OUR LONDON FLANEUR.

Evening Star, Issue 6915, 30 May 1885, Page 1 (Supplement)

OUR LONDON FLANEUR.

The Easter holidays—The Inventions Exhibition—Deatli of Lord Cairns—Lady Cairns’s announcement—The persecution of Van Zandt—Driven away at last —Failure of Lord Lytton’s posthumous play—Loss to the management, LI 0,000 —Great success of I’inero’s comedy “The Magistrate”—Sims’s new melodrama— First night of “ The Last Chance”—A genuine Adelphi play—Great “ set ” representing “ London Docks,” the gates, etc.—More criminal romances—- “ A Hard Knot”—Cheap reprints—The April magazines—A comic song, “ What Cheer, ’Ria ?”

Loxdon, April 11. Now the Master holidays are over the season will begin in earnest, and from all ap; earances promises to be brighter and gayer than people anticipated. In view of the coming general election, Parliament is fixed to rise early, and all the great social functions of the year—including the Marlborough House garden-party, are consequently arranged for June, The opening of the Inventions Exhibition next month will be a very dull affair. The Prince of Wales has been asked to officiate, and has consented, but stipulates that the ceremonial shall be perfectly informal. The reason is thatH.R.H has scthisheartoninitiatingthe Indian and Colonial show next summer with a gorgeous ceremonial similar to that which signalised the opening of the Paris Exhibition of 1876, and does not wish the effect discounted beforehand. I have not heard much about the “Inventories ” (as it is to be called) yet. The famous orchestra of Johann Strauss has been engaged to play in the gardens during a portion of the season, and regimental bands from France and Spain are also to appear. The show of musical instruments of all kinds will, Mr Arthur Chappell says, be the finest ever known ; but I fancy the inventions department is sure to be more popular with the general public. Next week I intend to ask Sir Philip Cunliffc Owen for permission to look over the building and see how the exhibits are classified.

The death of poor old Lord Cairns, though sudden, was not wholly unexpected by those who knew him best. He put a good face publicly on the feeble follies of his silly son, but in reality they half broke his heart. A self-made man himself, proud, ambitious, clever, and “hard as nails,” the asinine incapacity of Garmoyle simply drove Lord Cairns frantic. Had his son oeen a clever scamp the old lawyer might have borne it better, but to have begotten a downright fool was bitter, indeed. Lord Garmoyle, with his sloping forehead, shifty eyes, irresolute mouth, and self-satisfied smirk, takes after his mother, a watery, evangelical old lady, who can talk nothing but tracts. He was brought up in an atmosphere of religious cant and seldom allowed to mix with other lads. When at last he did obtain his freedom he, as you know, made the most of it. The sudden decease of the late Lord Chancellor was announced to the public in a somewhat odd manner. A pedestrian passing Lindisfarnc (the Cairns place at Bournemouth) on Thursday morning observed .a half-sheet of note-paper attached to tl\e gate-post. The memo, was in the handwriting of the newly-made widow, and briefly notified that Lord Cairns had “entered into rest at 6.45.”

A vevy strong feeling prevails in musical circles about the disgraceful way in which Mdlle. Van Zandt, the young American prima donna, has been driven out of Paris by her rivals. I daresay you remember reading of a strange scene which occuned at the Opera Comique in Paris several months ago. Mdlle. Van Zandt, then a popular idol, was singing for the last time in “ LakimV’ an opera with which her name had long been famously connected, and the house was full to overflowing. All went well till the entrance of the prima donna. She was greeted as usual with a storm of applause, but almost immediately it ceased, for everybody at once became aware that the heroine of the evening was not herself. The young lady first swayed unsteadily from side to side, then advanced as though in a trance towards the footlights, opened her mouth in a vain endeavor to sing, and finally fell heavily to the ground. The curtain was at once lowered, and the audience dispersed, charitably attributing the singer’s _ illness to “Bourbon whisky.” Next morning the Parisian papers, well-nigh with one accord, talked of the “disgraceful scene” at the opera, and warned Mdlle. Van Zandt never to appear again in Paris. One journal alone espoused her cause, and took the trouble to inquire into the circumstances of the catastrophe, with the result that ip a few days

the young prhna donna's character wmrcompletcly cleared. It appeared that her illness was caused by an overdose of a strong vocal restorative, which she took prior to stepping on the stage, and that stimulants had nothing whatever to do with it. The evidence on this point proved so overwhelming and conclusive that even Mdlle. Van Zandt’s enemies could not affect to disbelieve it. They persisted, however, in warning her not to attempt to appear again in I’aris, and prophesied—or rather threatened—disaster if she did. After leaving Paris Mdlle. Van Zandt went to Russia and played a brilliant engagement at the grand opera, her “ Lakme ” creating a perfect furore.

