refuse a player on the strength of hearsay testimony: ours is hearsay evidence in the most accessible form, and even the managers have some belief in the soundness of the judgment of several of us. They all recognise the fact that we tend to create public opinion, and that an actor or actress much spoken of admiringly in the papers excites the curiosity of playgoers, and is a useful addition to a cast. Consequently we feel that in speaking of or ignoring individual performers we are affecting them to some extent in earning their livelihood.

There is a story concerning a critic upon whose death half the stage went into quarter-mourning. If it be true, it showed that he was very short-sighted in his amiability, for when dealing with an overcrowded profession one must remember that ill-earned praise of A may keep B, who is more worthy, from getting A's place, to which, of course, he has a better title. It is very hard to act upon this proposition, although it involves a duty, for it is much easier to imagine the positive hurt to A than the negative injury to B; the critic in question probably shut his eyes to this, if he ever thought of it, and died comfortably unaware of the fact that his indiscriminating praise had kept many meritorious people out of their rights.

Even supposing one masters the illogical feeling of the lamented critic, difficulties arise. We have grown very velvet-tongued in these days. There was no nonsense about our predecessors; if the leading lady was plain, they said so, whilst if one of us were to suggest that the heroine, whose beauty is talked of tiresomely during the play, in real life might sit in unflattering safety under mistletoe till the berries shrivelled he would be regarded as an ungentle manlike brute. This is rather awkward.

There is an injustice in being forced into a conspiracy of silence about the figure or face of a lady who would catch cold at kiss-in-the-ring, yet is supposed at first sight to set Romeo's pulses throbbing madly, and when the dear creatures whom we loved a quarter of a century ago appear to us unsuitable for ingenue parts we feel that it is a terrible breach of duty not to say so, yet it is painful to be candid.

Now and again the matter becomes ridiculous, and we venture to make oblique suggestions; but even this is a poor accomplishment of our task. Yet it seems appallingly rude and direct to say that Miss X. showed intelligence and technical skill, but is too old or too fat or too ugly for her part; and managers rely upon our reticence and upon pictures in which the sun helps photographers in a game of deception—perhaps that unfortunate victim of the November fogs may resent the suggestion of conspiracy, and complain of fraudulent tricks with negatives—and so the public is deceived. Also, undated photographs are used—fraudulently. This is a very irksome matter, for our friends are candid about our backwardness, and ask indignantly why we fail to mention that Miss —— is ugly enough to stop a clock, or that it is a long day's walk round the jeune premier at the Footlights Theatre.

Something at least might be done by the managers to help us. They ought to cut the references to the heroine's beauty when it is obvious that she has none. It may be suggested that is this hard upon the plain women who possess the mysterious gift of charm. The answer is that no charming woman is ever plain, even if someone—Voltaire, perhaps—spoke of "les laides charmeuses."

The list of difficult points is not exhausted. For the question arises whether one ought to mention at all any acting that is not extraordinarily good or bad. As a rule, mediocrity has to pass unnoticed in this world; in most professions the person whose worth is not above or below the average is rarely mentioned. Why should an exception be made in case of a player? If we know that the performance of Miss X. is no better or worse than would have been that of the average actress, why should we torture our brains to find adjectives concerning her?

Perhaps in dealing with this, attention ought to be drawn to the fact that the point really relates almost exclusively to criticisms of new plays. When Hamlet is given, or any other classic drama, by a queer twist one finds in fact that from a journalistic point of view the performance is of more importance than the piece. We are not expected to add to the intolerable mass of matter already written about the Prince; nobody cares twopence what we write concerning the play, since we have nothing to say that has not been said already, and by more important people; and the curiosity of the public in this case relates only to the acting and the setting.

The Circumstances under which he Writes

A little while ago the critic of an evening paper received a letter partly in the following words:—"I am deeply grateful to you, but for you, I should not have known that Réjane made a speech at the end of La Souris. Such morning papers as I saw said nothing about it. Things have changed sadly, you see. I write slowly, and I hate last acts; they always spoil a play. I noticed that a little while ago you suggested that it might be a good idea to begin a play with the last act; the idea is a mere hysteron-proteron, absolutely preposterous, prae-post-erous." This sounds as if the writer were the ghost of De Quincey.

"In the past I got my morning paper early enough to be able to send down to the office a correction of any error in my conjectural notice of the last act, and reception of the play, or even a report of the speech at the end; and if the theatre had been burnt down, or the leading player had fallen in a fit, I would have sent an account of it, so as not to lose my berth for apparent inattention to business. There are editors who think that they can get critics strong enough to sit out the whole of a play. Now, alas! the morning papers do not help me."

Certainly there was a curious and pathetic humour about his position, for one of the features of the modern journal is that the more "up-to-date" the paper the staler the news. Once upon a time the ordinary daily went to press at about half-past one; but now the printer's devil is at rest after midnight in some of these offices, and several terrifically modern morning papers, a copy of which you can read with your breakfast at Timbuctoo, are completely printed before the extra-special edition of the evening paper of the (nominal) day before is sold out. The last statement may only be applicable to the country editions, by which the yokels are deceived.

The result is strange so far as the theatre is concerned, for on an important occasion even a writer with such a rapid pen as that of Clement Scott needed the full time-allowance of the old system. The consequence is seen in two sets of announcements. According to one, there is to be a répétition générale of several forthcoming plays, which, in plain English, means an anticipatory performance to a private audience, given in order to assist the critics—or some of them—in carrying out their duties and fighting the clock, and perhaps also for the purpose of giving seats to some of the swagger "deadheads" who crowd the stalls on a first night.

The other announcement was by Sir Herbert Tree, that his coming first night was to begin at seven o'clock, in order that we might have leisure on the same evening for the performance of our tasks. The representatives of the morning papers have a melancholy choice between having no time to dine and no time to write.

Perhaps the répétition générale system will come into vogue, but it has disadvantages. For years it was worked at the Savoy during the days of that theatre's vitality; but the public rehearsal was a real rehearsal, with three rows of stalls left empty for the to-and-fro of people directing the performance, and scenes were acted over again and songs resung. A procession in Utopia Limited was sent back half-a-dozen times because