Ketch_ is now, by a rapid change of
scene, discovered in limbo, and condemned to death; why, we were too
stupid to make out. The fatal cart--very likely modelled after "the best
authorities"--next occupies the stage, drawn by a real horse, and filled
with _Sir Gregory Gash_ (who it seems is going to be hanged) and _Jack
Ketch_ not as a prisoner, but as an officer of the crown; for we are to
suppose that _Mr. Barabbas_, having retired from the public scaffold to
private life, has seceded in favour of _Jack Ketch_, who is saved from the
rope himself, on condition of his using it upon the person of _Sir
Gregory_ and every succeeding criminal. All the characters come on with
the cart, and a _denouement_ evidently impends. The distracted lover
demands of somebody to restore his mistress, which _Gipsy George_ is
really so polite as to do; for although the bills expressly inform us she
has committed "suicide," and we have actually seen her jump into the river
Lea; yet there she is safe and sound!--carefully preserved in an envelope
formed partly by the _Gipsy_ himself, and partly by his cloak. She, of
course, embraces her lover, and leaves _Jack Ketch_ to embrace his
profession with what appetite he may; all, in fact, ends happily, and _Sir
Gregory_ goes off to be hanged.

This, then, is the state to which the founders of the Newgate school of
dramatic literature, and the march of intellect, have brought us. Nothing
short of actual hanging--the most revolting and repulsive of all possible
subjects to enter, much less to dwell in any mind not actually
savage--must now be provided to meet the refined taste of play-goers. In
the present instance, nothing but the actual _spiciness_ of the subject
saved the piece from the last sentence of even Sadler's Wells' critical
law; for in construction and detail, it is the veriest mass of incoherent
rubbish that was ever shot upon the plains of common sense. The sketch we
have made is in no one instance exaggerated. Our readers may therefore
easily judge whether we speak truly or not.

* * * * *

PUNCH AT THE NEW STRAND.

When Napoleon first appeared before the grand army after his return from
Elba--when Queen Victoria made her _debut_ at the assemblage of her first
parliament--when Kean performed "Othello" at Drury Lane immediately after
he had caused a certain friend of his to play the same part in the Court
of King's Bench--the public mind was terribl