AS OTHERS SEE US.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 75, 24 April 1909, Page 6

AS OTHERS SEE US.

FRENCH VISITORS' IMPRESSIONS OF NEW ZEALAND, "DRY" ADVENTURES. Clu'istcliureli, Tuesday. Two'world-wide voyagenrs, who are at present staying in Chris'tchurch, are M. St. D.vkter, a representative of the French .journal "IVlllustration," and Dr. Kopf, oculist, writer, and traveller. Tliey gave to a pressman a most interesting account of their travels, and also some illuminative impressions o|f the Dominion, in Which up to the present they have spent seventeen days.

Coming from the civilisation of l'aris and the rest of Europe, it is hardly surprising that they should court experiences the opposite of those that they have found in older lands, and there was almost a note of chagrin in their voices as they agreed that in New Zealand the people and the conditions were so exceedingly '•'up-to-date" as to be advanced almost beyond belief. '"Vou are too civilised, too cultured. We can find no adventures here of the kind our friends dreaded for us when we said we were coming to New Zealand. They reiterated," M. St. Dyktor said laughingly, "that we would find cannibals in some parts-'of the country!" M. St. Dvktor is sending photographs to his paper. It appears/that the ''cannibal" idea has been fostered lately among French people by a "fake" cinematograph picture showing a 'cannibalistic orgy purporting to have been taken at a corroboree of the 'blacks in AusI tralia.

The travellers express amazement at j the comfort of the workmen's homes in j New Zealand,'and at the fact that a man earning his £3 a week has, in many case?, been able to buy for himself a snug little properly. There is one thing, however, he ;loes not- get enough amusement, lu France, of an evening, there are the cafes where men meet to talk or play games. Here there is nothing. Dr. Kopf gave an amusing account of having asked fo ( . a glass of beer in an hotel in Invcrcargiil. -T 'was very thirsty, and 1 did ask for a glass of beer. Thc.v laughed at me. I could not see the joke. 1 did see lots of men going about the streets. They were tipsy, and some were drinking out of bottle-'-. 1 did ask the landlord, 'Why can 1 not get a glass (if lieer';' A mail heard me, anil he went to a box with his own key. and did take out half a .bottle of whisky, and put it into my hands. 'Here, drink this,' lie said. Fancy, 1 could not get a glass *of beer by paying for it, lmt 1 could get half a bottle of whisky for nothing! In all the prohibition towns that we have been in we have seen more drunkenness than anywhere else."