Her re-appearance in Paris was fixed for the nii-careme (mid-Lent), but owing to the hostile attitude of the Press she at first proposed cancelling this contract. M. Carvalho (tiie imfiremirio of the Opera Conikjue) would not, however, assent. He pooh-poohed the threats of the papers, and held Mdlle. Van Zandt strictly to her engagement. It was a foolish thing to do, for everybody knows what trifles suffice to rouse the Parisian mob. On the present occasion Mdlle. Van Zandt’s professional rivals did their utmost to work up the populace to the idea that public opinion was being defied and outraged. They were well seconded by most of the papers, so that when the young jirhna donna stepped on to the stage on the Wednesday of the nii-careme she had literally scarcely a French friend. Fortunately, the Americans in Paris mustered in force, and their applause partially drowned the hooting of the claque.. Moreover, the prima donna was in such glorious voice that even her enemies at length grew silent. Outside the theatre, however, was very lad. A furious mob assembled, crying “ Van Zandt a I'ean! ” and the police with difficulty smuggled the unhappy young singer away through a side door. Of course, there could he hut one end to a series of riots such as these. Mdlle. Van Zandt fought valiantly through four stormy performances, then she again resigned. Each night she sang a mob of 5,000 to 0,000 ruffians lay in wait for her carriage for hours, and ran after every vehicle like so many wild beasts. What they would have done had they caught her one shudders to think. Mdlle. Van Zandt appears at the London Gaiety Theatre next month in “ Lakme,” when an attempt will be made to recognise her plucky conduct in some practical manner —possibly a benefit performance under the Princess of Wales’s patronage. It seems probable the astute Henry Irving knew pretty well what he was about when he so generously resigned the right of producing Lord Lytton’s “Junius” to Mr Wilson Barrett. The piece, despite favorable Press notices, is a complete failure, and the manager of the Princess’s, who spent over LIO,OOO in scenery and costumes, finds himself oblige! to withdraw it after barely a month’s run. “The Silver King” will be temporarily revived, hut a new domestic drama by Mr H, A. Jones is in rehearsal. The Court Theatre management have at last scored a genuine and unmistakeable success. “ The Magistrate,” by A. W. Pinero, will be played all over the world in the course of the next two years, and it is so innately funny and so thoroughly coherent that any average travelling company must make a hit with it. The plot of the comedy is based on the fact that Mr Poskett, tie stipendiary of Mulberry street Police Court, has married an elderly widow, who wishes to be thought young. Her looks favor her desires; but unfortunately she has a son, a smoothfaced lad of nineteen. When the good lady weds Poskett she takes five years off this young fellow’s age, making him a boy of fourteen in an Eton jacket, big collar, etc., etc. Ke consents to the deception—which naturally carries with it sundry agreeable privileges such as kissing the girls, sitting on the knees of pretty married women, etc. —but stipulates for private rooms at the West End Hotel, where he can meet his chums and occasionally dress up to his real age. What sort of imbroglio this social fraud leads to 1 leave you to imagine. Suffice to say that eventually poor Mr Poskett, R.M., after being caught at a disreputable restaurant at two in the morning, jumps out of a window, gets chased by the police, and only escapes just in time to reach Mulberry street Court, where he accidentally sentences his wife (whom he mistakes when veiled for someone else) to fourteen days' imprisonment without option of a fine. Without gushing to the extent that some of the critics do over Sims’s “ Lust Chance,” produced at the Adelphi on Monday last, I am willing to admit that it is a workmanlike melodrama which will always succeed with a certain class of audience. It brims over with proper sentiments. The hero invariably says and does exactly the things one knows the gallery and pit want him to do. On Monday the crowded house applauded the good genii of the play, and hissed the villain and his “ pals” with equal gusto. I could see people were enjoying themselves thoroughly, and yet the materials forming the story of the “ Last Chance” are as old as the hills. The hero’s father—the ideal grand old English gentleman—marries an adventuress in his early youth. He believes her dead, but of course she isn’t. She appears on the scene, after long years, with a grown-up son, who is naturally “ the righful heir.” Hero gives up everything on condition the secret is kept from his mother. Old Squire dies of the shock, and hero (now an outcast) goes to London) with his new-made wife, who is the daughter of the squire’s enemy, the man who hunted up “ the rightful heir.’ Enemy discovers this marriage, and is aghast at finding he has ruined his own daughter. Young husband and wife hide themselves in London and sink lower and lower till they come near starvation. Hero tramps to the London docks to get work as a “ last chance.” Bale of cotton falls on him and squashes him. Meanwhile young wife goes mad and is abducted by the “ rightful heir,” who it soon turns out is an impostor, as his mother was already married to a Polish refugee when she wedded the squire. Repentant enemy discovers the truth. Adventuress and her son confess. Hero and wife return home. Tableau. Curtain.

