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Mr. BOUCICAULT might properly be called the author of the elementary Drama.
Not because his plays, like elementary lessons in French, are peculiarly
aggravating to the well-regulated mind, but because of his fondness for
employing one of the elements of nature—fire, water, or golden hair—in
the production of the sensation which invariably takes place in the fourth
or fifth act of each of his popular dramas. In the Streets of
New-York, he made a hit by firing a building at the spectacularly
disposed audience. In Formosa, he gave us a boat-race; and in
Lost at Sea, now running at WALLACK'S, he has renewed his former
fondness for playing with fire. The following condensed version of this
play is offered to the readers of PUNCHINELLO, with the assurance that,
though it may be a little more coherent than the unabridged edition, it is
a faithful picture of the sort of thing that Mr. BOUCICAULT, aided and
abetted by Mr. WALLACK, thinks proper to offer to the public.
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