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Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 1931, 12 March 1875, Page 4

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is no denying the fact, that if l^^he article on " The License of the Modern Stage," which, appeared in the Times;of a late date, had been published ten, or even five years ago, the majority of. the London theatres would have been rescued from the blight which was then threatening them, saved from the degradation into which they, have since fallen. Weak and pointless as was much of this article, it was a protest against a regime of sensuous idiotcy which for a long time past has obtained in matters dramatic, and which, if it has not been actually „ fostered, has certainly never been checked, as it could have been at any moment by the Times. The result which, has been obtained is the importation to our stage of doggerel translations from the French, miscalledoperabouffe, of indecent tuffoohs and of stupid wenches, bedizened with the wa,ges of their prostitution. Ten years ago, a diamond bracelet on the arm of any actress, save one of the first rank, playing a part in. which such an ornament was natural, would have created astonishment; now the stripped jades who stand gaping and looking helplessly on while their more active comrades are performing their meretricious fandangoes are blazing With jewellery, whose tiniest spark would have purchased the mangle and the truck by which their parents earned their less attractive but far more reputable livelihood. If we are asked to what we owe the presence of these persons on the stage and the degraded style of the entertainment in which they appear, we say unhesitatingly to the Times newspaper The critic of that journal is indefatigable in his attention., Probably not one of the whole series of loose and crapulous niaiseries has been produced without his presence; and half a column of dignified rebuke, written as he can write, would have nipped the evil in the bud, ancl at once destroyed the scrofulous canker which has .eaten its way slowly and surely until {he whole dramatic system is undermined. Instead of the rebuke, one found two~days after a charmingly-worded notice, abounding with brilliant tropes and metaphors, and happy classical allusions ; those who could read between the lines marked its playful satire; but to the^ ignorant it was full of undiluted praise, quotations from which, their source being with much subtle humor veiled uflder the thin disguise of "morn^ ing paper," were speedily reproduced by the manager of the theatre in the • advertisement sheet of the journal. Has the time arrived swheH this most lamentable state^ of • affairs is likely to ■'btts/v.put an end to? "Has some sdeial influence^-none other, we fear, is likely- to be of the least use—-' been brought to bear upon jthesei human; " Walter-machines," pointing out the evil that: is being done . under their inert acquiescence? Tnere are two or three! theatres managed-not merely with appre-; ciation of what should be the public taster but with lib erality and refinement. There are some half-dozen actors and actresses with artistic sympathy and the education? requisite for their calling* The newi examiner of plays is a gentleman of culture, with a long experience, not merely of our own but of the foreign stage, and? further with, as we learn, a determination to do his duty. Surely under these conditions we may hope that the dirty, dreary doubU entendres of the happily defunct singing-rooms will no longer offend bar ears in the theatre, that the mincing; mistresses of silly] lords or 1 swindling I speculators will no longer offend our 5 eyes, and that modest merit among our; actresses may make its way, even though ■ it does not drive up to the door in a brougham, or cover itself with a velvet iacket fringed with silver- fox.—The World.