THE WEEK, THE WORLD AND WELLINGTON.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 2993, 18 September 1908, Page 6

THE WEEK, THE WORLD AND WELLINGTON.

(By Frank Morton.)

Grfgori's Escape.—-Tub Idiocy of ll'iiia'AitiisM.—Wat, king Gono MAD. — A hi' in Wellington—A Pkophkt in Lis Own Country. £ i Gr j gori, the "military expert," who shot nt and wounded Dreyfus dur- j ing the ce. e « ony of removal or Z.ila'a * remains to uie Pantheon last June, < has oeen ac i.utted by a French jury. Sentiuitnt i.-> justified (the sort of • sentiment tut spreadeagle French- \ men havu t.;r the Army), but justice < ia once again dragged through the nvid. Dreyfus, an innocent man, was subjected to vile torture on a trumpeo up charge, merely because he happened to be a Jew. After infinite uifficuky, and abominable delays, he was cleared of suspicion and re-instated. Gregori shot him, "to avenge the insult to the Army caused by the honouring of Zola's bjnes—Zola having done more than any other man to get Dreyfus righted during the period of abominable de- - lays. And the French jury approves Gregori'B action in attempting to murder an innocent man in order to wipe out an insult that never existed. It ia all vtry idiotic; but it is just tne sore of idiocy that has flourished wherevtr militarism has got a good grip. And we in New Zealand ure dabbling with militarise. <»n u. inut!. Hi«>- ntry is well suppl with snobs and upstarts in military uniforms, and when these gentry put on inanfferal able airs and do their utmost to block the efforts of any honest eitifcen who happens to be in earnest about defence, we sit quiet. Defence is good ?.nd necessary; but anything approaching a military caste i 9 infamous and vile. All history teaches that; but we are precious slow to learn, we British. And the sooner we have done with gold braid and haw-haw, the sooner we shall get a rational "scheme of defence. I have just been reading a cablegram which tells how a young man named Hammond had walked 131 miles in twenty-four hours. That seems to me to be a very silly performance. It recalls the walking madness of three or four years ago. You will remember it. Schoolgirls, and barmaids, and shipping clerks, anl drapers' assistants, afid all sorts of men and womeft, were suddenly seized with the desire to walk on distances at high speed. The London Stock Exchange walked to Brighton, but did not win the admiration of humanity by walking into the sea. In Hobart a firm of whisky men offered a prize for a go-as-you-please race to the summit of Mount Wellington and back. The men raced thinly clad in bitter weather* and were regaled with whisky at the top. Two of them died from exhaustion. That incident, and other incidents like that, gradually knocked out the walking craze. But the Olympic Games in London may revive it somewhat. Now I ask you—Why should any man walk 131 miles in twenty-four hours, when he could do it with vastly more comfort in a week? Why, in there days of convenient travel, should he walk 131 miles at all? It's so silly. All my life I've been Jed a'stray by good fellows who have taken me •tramping over mountain and fell, but I'm getting more sense now. When I undertake another walking-tour, 1 hope that it will be in France or Italy, £>nd I shall not do more than twenty miles a day to please anybody. Why should one make a torment of one's pleasures? The Wellington Art Society is about to open yet another of its annual exhibitions. lam glad of that, because an art society of any sort must be an influence for good in a town like this. But 1 shall not go to the exhibition myself, because I went to the exhibition last year. The compensations are all too slight and few to ator.e for the sufferings one endures. .The hanging committee is too indulgent to nice persons. Artists are at a disadvantage. There was James F. Scott. The Society at Wellington rejected some of his ■pictures last year. The great Society in New South Wales hangs his pictures this year, and the Australian newspapers publish notes (written by critics who know something) in which Scott's work is singled oat , and heartily praised. You see, ,the prophet is without honour in his own country; but when he gets among critics who know something, he has a chance to justify himself. My advice to every New Zealand artist is—Get out! Go to London, go to Melbourne, go to Paris, go to Halifax—but get out of thia! Men who daub sell their pictures; men who paint (with one or two notable exceptions) command no sale. I knew a man who sketched a Utile in the South Island. To his studio one day there came an intelligent New Zealander, who said, "Now look here, old man. Why do you try that sort of thing? There's nothing in it, to start with. The drawing's bad. The art's rotten." But the man who sketched turned away to hide his beaming smile. "You know," he said, "that isn't mine; it's Steinlen's. I thought he was considered pretty good." The intelligent New Zealander departed in a huif, feeling that he had beer tricked somehow. Take warning. When you have Steinlens or Whistlers or Forains about the place, label them tegibly. Forestall your visitors' objections. "Say, old chap, isn't tliif great! This ia by Steinlen, you kmiw. Wonderful man. Only mar in the world that can draw live cat' ami breathing women. Isn't he imlutnte?" Forewarned like that, your visitor will always agree with you, ana tej in time you will become quite popular. Wellington has no settled or certain convictions on the side ol ari, apart from the fact that all true Wellingtunians love photographers a.ij nate Impressionists. Tlip man who can paint you with clearness, tne nailheads in a distant fence is the man to ducceed in this city. "Look at tt.e eyelashes of that awf'lly nice ge' on 'he top of the hill! Painted by tfosiiter, you know. Isn't he clever!" I don't think so, but I'm an Isnmaelite.