; Miss FAY COMPTON, admirable example of a pretty actress who
won't let herself be captured by stage tricks, making everything explicable
except her continued love for her intolerable bore (and Turk) of a husband;
Mr. A.E. MATTHEWS handling a desperately unsympathetic part, which was
already beginning to look impossible, with great adroitness; and Mr.
STANLEY LOGAN, though badly hampered by a shocking cold and fighting a
coughing audience, carrying the bulk of the good talk and lifting it gently
over the few difficult places with a brilliant and well-concealed art.

Thus till towards the end of the Second Act. Then a bad, a very bad, fairy
stuffed into Mr. MEGRUE'S head the idea of the suicide lottery. The
infuriated husband, finding his wife in her friend's room at 7 P.M.
(frightfully improper hour), sternly offers his bowler (or Derby) hat, in
which are two cards. The one marked with a cross is drawn by the flutterer
and means that he is for it. He is to kill himself within twenty-four
hours.... And all this with perfect seriousness.

You will see how the Third Act of a comedy which had tied itself in this
kind of a knot simply could not be played. The author had completely
sacrificed plausibility, and it was not uninteresting to see him twisting
and turning, hedging and bluffing to save it; and a little uncomfortable to
note the conviction oozing away out of the performers.... Queer also that
it isn't more generally recognised that to come to the theatre with a loud
persistent cough is a form of premeditated robbery with violence.

T.

* * * * *

A NEW LEAGUE OF NATIONS.

The latest development in connection with the International Brotherhood
movement is the establishment of a College of Correct Cosmopolitan
Pronunciation. The need of such an institution has long been clamant, and
the visit of the Ukrainian choir has brought matters to a crisis. At their
concert last week several strong women wept like men at their inability to
pronounce the title of one of the most beautiful items on the programme--
"Shtchedryk." Again, as Mr. SMILLIE must have bitterly reflected, how can
we possibly render justice to the cause of Bolshevism so long as we are
unable to pronounce the names of its leaders correctly? The same remark
applies to the Russian Ballet; the Yugo-Slav handbell-ringers; the
vegetarian Indian-club swingers from the Karakoram Himalayas; the
polyphonic gong-players from North Bo