n 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 Rejane made a speech at the end of _La
Souris_. Such morning papers as I saw said nothing about it. Things have
changed