For the acting—it is admirable. Miss GENEVIEVE WARD is superb as Madame Paul Astier, and it is not her fault, but the misfortune of the part, that the wife of Paul is a woman old enough to be his mother, with whose sufferings—with her eyes wide open, having married a man of whose worthlessness she was aware,—it is impossible to feel very much sympathy. She is old enough to have known better. Mr. GEORGE ALEXANDER'S performance of the scoundrel Paul leaves little to be desired, but he must struggle for dear life against his—of course, unconscious—imitation of HENRY IRVING. Shut your eyes to the facts, occasionally, especially in the death-scene, and it is the voice of IRVING; open them, and it is ALEXANDER agonising. No one can care for the fine lady, statuesquely impersonated by Miss ALMA STANLEY, who yields as easily to Paul's seductive wooing as does Lady Anne to Richard the Third. After Miss WARD and Mr. ALEXANDER, the best performance is that of Miss GRAVES as Little Em'ly Lydie, and of Mr. FREDERICK KERR as Antonin Ham Caussade,—the last-named enlisting the genuine sympathy of the audience for a character which, in less able hands, might have bordered on the grotesque. The comic parts have simply been made bores by the adapters, and are not suited to the farcical couple, Miss KATE PHILLIPS and Mr. ALBERT CHEVALIER, who are cast for them. If this play is to struggle successfully for life, the weakest, that is, the comic element, should at once go to the wall, and the fittest alone, that is, the tragic, should survive. Also, as the play begins at the convenient hour of 8.45, it should end punctually at eleven. The only realistic scene is in Paul Astier's room, when he is dressing for dinner, and washes his hands with real soap, uses real towels, and puts real studs and links into his shirt, and then suddenly reminded, as it were, by a titter which pervades the house, that there are "ladies present," he disappears for a few seconds, and returns in his evening-dress trowsers and nice clean shirt, looking, except for the absence of braces, like a certain well-known haberdasher's pictorial advertisement. It is vastly to the credit of the management that all the articles of Paul's toilet, including Soap(!!), are not turned to pecuniary advantage in the advertisements on the programmes. But isn't it a chance lost in The Struggle for Life at the Avenue?
CITY VESTRIES AND CITY BENEFACTIONS.
I have lately had the distinguished honour conferred upon me of being unanimously elected a Vestryman of the important Parish of Saint Michael-Shear-the-Hog, which I need hardly say is situate in the ancient and renowned City of London. I owe my election I believe, to the undoubted fact that I am what is called—I scarcely know why—a tooth-and-nail Conservative, no one of anything approaching to Radicalism being ever allowed to enter within the sacred precincts of our very select Body. Our number is small, but, I am informed, we represent the very pick of the Parish, and we have confided to us the somewhat desperate task of defending the funds entrusted to us, centuries ago, from the fierce attack of Commissioners with almost unlimited powers, but with little or no sympathy with the sacred wishes of deceased Parishioners.
Our contention is that wherever, from circumstances that our pious ancestors could not have foreseen, it has become simply impossible to carry out literally their instructions, the funds should be applied to strictly analogous purposes. For instance, now in a neighbouring Parish, I am not quite sure whether it is St. Margaret Moses, or St. Peter the Queer, a considerable sum was bequeathed by a pious parishioner in the reign of Queen MARY, of blessed memory, the income from which was to be applied to the purchasing of faggots for the burning of heretics, which it was probably considered would be a considerable saving to the funds of the Parish in question. At the present time, as we all know, although there are doubtless plenty of heretics, it has ceased to be the custom to burn them, so the bequest cannot be applied in accordance with the wishes of the pious founder. The important question therefore arises, how should the bequest be applied? Would it be believed that men are to be found, and men having authority, more's the pity, who can recommend its application to the education of the poor, to the providing of convalescent hospitals, or even the preservation of open spaces for the healthful enjoyment of the masses of the Metropolis! Yet such is the sad fact. My Vestry, I am proud to say, are unanimously of opinion that, in such a case as I have described, common sense and common justice would dictate that, as the intentions of the pious founder cannot be applied to the punishment of vice, it should be devoted to the reward of virtue, and this would be best accomplished by expending the fund in question in an annual banquet to those Vestrymen who attended the most assiduously to the arduous duties of their important office. JOSEPH GREENHORN.
ANOTHER TERC-ISH ATROCITY.
(By a Sceptical Sufferer.)
[An Austrian physician, Dr. TERC, prescribes bee-stings as a cure for rheumatism!]
How cloth the little Busy Bee