e stage--was all repose. Alas for that word was! How those
lines, so simply yet so earnestly spoken, ring yet in the ears of old
playgoers:

"To hell with the man that strikes a woman!" [Biff!]

In the more delicate and lightsome passages, Corbett's admirers declare he
shines supreme; yet, after all, is he as funny as Terry McGovern? Take his
delivery of these lines when he is rebuked by the sub-heroine for using
too much slang:

"Oh, I'm onto the slang all right, and I'm going to cut it out!"

When the "Blocks" Went Off.

Mr. Corbett's delivery of these lines is certainly humorous, more humorous
than he knows; yet has it the genuine comic force of the acting of James
Edward Britt, an artist little known to the stage of the Atlantic coast,
when, in his drama, "Jimmie Britt the Frisco Boy," he conquers the comic
Chinaman in a burlesque boxing bout by slapping him with the end of his
pig-tail?

There is considerable dramatic force in Mr. Corbett's delivery of the
lines:

"There's my hand, Ned. If you can take it honestly, here goes--if not, you
are no pal of mine!"

Yet, after all, would it not be better if, instead of standing on guard
when he delivered them, he accompanied them with a side step and a right
shift on the solar plexus, as does Terence McGovern when he delivers that
famous climax:

"Unhand her, or I'll knock your block off--see?" [Bing!]

Or by a clinch followed by a short-arm jolt and an uppercut, as does Mr.
J. John Jeffries in that most intense of all climaxes in the pugilistic
drama:

"Carry the woman away? Not while Davy Crockett has a punch up his sleeve!"
[Slap! Thud!]

Conscientious and Two-Handed.

To summarize, therefore, Mr. Sullivan was a conscientious, two-handed
actor with a great punch; Mr. Terence McGovern and Mr. J. Edward Britt
have a clear delivery and a great straight left; Mr. Robert
Fitzsimmons--an artist for whose peculiar intensity there has been no room
in this brief and necessarily superficial summary--an awkward stage
presence, but a fine short-arm jab that has been known to put the villain
to sleep six times in one act; Mr. Jeffries, a left hook to the body which
always brings home the money, and Mr. Corbett, a comic intensity and great
foot work.

A word about the drama which Mr. Corbett had chosen last season. The
author of "Pals" violated all conventionalities by failing to have the
hero meet the unknown in the last act. He has, however, done one great