th from the State and from the younger portion of the
community it receives an encouragement quite sufficient to reward the
few who bestow their time and talent upon it. Great buildings, square
or oblong in form, the stage placed at one end, the arched boxes or
galleries from which the spectators look down thereon rising tier
above and behind tier to the further extremity, are constantly filled.
There are no actors, and Martial feeling would hardly allow the
appearance of women as actresses. But an art, somewhat analogous to,
but infinitely surpassing, that displayed in the manipulation of the
most skilfully constructed and most complicated magic lanterns,
enables the conductors of the theatre to present upon the stage a
truly living and moving picture of any scene they desire to exhibit.
The figures appear perfectly real, move with perfect, freedom, and
seem to speak the sounds which, in fact, are given out by a gigantic
hidden phonograph, into which the several parts have long ago been
carefully spoken by male and female voices, the best suited to each
character; and which, by the reversal of its motion, can repeat the
original words almost for ever, with the original tone, accent, and
expression. The illusion is far more perfect than that obtained by all
the resources of stage management and all the skill of the actor's art
in the best theatres of France. After the first novelty, the first
surprise and wonder were exhausted, I must confess that these
representations simply bored me, the more from their length and
character. But even Eveena enjoyed them thoroughly, and my other
companions prized an evening or afternoon thus spent above all other
indulgences. A passage running along at the back of each tier admits
the spectator to boxes so completely private as to satisfy the
strictest requirements of Martial seclusion.

The favourite scenes represent the most striking incidents of Martial
history, or realise the life, usages, and manners of ages long gone
by, before science and invention had created the perfect but
monotonous civilisation that now prevails. One of the most interesting
performances I witnessed commenced with the exhibition of a striking
scene, in which the union of all the various States that had up to
that time divided the planet's surface, and occasionally waged war on
one another, in the first Congress of the World, was realised in the
exact reproduction of every detail which historic records have