THE WEEK, THE WORLD AND WELLINGTON.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3002, 26 September 1908, Page 3

THE WEEK, THE WORLD AND WELLINGTON.

(By Frank Morton.)

My Wanganui Tobmhntob.—Hb is ;Fed Up on Steamships.—Acting and Actors.— EKbuking a Qoiht Artist. A correspondent writes from Wa nrganui demanding to know what was the name of the first steamer that -over sailed the Atlantic. I'm not .a cyclopoedia of useless inform ation; but'so far as lam able to d iscover, that steamer would be the St. Patrick, 300 tons, 120-horse power, which put to sea in May, 1822, and for some time thereafter ran regularity between Liverpool, Dublin and Bristol. The undertaking succeeded, iand ultimately blossomed in the establishment of Her Majesty's Steam Mail Packets on that run—the first * 1 i-ie of mail steamers. But a small ateam'ioat described as "a mere river-boat," was taken from the Cly la to London, in 1815, under coni-nand of a Captain Dodd. The St. Patrick was commanded by Lieut. John P. Phillips, R.N. The first on the Clyde was the Comet, ~rari between Glasgow and Greenock in, 1812, built and owned by sa sturdy mechanic named Henry Bell, | afterwards (tut, tut I) an innkeeper i at Helensburgh. I hope the ingenious tormentor of Wanganui is satia- ' fied. If he asks me who was the first man to shave in Wanganui, I run up and correct him with an A choice assortment of just persons at my house to-nieht were • diseasing the idiosyncrasies and vieiasitudes of actors. My friend Ernest Leicester was of the number. He has been on the stage long enough to be a sort of authority, and he ex- j jplainad that actors were not so good .a3 they might be on tho whole, because they didn't always make the best use of their abundant leisure. ■"Take people travelling in England I «or America with a stock company," he said. "They will seldom have more than eijrht or ten shows in the week, nor more than five or six different pieces, nor play in more than five or six different towns. They will 'not rehearse on the average more than six or seven hours a day, and it is not very often that you'll get a Hong rehearsal after midnight. Nor •do trains often leave in the morning rrauch before eight o'clock. Will you believe roe, when I assure you that I have known many actprs who have wisted in trains precious hours /th it .might have been devoted to the study of dramatic criticism and the general improvement of the mindwasted precious hours in sleep and rnirs frivolity. I give you my word that I have known chorus girls, net working more than seventy hours a week, not travelling more than forty hours a week, but who, despite their abundant leisure, have rarely opefed a really serious book. What the stage needs now is some reformer who will shake us up and us from such sloth." I agreed. I said that actors were becoming almost as frivolous as reporters. Incidentally, I gave Leicester himself a piece of my mind. I said, "if you want ever to become the petted , idoi or the Australasian people, you ' buck up. You must speak loud- ' er,, and cultivate a more deliberate f-Ifif MJxdtfc 'strut " You- must take, mora trouble with your hair. You ! must advertise the obvious fact that you owe your life to Somebody's) «,iver Pills. You must announce to i he| first newspaper-woman youmeet the gentle news that you are a miniaturist of great ability, and that you are annotating a new edition of "Paradise Lost," which is to appear in Cincinnati next February. You must grip the simple truth; the truth that you can never be artistic so long as you persist in being natural. You must stand up for your rights with the stage-manager, rpmembering that if ever the limelight gets a3 much as an inch otf you, you are losing your hold of the public. You must never lat any desire to ne convincing seduce you into disregarding any convention of the stage. You must keep steadily in mind the.fact ' that to be a shining star you must exhibit the tricks and qualities of a, shining barber." He thanked me humbly. (