LADIES’ EXPRESS.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume III, Issue 276, 29 May 1875, Page 2

LADIES’ EXPRESS.

The Editor will he glad to give insertion to any local contributions from his lady friends that may be considered interesting in the family circle, or to the sex generally.] THE THEATRES.

(from oub own cobbespondent.) Pabis, March 20. Vaudeville. —This house has brought out three new pieces, the first and the best thing, Monsieur Margerie, a drama in one act, by H. Riviere. The author is a successful novelist and has already given proof that he may reap honors as a dramatist. There is nothing in the piece to excite a laugh ; it is as dismal as a tale by Edgar Poe or Hoffmann. It is truly a drama in one act, but there is no reason why dramas ought not to be in one act, as well as in three, or five with a prologue and epilogue into the bargain. M. Margerie has summoned a leading lawyer to visit him on business, at his castle in Poitau; the lawyer duly arrives, and assists at the family dinner, where all is smiling happiness. After dinner Margerie conducts the lawyer, to his study, aud informs him, he wishes to plead a separation from his young and charming wife, whom he observed with his own eyes, .embracing one summer’s evening, his neighbor and friend, Loredan. He further produces a letter, where in the wife confesses her guilt, Hardly has the lawyer been left alone, than the wife enters, and divining the nature of the conversation, informs him, her husband was perfectly rational on all subjects, save the suspicion of her adultery, and that the letter she wrote, was with the view to calm one of his fits of monomania, and to escape his terrible menaces. The lawyer is puzzled, and, sceptical by profession, he does not know which of the two to believe, both have the air to be so good; he knows there is more than one fool in the world taken for a sage, and also, ladies who conceal incredible effrontery under the appearance of the most rigid virtue. He demands time for reflection, studies all parties, Loredan included, who happens also to be his college friend. The lawyer lays a snare for Margerie, whose reason he commences to suspect; he invites him at twilight into a room looking on the garden ; excites his imagination about his wife’s guilt, and opening the window, points to something like two forms, and calls upon Margerie, who has ever a double-barrelled gun loaded, to fire and be avenged. He does so, and falls back into a chair fainting ; when he comes to himself, he is in tears—fools never cry — and is surrounded by his wife, and children, and Loredan ; he asks what has he killed ; “ your phantoms ” replies the lawyer. Many consider, that monomania being neither a passion nor a ridicule, is not a fit subject for the stage. These maladies cannot be made interesting; theatrical lunatics, if men, are only represented in dishevelled hair and artistically tattered garments; while women appear in the proverbial white robe. Monomaniacs are destined for asylums, with alienists for spectators. Madness has ever succeeded not the less when represented — and the present case is not an exception —especially if compressed into one act. The philosopher Malebranche labored under the belief, that he had not a nose, but a trunk composed of a leg of mutton ; holding a candle under his nose while he slept, and when singed and thus awakened he was assured the plain joint before him, was his burned off proboscis. Retour du Japan, a one act comedy by Messrs. Delacour and Erny. This is an amusing trifle. M. Delorge is a navy officer, who has sailed for Japan, just at the moment when he w’as expected to marry Louise, the daughter of a rich notary, whom he had never seen. He had, however, commissioned his friend Miron, to report as to the eligibility of Louise, and he assured Delorge, she was nearly an imbecile, as ugly as the seven capital sins, squinted, looked humpy, and gossip said, concealed a wooden leg. She was quite the opposite, and was so attractive, that Miron himself married her. On returning from Japan, Delorge hastened to call on his friend Miron to thank him for his former services, and soon learned the treachery; his first idea was to challenge Miron, which he changed to the revenge of making love to his wife, proposing an elopement as a commencement. Ultimately Delorge, learning that Miron had given all his fortune to save the honor of his father-in-law, forgives him, the more so, as the newly married couple bind themselves to find him a wife, whom he must see before marrying. Vnepeche miraculeuse, may be described as a vaudeville in two acts, by Messrs. Nus and Durantin, It is extremely amusing, sparkling with wit, and capitally acted. M. Chamaillard has three good looking daughters to marry, and he brings them to Dieppe, to try and get them off his hands. To the boldness of the whaleman, he adds the patience of a simple fisherman with a line; he harpoons all noble strangers who arrive at the hotel, and throws one of his girls at their heads when ho meets them on the beach. But he has no fortune to give his daughters and this is a great drawback at the present day, if it has not ever been one in all time. Chamaillard has nearly hooked a Mexican, a Sweede, and a French engineer, but they all declare off ’the moment Ida Laboissiere, the bosom friend of the girls, appears; she is a handsome, rich, and accomplished; her father is a banker, but a simple man. Chamaillard perspires and swears at losing his possible sons-in-law, and this, after compelling his eldest daughter to read up the illustrated history

of Charles XII of Sweeden. Chamaillard is full of ruses, he is the Tallyrand of Conjungo ; under pretext of of complimenting Laboissiere on the approaching marriage of Ida, he indulges in the most venomous insinuations against her lovers. He speaks about the volcanoes of Mexico, of rattlesnakes, of yellow fever, of chronic re volutions, of Indian canibals who prevent the young Mexican’s silver mines from being worked, as they habitually put the miners on the spit; he insinuates that the Sweede is only the younger son of a ruined family. The banker dismisses both these aspirants, who, to show their contempt, at once propose for two of the girls. Chamaillard has yet to catch the Engineer; this he effects by obtaining for Ida, of what she ambitious, a middle-aged Marquis, with a title dating from the Crusades. The Marquis is a sceptic ; he subscribes 100 francs to a charity in case the list be published,and only thatnumber of sous if otherwise, and as an anonymous donation. The piece merrily ends by a quadrille of the brides and bridegrooms. Varietds. -This theatre has brought out a lively spectacle. La Revue a la vapeur, and which has been well received; the pivot of the piece is the same as in all such; a Parisian who shows a country cousin all the lions of the capital, and the review passing so quickly, is hence styled the retro a vapeur. There are laughable scenes enough; where the astronomers set out to observe the transit of Venus ; the weeping of the statues at the spectacle of the vine bug destroying the vines in the palace gardens ; contributions for the new retrospective museum &c. One artiste parodies the leading actors to perfection, and Mlle. Le grand reproduces with astonishing fidelity the favorite roles of Indic, Theo, Duval and other popular actrices. Mlle. Ghinassi made her debut; she is known to Parisians for amusing herself by entering Bidel’s cage of wild beasts; she is small, slender, and energetic, with jet black eyes, to threaten or command. She has much to learn in the way of singing; one can hope much however, from a debutante, who has matriculated in a menagerie of bears and tigers.