Punch (89.1885)

November 21, 1885.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI,

241

The Poetic aspect of the Play is represented by a good
deal of Scot and a little Moore.

A GOOD PIECE OF BUSINESS.

Seeing that this piece, at Toole's Theatre, is chiefly about invest-
ments, prices, buying and selling shares, and City business generally,
On ' Change ought to be described as " a stock piece."

On ' Change, in spite of its name, remains, as the Scotch Professor
would say, materially " on-changed " from what it was when I read
it years ago in MS., and considered its success very uncertain on the
English stage unless re-modelled, and considerably re-written. The
scenes hang together loosely. The first two Acts would be vastly im-
proved by compression; also by toning down the "business,"the quarrel-
ling, and the strained laughter, which soon becomes wearisome. The
piece reminded me of Robertson's earliest work, and the love-making
scene in the last Act is first cousin, or cousin-german, to the milk-jug
scene in School. But, by the way, wasn't School also derived from
a German source ?

Having said this I have nothing but praise for the details of busi-
ness, the laugh-
able situations,
and the excellent
sketch of the
Scotch Professor
given by Mr.
Felix Morris.
A Scotchman
with his broad
dialect is always
more or less a
nuisance on the
stage: the truer
to nature the
imitation, the
worse for the
success of the
piece. But in
On 'Change, Mr.
Morris is the
exception, and a
remarkable one,
to the rule. There
is not too much of him, and in what there is, though on the very
border-land—as would be expected from a canny Scot—of caricature,
yet Mr. Morris never crosses it, his only tendency being to ex-
aggerate the restlessness in his anxiety to emphasize the old
Professor's intensely nervous irritability. He is a wiry Scotch
terrier, very Scotch, and very wiry. Mr. Gerald Moore's idiotic
but very third-rate Masher, though first-rate thorough-going
little cad, is a very funny bit of eccentricity, but dangerously
near the humour of the corner-
man in nigger minstrelsy.

There is a Mr. Prank Evans
playing Tiffin, a servant in the
piece, who, if Mr. J. S. Clarke
ever revived The Comedy of
Errors, might play Dromio of
Ephesus to Ms Dromio of Syra-
cuse. Sometimes his tone, action,
and facial expression were J. S.

Clarke to the life.

Than Mr. Farren as James
Burnett, the kindly, genial,
straightforward man of business,
no one could be better. In itself
it is not much of a part by the
side of such a strongly-markt d
eccentric character as the Pro-
fessor, and the over-coloured De
Haas, but Mr. Fabren gives it
an importance and a bright-
ness which make it, in its
way, quite a little triumph of
art,—considering the very poor material at his command.

The Ladies—bless 'em !—are all nice ; the jjart of Iris, played by
Miss Ewebetta Lawbence, being apparently intended for something
between Minnie Palmer's Sweetheart_ and a knowing Lydia Lan-
guish. I do not quite understand Miss Iris, but perhaps she is a
style of young lady, whether American or German 1 cannot say; new
to me, and so it may be that I am not competent to pronounce judg-
ment on this variety of the softer sex.

Toole's Theatre, duriDg the absence of its spirited Proprietor, who
is on " ?Mas«-public business," like Sir Henrx James, in the North,
is under the direction of Mr. W. Duck and Miss Ewebetta
Lawrence. A Pair of Ducks ! This Duck of a Manager takes the
Company to the Strand Theatre,—a Duck having a natural attraction
Swan-borough way and riverwards,—where they will remain for a
month, and then they will fly to another home. "Follow our Dux"

An Actor who is quite at home in
Farren parts.

is the Company's motto. The Ducks may plume themselves, on
having got a success, and their bills will be much the same for a
year, if they will rearrange the piece, rewrite it here and there,

settle down in some
convenient spot, and
not be scurrying off
like "Wild Ducks. But
Dtjck is not a goose:
he knows what he's
about, for is he not
the sole proprietor of
Our Boys f and hasn't
he scored off it to any
amount ? At all events,
without mentioning the
precise sum, his score
is not represented by
" a Duck's egg; " very
much the reverse.
There's no reason why
On ' Change, with a
little touching up,
should not run a year
or more. The Scotch
Professor is already
a popular character in
London. There is one
great chance he misses:
perhaps he knows what it is, and in his hands, if he avails
himself of it, Professor Seneca Peckering Peck would become
a second Dundreary. But this secret remains locked, from the
public, in the bosom of Tours truly, Unsplit Nibbs.

Iris and her Beau ; or, The Lore Match.

THE WORKING MAN'S FRIEND.

[At a large open-air Meeting of "Workmen in "Wandsworth Eoad lately, a
Resolution, was carried to the effect "That this Meeting of Workmen
repudiates with indignation the impudent profession of Mr. Gent-Davis to
be, as he styles himself, the "Working Man's Friend."]

Bill Brown's view of it:—

Ah ! it's all mighty fine and quite pooty to hear,

And the Muffs clap their hands and the Jugginses cheer;
But to chaps as have heard it so often before,

This " Friend " business is getting a bit of a bore.

When Election time comes, and they 're after our Yotes,
All the Candidates pipe to such popular notes ;

They make much of our wives, ana they love us no end,
For each Swell on the stump is a Working„Man's Friend.

When some dapper young Toff, with a twirly moustache,
Of mixed figgers and fibs makes a horrible hash ;

When, carefully crammed like a poor Strasbourg goose,
Cooked statistics and cant on our heads he lets loose ;

When he twaddles of Tariffs that Labour shall aid,
And remove the " appalling Depression of Trade ";

You may bet your last brown, ere he comes to an end.

He will spread himself out as the Working Man's Friend.

When a chap to whose party the Labourer's Vote
Was as hard to get down as a bone in your throat,

Comes to beg mine of me, who some few years ago
He libelled and sniffed at along o' Bob Lowe ;—

When he calls at my diggings, or sends round a lot
Of fine ladies to flatter, and fuss, and talk rot:

Then the man as would use us to serve his own end,

Tells the Missis and me he's the Working Man's Friend!

Ah! but me and the new County Voter just now—

The chap with the hammer, the lad at the plough—

Have a rare lot of " Friends;" and it's capital sport
To watch 'em all playing at Codlin and Short.

But gents like Gent-Davis will patter in vain;

We hold them as help'd us before will again.

He who tells us straight truth, and plays square to the end,
Will have the best chance as the Working Man's Friend!

At the Indian Village.—Pictures of Indian Social Life on view.
Evenings with some Indian Clubs. Indian rubber in the card-room
every evening. The village cobbler exhibits "The Last of the Mohi-
cans," showing how the exact length of the Mohican's foot had been
taken: he also exhibits easy boots made to suit the peculiar Indian
Corn. An Indian,File is mi view at the carpenter's. All the Nose
King tribes are present with their chiefs, the one exception being the
Ancas, which has never had any Anca Chief, and has done very well
without one.

vol. :i