Punch (99.1890)

168

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [October 4, 1890.

"A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE" AT THE AVENUE.

First of all, the title of the piece is against it. The Struggle for
Life suggests to the general British Public, unacquainted with the
name of Daudet, a melodrama of the type of Drink, in which a
variety of characters should he engaged in the great struggle for
existence. It is suggestive of Btrikes, the great struggle between
Labour and Capital, between class and class, between principal and
interest, between those with moral principles and those without
them. It is suggestive of the very climax of melodramatic sensation,

and, being suggestive
of all this to the ma-
jority, the majority
will be disappointed
when it doesn't get
all that this very re-
sponsible title has
led them to expect.
Those who know the
Trench novel will be
dissatisfied with the
English adaptation
of it, filtered, as it
has been, through a
French dramatic
version of the story.
So much for the title.
For the play itself,
as given by Messrs.
Buchanan and Hoe-
ner,—the latter of
whom, true to ances-
tral tradition, will
have his finger in

Alexander the Less and the preux Chevalier. ^?w:?if' Xt *l but an
... ordinary drama,

strongly reminding a public which knows its Dickens of the story of
Little Em'ly, with Vaillant for Old Peggotty, Lydie for Little Em'ly,
Antonin Caussade for Ham, and Paul Asticr for Steerforth. Per-
haps it would be carrying the resemblance too far to see in Rosa
JDartle, with her scorn for "that sort of creature," the germ of
Esther de Seleny. Mix this with a situation from Le Monde oil Von
s'ennuie, spoilt in the mixing, and there's the drama.

For the acting—it is admirable. Miss Genevieve Waed 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,— she, 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 Henby Ieving. 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'Waed and
Mr. Alexander, the best performance is
that of Miss Graves as Little Em'ly Lydie,
and of Mr. Fbedebick Keee 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 Avenger.
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 oredit 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 approach-
ing 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 neighbour-
ing Parish, I am not quite sure whether it is St. Margaret Moses, or
St. Peter the Oueer, a considerable sum was bequeathed by a pious
parishioner in the reign of Queen Majry, 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 con-
valescent hospitals, or even the preservation of open spaces for the
healthful enjoyment of the masses of the Metropolis ! Tet such is
the sad fact. My Vestry, I am proud to say, are unanimously of
opinion tha.t^ 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. Tine, prescribes bee-stings as a cure for
rheumatism!]

How doth the little Busy Bee

Insert his poisoned stings,
And kill the keen rheumatic
pain

That mortal muscle wrings I

Great Scott! It sounds so like a
sell!

Bee-stings forrheumatiz ?

As well try wasps to make one
well.

That Teec must be a quiz.

Rather would I rheumatics bear
Than try; the Busy Bee.

No, Austrian Teec, your cure
may work!
But won't be tried on me.'

"Ie era Loin."—Great day for England in general,
London in particular, when Augustus Glossop
Harris,—the " Gloss-op "-portunely appears,
nothing without the gloss up-on him,—popularly
known by the title of Augustus Drubiolanus,
rode to the Embankment with his trumpeters,—
it being infra dig. to be seen blowing one him-
self,—with his beautiful banners, and his foot-
men all in State liveries designed by Lewis Le
Grand "Wingfield, he himself (Deuriolanus,
not Lewis Le Grand) being seated in his gor-
geous new carriage; Sheriff Fabmee, _ too,
equally gorgeous, and equally new, but neither
so grand nor so great as Drubiolanus The Mag-
nificent. Then followed " the quaint ceremony of admission." Not
"Free Admission," by any means, for no man can be a Sheriff of
London for nothing. There were loud cheers, and a big Lunch.
Ave Ccesar !

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