THE WEEK, THE WORLD, AND WELLINGTON.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9107, 5 June 1908, Page 6

THE WEEK, THE WORLD, AND WELLINGTON.

(By Frank Morton.)

Spring in Autumn.—The Prevailing Mania.—Adventures with a Barber. — Andy Svenck Does the Right Thing. We have had a day or two of disagreeables; but to-day the skies are blue again and every prospect pleases. As for man —well, man is much the ss ne everywhere, don't you think? I have heard a tremenduus lot about in mte human depravity at onetime an i another; but I have discovered vary little of it in my wanderings. Man i 3 a groping, earnest, o'ten mistaken, and some times very violent animal; but on the whole his instincts are for decency and gentleness. Treat him kindly, and he'll forgive you nine times out of ten. I hate lo hear the race cried down. What was I saying?—oh, that the weather is very jolly again to-day. Winter is put back, and autumn reestablished with a touch of spring. It is really the strangest season. We've had no winter yet. A man just up from the south told me ye&terday that the weather was positively mild in Dunedin. Think of that! * <0 * # * * Football! f jotball! football! One hears of i.o.hing else just riow.. The baker talks weird technicalities that I cannot understand. Thb fruiterer is a profound authority on po nts and all sorts of fine shades. Each the tram-conductors unbend sufficiently to admit their interest. And the barbers—but really, you know, the baroera ought to be tied u{\ You go in to h'ive a shave. You are put into a chai", and whan you are swung back till your toes are higher than your chin, you are swaddled in a wrapper and a towel, and so made ahaolutely helpless. Then the barber waves his foaming tool, licks .his mobile lips, cough 3 away to the right, and prepares to commence. As he lathers your chin from right to left, he tells you that the Englishman aint' in it; and as he lathers your chin from left to right, he offers to give you five to one that the Noo Zealanders has 'em beat for all events. You start to assure him that you never gamble, but as you open your mouth he fills it with his brush, and before you can get comfortable again, he carries on. _ He's very sorry; but what do you think 'll happen if the Britishers beat the Aucklanders? You dare not attempt reply this time; but you roll an anguished eye as he proceeds. Won't the Aucklanders be 'ot? His (the barber's) oath they will! He'd almost like to see the Aucklanders get the 'ump. But it's no good; the Britishers are rart art of it. Razor or' rart? Yessir. The Britishers, y' see, ain't gor no combination. They mean well, but they cant' stay. Shave hup, sir? Yessir. And so he goes on, interminably, intolerably. His hand is shaky; because he was up late last night talking football and moistening the conversation. He cuts you three times—just a nick, eir and—you depart dazed and crumpled, bearing the marks of your dishonourable scars. At office, the first man you meet asks if you were at the football match. You assure him that you were not. He gives you a glance of pity, as though he wondered what you were FOR, anyhow. You go out again, to find the city full of' mad cnthumsiasts. The man who sells you a cigar talks football; and the man who tries to sell you a section on a mountaintop Bomewhere is not without his theory of the game. On Thursday I met three men running—a Fenian, a tailor, and the editor of a morning newspaper—and they all talked football. A black-and-white man I know foamed at the mouth on a street corner, as he tried to explain to me what a "try" was. A merchant of renown shouted across the street, "Well, you got licked, eh?" —and though I love to be accepted as the representative of Britain in this village, I was sensibly annoyed. It's simply rideec'lous. I go into a florist's to get me a bouquet, and the nice girl there (who is as a rule quite sane) offers me an impossible combination of the things I don't want, and says, "Your colours, you know." It's useless explaining to these people that you don't know — that you haven't any colours that you barely know the difference between a football and a milking-machine. They won't have it. I was glad to meet my friend Andv Spence. He is "doing" the matches for a big newspaper syndicate; and I knew that I could trust him not to talk football. He never referred to it even indirectly. We talked of nothing but hares, shipwrecks, fruit fly, teetotalism, solar eclipses, Wagner, sea-fiahing, and religious influence in art. But Andy, albeit acting as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land, was only one, and he's gone south with the team now. The barber and the others are with us every day. I'm growing desperate. I have a scheme to walk down to Wanganui with a personally conducted party presently. I shall push on the arrangements with indecorous speed, Wellington is too enthusiastic for my somewhat torpid mood. * ♦ + ♦ * And so, let us rid ourselves at once of this tormenting subject. There seems to b3 little or no doubt now that the visiting football team is outclassed by <he New Zealandefs. The huge crowd that witnessed the m.itch at Wellington on Wednesday came away generally convinced of that. The visitois had some disadvantages and suffered some mischances; but they were beaten on their merits. Allegations of rough play do not seem, however, to be unfounded; and there is little doubt that the rough play was attributable to the New Zealand players. That is a pity. The rule of courtesy to the guest is a role it is ill to overlook. The value of any victory is discounted by any admitted rough play on the part of the winning side. The enemies of Rugby are given an excuse for their rfivilings. The more thoughtful of the friends of are discouraged. Rugby football. played properlly, is one of the finest games on earth; Rugby football played roughly is one of the most b.-utal and nauseating things conceivable. There has latterly been too much talk about the rough play of New Zea lander?. The Rugby Union will do well to insist that the game shall be played £ roper ly.