The scenery of “ The Last Chance ” is, as was the case with “ In the Ranks,” wonderfully ingenious. Immense “sets” turn inside out in the most surprising manner. A massive representation of the outside of Haddon Hall, with masonry, trees, gates, seats, and grass lawns all realistically solid and lifelike, breaks in the centre and rolls this way and that in a moment, leaving us within a luxuriously appointed library, with chairs, tables, sofas, even a carpet, where an instant before everything was so different. The “sensations” in the third act would of themselves make the fortune of a worse play. First we have the “ dock gates,” with hundreds of starving men waiting for the “ last chance ” of a job—in fact, the troubled scene so powerfully described by Sims in “How the Poor Live.” Then the dock itself, with a forest of shipping, vessels loading and discharging, steam cranes in full swing, hundreds of busy workmen carrying bales and boxes to and fro, and a general air of life and bustle. As a matter of fact one never sees those sort of scenes to perfection save in London. Managers can afford to spend weeks drilling “ supers,” and money in dressing-up every man, woman, and child to look a particular character when they expect a run of 500 nights ; but in the provinces and colonies it is not possible. When “ The Last Chance ” reaches New Zealand it will not improbably be played by a travelling company with any scratch scenery available. I can imagine nothing duller. To quote Sims himself: “Plays such as ‘ln the Ranks’and ‘The Last Chance ’ do not command success solely by virtue of story, dialogue, and situations. Scenery, acting, well-drilled supers, and suitable incidental music arc essential.”

The mania for what may be called “criminal” romances continues to spread. The last recruit to the list of mysterymougeis is Mr diaries Gibbon whose “Hard Knot ” must be classed very high up indeed amongst detective stories. I think, on the whole, it and Major Arthur Griffiths's “ Fast and Loose ” are the cleverest novels of the kind I have read recently. The latter, you may remember, I mentioned once before. Probably “A Hard Knot,” as being the biggest puzzle, comes nearest to the standard of Gaborian,

Talking of Gaborian reminds me that shilling translations of two more of his works “The Downward Path (“La Degringoladc”), and “ Incidents in the Life of a Poisoner” (“La Comtesse de Brinvilliers”)~are just opt. “ Rite’s 1 ’ Countess

Daphne,-” Arms -Thomas’s —*• Foes,” Mrs Spender’s “Mr Nobody,’’ MisiDrewey’s “ Only an Actress, and Mr Richard Dowling's Duke’s Sweetheart,” hare also been published at two shillings. “ Mr Nobody” is the best of an inferior lot, Robert Buchanan’s “ Matt”—a readable novelette, originally run through the “Graphic”— will he issued immediately at 3s (id, and cheap editions are promised of ‘ ‘ By Mead and Stream ” (a singularly stupid book), the “Princess Alice’s Memoirs” (7s (id), and Miss "Wallis’s “Royal Favour.” All University men are gloating over Mark Pattison’s “ Memoirs,” pronounced by “Truth” the most interesting recollections of the twelvemonth ; and at Mudie’s Mr Hall Caine's “Shadow of a Crime,” Miss Braddon's “ Wyllards Wierd” and Mr Baylc’s “Good Hater”are in most demand. The magazines for April contain an average amount of good reading. ‘ Comhill,’ still infinitely the best of the semi-illustrated sixpennies, commences a new novel by the author of “Mehalah” and “ John Herring” (both, as aware, very able works), entitled “Court Royal.” Mr Christie Murray’s serial “ Rainbow Gold ” seems to be an amplification of a short tale he published in * Chambers’s Magazine ’ some time ago, “The Silver Lever.” It can be obtained for sixpence in the first volume of “Tales from Chambers.”

A capital paper on the “ Prince of Wales at Sandringham ” makes ‘ Harper’s ’ worth buying ; but the ‘ English Illustrated * deserves but little more than a casual glance, ‘ Longman’s ’ contains the initial chapter of Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Prince Otto,” but is otherwise dull; and the ‘Gentleman’s* and ‘ Belgravia ’ are average numbers. The latter has one of Grant Allan’s short stories, “Professor Milliter’s Dilemma,” which should not be missed.

All London rings at present with the refrain of a terribly popular comic song christened “ What cheer, ’Ria?” (’Ria being, short for Maria). That “talented sefiocomique” Miss Bessie Bellwood warbles it six times nightly at different music halls, and Nelly Parren has introduced it into the new Gaiety burlesque with frantic success. On the first night the critics were much scandalised by pit, gallery, and even balcony joining in the chorus. Another comic song much in vogue just now has reference to “Our Brave Colonial Brothers,” and yet another, “Too Late,” to General Gordon, One of the chastest lyrics boasts of the following coherent chorus, sung to a rollicking tune : Buie. Rule Britannia! and Ood Save the Queen t Ha d times! Hard times never more be seen. Hokey-pokey, tuppence a lump! You oil know what I m an. Oh ! what a happy land is England.