Page 4 Advertisements Column 3

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXIV, Issue 4978, 30 May 1903, Page 4 (Supplement)

An order nisi for the sequestration of the estate of Maurice Br.qdzky, who was recently cast in damages for publishing in “Table Talk” a libel oh Mr F. H. Bromley, M.L.A., was obtained a few days ago, brat a difficulty was experienced in effecting service of the order upon the respondent. Mr L. Woolf, instructed by Mr J. Woolf, recently applied to the Chief Justice, in the Practice Court, for an order for substitued service. An affidavit by Arthur W. Trewith, clerk to Mr J. Woolf, outlined the efforts ho had made, to serve Brodzky with the order. His Honor directed that the dr.deri' nisi .bo posted at respondent’s business office, and the respondent be allowed four* days thereafter in which to show cause why the rule sequestrating his estate ;shoiuld not be made absolute. Germans smoked 368 tons of cigarettes last year as against 38 tons in 1891. It must have astonished a many people to have heard from a person in authority at the Actors’ Association’s general meeting on Monday, the 80th March, that there were in England no fewer than twenty thousand actors and actresses. It was not quite clear whether this number included choristers and supers, but it may probably be taken that it only applied to those who play speaking parts. A very small knowledge of the condit’ons of the profession proves that out of this large number a considerable proportion of persons are always unemployed, and. as a matter of fact, it was stated by more than one speaker at the meeting referred to that many of the members of the association find considerable difficulty in paying their subscriptions of 10s a year, a sum less than the subscription to most working men’s trade unions. Obviously, then, the supply of players is considerably in excess of the demand. On the ocher hand, despite the fact that new theatres are continually being built in London, the proportion of failures among new productions is on the increase. Many thousands of pounds are lost every season in London plajhouses. and the profits earned by touring companies are also on Ui© decroa.sc. , Tli© enormous returns earned by . a successful play have in the past been sufficient to attract the speculator, but the ever-in. creasing proportion of failures must surely in time tire the syndicates which are behind most theatrical enterprises. Half the monev lost every year in London alone would permanently establish a repertory theatre in which the many plays of real interest that will not payton’a continuous period might find frequent and successful performance. The repertory theatre has long been advocated as an artistic ideal, and it will be a curious, but not unlikely, fact if it arrives as an economic, necessity. It would probably in the long run be found financially advantageou". by both dramatists and actors, who would obtain regular incomes rather .than,, the large hut very intermittent returns’they have under the present system,—'-‘Daily Mail.”