THE PLAYS AND SHOWS.
| WATTS PHILLIPS has written a comprehensive drama, entitled NOT GUILTY, and the managers of NIBLO'S GARDEN have produced it. Comprehensive is the best word with which to describe it, since it comprehends an epitome of English history at home and in the colonies during, a period of ten years, together with observations on prison discipline, and the recruiting system, interspersed with comic songs and jokes translated from the Sanscrit. It is a complete guide in morals and manners for the young soldier, the intelligent convict, and the aspiring thief. It is well, it is as follows: ACT I. Curtain rises upon a RECRUITING SERGEANT singing an unintelligible song to an admiring group of recruits, consisting of six girls with commendable ankles, and several supes of average awkwardness. The song ended the recruits retire, and the SERGEANT sits down to drink with ROBERT ARNOLD, a virtuous locksmith. Enter SILAS GARRETT. SILAS. "I will pretend to be drunk. There is no reason why I should, but still it's a good bit of business." Staggers and falls on ARNOLD. |
ARNOLD. "Wretched being! He deserves nothing, and I will therefore give him my last half-crown. Now, SERGEANT, I will enlist. Let us go and sing more unintelligible songs." They go. Enter MRS. ARMITAGE.
MRS. ARMITAGE. "I am starving. My child has eaten nothing for years. Oh, sir, give me something!"
SILAS. "Not I. Go and work. Don't touch me; you look as if you had been riding in a street car." Rushes away as though pursued by the wicked flea.
MRS. ARMITAGE. "There is no hope. I will die." Dies.
Enter ARNOLD. "Hallo. Do I see a woman? What is the matter, my exhausted friend? Please come to life again!" (She comes to life.)
MRS. ARMITAGE. "Neither my child nor I have tasted food for vast and incalculable periods. Help me."
ARNOLD. "I will." (Helps her home, and rushes out to beg. He successfully strikes a casual supe for five pounds, and remarks)—"Now she is saved. I will buy a doll for the child. They can make porridge of the internal bran." He goes for the doll, and SILAS re-enters.