on his return to Sydney, interviewed 'by the "Daily Telegraph," spoke in glowing terms of his experiences in New Zejil.an*!. "It was all very delightful," is U* verdict. "The people are fine audiences to play to, and do you know that 'Hamlet' was far and away the most popular play of all over there? That is something one can be proud of, is it not ? Next after 'Hmnlet' came 'The Bells.' / "They are certainly groat theatre--1 going people in New Zealand. A fact worth noting is that prohibition does

not seem to affect the theatre-going tendencies of the people—find this, it seems to me, is a very good answer to those temperance people who assert that the theatre/is a place of s : t. Why) even in Invercargill, I ant told, the since prohibition have b»M better attended than before." For Invercargill, be it remembered, is one of the "dry areas." A member of the company relates that in the street one day a man in the worst state of intoxication ho had ever seen bumped up against him, and then, in a coarse whisper, exclaimed, "Urin't tall anylibdy, but I'm shickercd." It is not Mr Irving who tells this story, but it reveals that erring human nature may be much the same in prohibition areas as elsewhere.

Invited to state what lie, as a visitor, thought of the effects of prohibition, so far as accommodation for travellers was concerned, Mr Irving said he thought generally the' effect wag not very' good, iln Invercargill, however, a. new hotel, to be conducted on teetotal principles, was' being erected, and it would be interesting to see how this experiment resulted. It puzzled him to know why the prohibition movement should have been so actively taken up in New Zealand, which was not a drunken country. "It is not half so drunken," says he, "as the United Kingdom. I was also struck very much by the fact ihe Governor of the Invercargill prison, when I visited that institution, told mo that l;e considered the chief cause of crime was not drunkenness at all, but that the want of parental control was one important factor, and the other was idleness. In' the places in Now Zealand where prohibition had not been carried, for instance, ' the people seemed to me to drink very little."

Mr Irving, whose interest in criminology is well known, took the opportunity in New Zealand to acquire a great deal of information upon this subject, and was particularly interested in the records of the famous Kaiwarra murder case, in which a man named Chemis was sentenced to death, had his sentence afterwards commuted to imprisonment for life, was released at the time of the celebration of the Diamond Jubilee of Queen A'ictoria, and ended by committing suicide. In his visit to the Invercargill prison, he found an interesting experiment proceeding in the treatment of criminals. They are there encouraged to learn trades, and one man.was actually studying to become an engineer. Visitors are allowed to converse with them, and he spoke to several, and altogether he was very much impressed with the humanity of their treatment, as compared with that in some English prisons.