MR LEITCH’S BENEFIT.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 691, 29 May 1885, Page 10

MR LEITCH’S BENEFIT.

Last night was to witness the last appearance at the Theatre Royal this season of Mr George Leitch and the able company who have held the boards of the Theatre during the past four weeks. Mr Leitch was to receive a farewell benefit. An attractive programme was prepared. In addition to the piece de resistance, the third act of “ The Librarian,” was to be performed introducing Mr Loitch’s song “ The Good Young Man who Died.’’ The following is a brief outline of the plot of “The Madman “ Three years before the action commences there was no happier fellow in the world than Walter Chisholm ; he was then 22 years of age, the pride of his widowed mother, and the soon to be happy husband of a charming lady. A bank failure in the north plunged his mother and himself into difficulties. He accepted an appointment in Madrid. Failing to receive any communication from his fiancde, Walter Chisholm made a hasty journey homeward. Meantime, another and wealthy suitor had presented himself —one Captain Marsden. The young lady's father was in difficulties, and intercepted all the letters of the lovers. Marsden, who had never seen Waiter Chisholm, is determined to supplant him at any cost. A paragraph in a paper announcing Walter OhishDlm’s marriage in Madrid to a wealthy Spanish lady is shown, and a letter is produced, as from a friend there, describing the wedding. The young lady takes refage in her pride and the Captain is accepted. Walter Chisholm arrives home on the wedding day. Stunned by what he hears, he drives to the church in time to see the bridegroom raise the bridal yeil—the husband kiss the wife. The bursting of a blood-ves-sel produces an insensibility, which ends in.a dangerous illness. A month afterwards the poor girl is in her grave and Walter Chisholm a raring maniac. By and by there is a startling report in the papers. Walter Chisholm has strangled his keeper, and is at large, no one knows where, pursued by his devoted mother and friends. The play opens at Mr Medlock’s, at Brighton. Captain Marsden is paying his addresses to Medlock’s ward, a wealthy heiress, who knows nothiog of the Captain’s antecedents. Mr Medlockexpects a visit from the son of an old friend, Richard Curtis, whom he has never seen. Walter Chisholm having by accident made the acquaintance of Richard Curtis, and heard where he was going and whom he would meet, has, with a madman’s cunning, deprived him of his papers and luggage, and smuggled him into an asylum. Chisholm visits Medlock in place of Curtis, primes the Captaiu with wine, induces him in a boasting spirit to tell the story of his villainy, and then the torrent of a madman’s wrath bursts forth.”