" Robespierre."

Otago Witness, Issue 2371, 10 August 1899, Page 63

" Robespierre."

The stolidity of the English ! It is real enough. I spent half an hour last night in the gallery of the Lyceum Theatre. The audience was dense and devout. A man standing at my side appeared to be hanging by his ohm to a wooden partition. And yet he could not see the stage ! It was the terrible prison scene that I looked down upon over hats and heads solid as a pine-wood on at hill that one has surmounted. A hushed pine-wood it was ; and as the guillotine rollcall proceeded every eye was set on those terrible and gallant partings. When the aoldier gave his life for his married namesake it being doubtful which was condemned — I felt the cheer coming, and it came. When the mother of that golden-haired child was torn a,way, with her pitiful promise to "come back," the pine-wood did not breathe. A girl at my side wept quietly. Many were weeping. All submitted to the spell of this scene of death and sacrifice. The astonishing thing was that when the -act was over .there was only a quick sigh, a, momentary whisper, a wind that was and was not. Then I saw men deep in the" evening papers. The girl who had wept said that she "met Sally in Sloane street last Thursday night." The- gallery attendant shouted "Orders, gents !" He had not the wit to say '" citizens." . And the counter in llie bar, at the back of the gallery, was wet with beer. — Academy.