WORK FOR NEXT SESSION. Wellington, January 14.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 334, 16 January 1889, Page 5

WORK FOR NEXT SESSION. Wellington, January 14.

Cabinet meetings will be held day and night duiing most of this week. The measures to be laid before Parliament, including- one dealing with hospitals and charitable aid, are now under consideiaUon, and some considerable change^ are to be proposed to Parliament.

in a leading article, reviewing the pasfc year, the Melbourne '"Argus," speaking upon the Chinese lleotiicbion Bill, says : ' l The Bill was not allo « ed to pass without bomo discussion. At one time, in the very last night of the sossion, a deadlock was threatened between the Legislative Assembly and the Legislative Council, but fortunately both Houses were wise and patriotic enough to agree in accepting a modification that had already been found necessary by South Australia. The anti-Chinese law therefore applies to all the colonies except, curiously enough, New South Wales, where Sir Henry Parkes, who was at first its hottest, most unreasoning, and most impulsive advocate, is now proportionately dilatory in giving effect zo it." Jennie Lee, who will be pleasantly re^ rnembered by Auckland theatre-goers, has been interviewed as to tlie dramatic origin of " Jo." Jennie Lee first played a crossing sweep in opera, but it was a crossing sweep of true opera type, in tottered rags of silk, and with a golden broom. Then she supported Madame Janauschek in a version ot "Bleak House." The star encouraged her, as stars sometimes will, by saying in her broken English before the play began, "I am sorry, but you will be a great big failure." She was wrong, for although Jo had not much scope in that version of the play it was the hit of the evening. Dion Boucicault, who always seems to have been a pretty good judge of dramatic ware, came to the little woman afterwards, and said, "Look here, Miss Lee, you get Mr Buruefct to write a version of 'Bleak House,' in which Jo is made a prominent figure, and, mark my words, you will make one of the biggest hits that ever a woman has made." Mr Boucicault was right, and Charles Dickons, junior, and the many London managers who predicted failure for the play were wrong.