CIVIL PENSIONS LIST

Wairarapa Times-Age, 31 October 1939, Page 6

CIVIL PENSIONS LIST

HARD TIMES FOR FAMOUS PEOPLE. There is a State institution called the Civil Pensions List, a State fund out of which pensions are awarded to distinguished persons who have fallen upon evil days, or their surviving dependants. The famous names that appear in this list from time to time afford a sad commentary upon the precarious incomes that are earned by those who devote themselves to arts and sciences. The artist, or the writer, the. scientist the doctor, is not often one who cares to give great attention to building up financial security. Now and then a novelist makes a fortune, but ho is the lucky exception proving the rule to the contrary. Nt long since we saw the children of a writer and playwright of some fame granted a civil pension to enable them to continue their education. In the last list appears the name of a once famous artist who tells us that when the pension was awarded his bank balance was only 4s! A Frenchman said of the writer’s profession: “It is a dog's life, but the only life worth living." Certainly it is true that the higher walks of life rarely lead to fortune. The true reward of the artist is that his work is his whole existence and pleasure; the drawback is that he is too often haunted by fears for the fate of his family and of destitution for himself in old age.