l plaudits.

Behind me I heard an American lady suggest that if they could somehow
distinguish the spirit from the body it would be better for our
illusions. To which her neighbour expressed the opinion that they
would eventually manage to do that feat. I await, less hopefully, this
development in stage mechanism. Meanwhile _Mary Rose_ has much to
answer for.

The play began promisingly enough with a scene full of colour and
humanity, of humour and pathos. We were among the roundabouts, whose
florid and buxom manageress, _Mrs. Muscat_ (admirably played by Miss
SUZANNE SHELDON), was having a quarrel of jealousy with her assistant
and late lover, "_The Daisy_," who had been seen taking notice of
Another. The dumb devotion of this child, _Julia_ (Miss MARY MERRALL),
who could never find words for her love--she said little beyond "Yuss"
and "I dunno"--was a very moving thing; and the patient stillness with
which she bore his subsequent brutality held us always under a strange
fascination.

[Illustration: "_The Daisy_" (_Mr. CAINE_). "WHAT MADE YOU TAKE A
FANCY TO ME?"

_Julia_ (_Miss MERRALL_). "I DUNNO."

(_Sympathetic appreciation of her ignorance on part of audience._)]

For the rest it was an ugly and sordid business, relieved only by the
coy confidences of the amorous _Maria_ (played by Miss GLADYS GORDON
with a nice sense of fun). Mr. HENRY CAINE, as "_The Daisy_,"
presented very effectively the rough-and-ready humour and the frank
brutality of his type; but he perhaps failed to convey the devastating
attractions which he was alleged to have for the frail sex; and his
sudden spasms of tragic emotion seemed a little out of the picture.

Apart from the painful crudity of the scene that was loosely described
as "The Other Side," the play abounded in amateurisms. For one thing
there was too much sermonising. It began with an obtrusive homily
on the part of an inspector of police, who went out of his way to
admonish _Julia_ about the danger of associating with "_The Daisy_."
Another instance was that of the bank-messenger, a person of such
self-possession and detachment that he contrived to deliver a moral
address while holding one foiled villain at the point of his revolver
and gripping the other's wrist as in a vice.

Nothing again could have been more naive than the innocent home-coming
of the domestic carving-knive, freshly sharpened, from the grinder's
just in time to be diverted to the objects of a murderou