WESTMINSTER PLAY

Evening Post, Volume LXXXV, Issue 21, 25 January 1913, Page 15

WESTMINSTER PLAY

MODERN FADS IN AN ANCIENT | GARB. The scholars of Westminster School broke up for the holidays on 12th December, when, in accordance with custom, they entertained their mothers, sisters, and cousins, and a largo number of male visitors, with tho ucual Latin play. This year the "Famulus" of Terence wee selected, an admirable per. formance being given by the elder boys. The mo«t looked for event of the evening, however, was the topical Latin epilogue, in which the events of the year were "potted*' in Latin Verse, with -a- genial humour that Mr. Peliester himself might envy. The institutions that came in for most chaff were the telephone — not quite new "to the Westminster epilogue if one remembers rightly— and the kinematograph, which, thus makes it first appearance as a classic. Both Words have, at any rate, the merit of being Greek, and fairly easily transferred into the eister tongue. There were no fewer than a dozen I characters in • the akit. These ' included a single-taxer, s» newspaper correspohdent, a lady novelist, a "Turk in trouble," a "militant barrister," ,an "industrial propagandist,' a press photographer, an Antipodean cricketer, a modern pavement artist (who happens, >t need hardly bo said, to be something of a post-impressionist), a telephone operator, an old coutry woman, and an "independent political writer." The scene was near a picture palace, where tho single- taxer '"was seen 'taking secret 'measurements with a view to im» posing his tax. He meets a correspondent fresh from India and the Near East, and complains of the other's lengthy and imaginative reports. The lady novelist, who has written five" novels in one year, is then Been fainting under the weight of a well-known newspaper famous for supplements. They all go into the picture palace together, when the "militant barrister" and the "industrial propagandist"- &r« live, and , are photographed signing a covenant. As before, the failings of the telephone are severely dealt with. The Ainglctaxer invites everybody to dinner, but cannot get through to his wife to warn her. The epilogue was," it. should be eaidj strictly rron-party. When the old cOutt* try-woman tries in vain to find a sanatorium there is a quarrel between the eingle-taxev and the barrister; but the "independent political writer" (\?hose identity, like that of some of the other characters, it was not difficult for the audience to guess) tells them that they are both slaves of party, and the lady novelist appeals to everyone concerned to "stick, to his own trade."