Burke Manuscript

Burke Manuscript: Page 158

Transcript

Mrs Newton, Ivey Songenheim, Ben Jones running into the days of old Hoskins, and all the people of the later time. And it may be interesting to note, that amongst Johnny Hall’s early enterprises was a sort of “Entr’Acte” which passed from him to one Langridge, and from him merged into a spicy little evening print, The Evening Mail, which was run for some years from a little office somewhere about where now stands the Empire. The Empire originated by an old identity named Tom Atkinson, who previously had run a well known boarding place called Tweed House, Cashel Street East. The Mail for a time was edited by a then well known man, David Scott, the proprietor of what was then the Christchurch High School where now stands the big school on the Lincoln road, and where was erstwhile a place of much resort, Dick Kohler’s gardens. E.J. Wakefield also contributed, and many others, some of whom would hardly care to be reminded of the matter. It fell into the hands of Geo. Tribe, licensee of the Central Hotel, and lived, and lingered, and died; but even so to it belongs the record of having been the first evening paper in Christchurch, and owing its existence to a theatrical, the seasoned Johnny Hall, the man of merry moments and of great vicissitudes. Then, a man of many enterprises, launched the Gaiety, now the general sample rooms, and in which a young lady, with a one act show, whose name has vanished as a dream, but at that time not without an estimate of her own powers of entertainment, finding a Christchurch audience unsusceptible to the charm, indignantly carried them up by saying “That the next entertainment she would bring to Christchurch would be a monkey show”. The ordeal has been passed, and the occasional successes of other and various experiences in the way of entertaining the Christchurch multitude, has shown that the young lady’s judgement was biased by individual experiences. But, is that not so with all? The estimate of the place, in professional decisions, depends upon professional success or failures, a very material question.