HARRY RICKARDS VAUDEVILLE COMPANY.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10488, 27 November 1911, Page 6

HARRY RICKARDS VAUDEVILLE COMPANY.

Hie box plan for the visit of the Harry Rickards Vaudeville Company on Wednesday, at the Town Hj;illli, is now open, and: if the vance hooking is an indication of a big iliouise, the brief season of this fine combinationi isihoukl prove a record 1 . The Company is- said to be a very strong one, consisting of twelve imported istar acts, mill: under special and exclusive engagement to the firm of Harry Itickards. During tiheir Australian as. well as during their New Zealaaid seasons they have eM been signally isucces&ful 1 ran their various acts., and itlie whole of the entertainment is tboroughfly interesting from beginning to end. In addition to providing a succession of novel i turns', the mamagemient lias been, particularly careful in eradicating everything of a vulgar nature, and it is, r,een by the report's, of the Northern press reports that no more refined 'vaudeville entertainment has ever been, seen in the Dominion. The lady gymnast .seems to have completely supplanted tihe male, if not in actual physical development at lea.st in the. artistic perception of wQiat tlie public wants to see on the vaudeville stage. In tlie performan-ee of ATcide Oapi.ttaine, tine liady gymnast of tbe Compaaiy, the Rickards management cHiim ,to bare one of the> most attractive acts they have ever imported. Im gracefulness and artistic perception notliing approaching this young Slady's performance lias ever been seen in the Southern Hemisphere, i

Jnide. is "a city of churches,'' and is not \fcliisi a reflection upotm the clergymen, of that edity of churches? The less sane of them are continuously touting Prohibition; a® a, moral and

saving agency, and while they are doing that the character-buikLiing of the young men and women of Adelaide is being neglected. The Prohibition clergy mem of every city are, of course, doing the same tiling. They are neglecting the power of the Gospel and' true development of character among itheir young people in order to obtain' a silly and bubble reputation as the advocates of a fad, the principle of ■which, if it lias any, is utterly opposed to tlie principles of true morality and true religion''. Is it any wonder, them, that when the clergy neglect their duty as' minis-torsi of the Gospel, the young men and maidens' of Adelaide, or any other community, ishwild be ifouiul so ehar-«i.-terl'ess as the Premier of South Australia is credited with describing them ?

Through .this sibandonmeait c,': their duties, the church im South Australia, and in every otliter State of the commonwealth, is (suffering immense-v. Is. not the Church degraded by the Prohibitionist clergy just as much r.s society is by the drunkard? Ami wlia*, is true to Adelaide is applicable in that respect to Wellington' and New Zealand generally, and will become more so as these clergymen become more intensely neurotic Am respect to the •■Prohibition movement, and continue to neglect their pastoral ministrations. In. a recent- issue of St. Paul's Parish Paper, an Australian publication, the following passage occurs, which aptly fits the case under ■notice. The writer says :

"Pei-lmplS' the most serious feature. in .the No-iHcense campaign is that clergy, wJiose parishes are in a. disgraceful state of neglect, rampant with sin and immorality, wher-mi. the sick and dying, the S'in-stairiod anJ sorrowful cry if or absolution and comfort, can. spend the whole of their time- in, such extraneous' work, i-M every sermon with intemperance fanaticism, and -leave unshepherded, untaught, and unabsolved, tfhe souls for whom our Lord died, 'and to wheve care they are m'ost solemnly pledged. One of our (leading citizens said to me, only Hiast week, that he believer the Church has incurred gi\i>-c loss, and has lost the sympathy of great alumihea-s of people, hecause some fanatical' clergy (have replaced the Gospel by Prohibition, the Sacra.™ nts by No-Jicense."

It is onfly necessary to add thatthis is wiliat the No-Bcense clergy are doing ini.New Zealland, and, iij a few years, the South Australian .Premier's remarks about the young people of Adelaide-, may (be isaid as- truiy of New Zealand's young men, that is if the clergy ,go on iii the false co irs > they have adopted of pleading the heggaitly elements of the law instead of the soul-oonvineing eharpeterbuiilMing power 'of tilie. Gostral itself. Their form of neuirotacism is a relig-ious-destroying agency, and i-he.T congregations l ought to-strike out the bottom line to ishow the they are neglecting their true work.