A LADY'S LETTER FROM LONDON.

Te Aroha News, Volume I, Issue 50, 17 May 1884, Page 5

A LADY'S LETTER FROM LONDON.

After "Dan'l Druce ; " came a merry dialogue between Arthur Cecil and the inimitable Mrs John Wood, called "My Milliners Bill." It was written specially for the pair by G. W. Godfrey, and proved a big hit. Mrs Merridew (once an actress and famous for her dresses) has married Jack Merridew and retired from the stage. Her reputation as a well-dressed woman proves fatal to her. She runs up a terrible bill at a Bond-street milliner's. Unable to meet it, the is at her wits' end. Well may she wish for the times of Prince Poppet again, when she was able to put all her clothes in her glove-bow Her husband, however, lias secretly paid the bill, but determines to administer a lesson ; so, having a penchant for private theatricals, ho disguises himsolf as a bailiff, takes possession, pretends to bo an old admirer, and as a price for his departure demands a song. This enables Mrs John Wood to revive one of the great succosses of her regime at the St. James's Theatre, viz., the popular "His Heart was True to Poll," from Burnand's "Poll and Partner Joe." She sang it with all the old humour, and quite brought down the house. Of course, Merridew now reveals his identity, and the curtain descends. The success of "My Milliner's Bill was most pronounced. " Breaking a Butterfly,' 1 the new comedy at the Princes (of which, no doubt, you have heard) might just as well be called " The Innocent Forger," for where the butterfly comes in I'm sure I can't tell. A more preposterous story than that of a bank manager's wife who forges her father's name to a promissory note, and cashes it with a villainous clerk ©n a salary of £130 a year, has seldom been laid before the long-suftering British playgoer. Nevertheless, the piece contains some capital situations, the best, of course, being that at the close of the second act, where the upright and unselfish bank manager shields his wife by proclaiming himself the forger. Mr Kyrle Bellew acts his part superbly, but Miss Lingard, in a particularly short blue dress and particularly high heels, is hopelessly at sea as the silly, mindless, child-M ife Flora. The newspapers are especially severe upon her for her rendering of this character, because it is an open secret that the management considered her unsuitable, and wished to secure Miss Eastlake. Miss L., however, insisted on her rights. Edgar Bruce engaged her for twelve months as leading-lady at a salary of 50 guineas aweek, and she declines to play any but leading parts. "Nita's First," a farcical comedy by a new author, a Mr Warren, was produced at a matinee at the Novelty Theatre the other day with such success that the American and Australasian rights were sold to different managers within half-an-hour of the fall of the curtain, the latter realising £250. It is now on the evening bill at the Novelty, and on Tuesday Tom took us to see the piece. I laughed a great deal. The plot turns ©n tlit arrival of Nitas baby at her brotner's house before a letter explaining certain circumstances is delivered. Mr Fred Fizzleton (the brother), imagining himself the victim of a horribly compromising practical joke, deposits the little stranger within the open hall door of a neighbour. The child has been carried to Scotlandyard, refused there, and deposited in a four-wheeler, whose driver was asleep on the box, before the letter of his sister arrives, and reveals the true facts to the horrified Fred. The rest of the play i« devoted to the search for the missing baby ; a series of intensely diverting complications leading up to a happy denouement. The little piece was capitally performed, and (if done full justice to) will please you antipodean theatre-goers. Our next door neighbours went to Drury Lane Theatre the other night to witness the centennial performance of " Cinderella." They tell me the theatre was like a vast flower garden, as Mr Gus Harris gave splendid bouquets of rare hot-house blooms to every lady in the better parts of the house, and a well-bound brochure, entitled '• Five Years at Old Drury," to the gentlemen. The whole affair cost him about £700, but it was a capital advertisement, as he well knew. I have just finished a most interesting new novel," The Knave of Hearts," by Mrs Diehl. It is sensational, and yet it isn't, for thorgh the plot reminds one of many romances in which a secret poisoner works woe to the hero or heroine, the characters are fresh and human, and the descriptions of country house life cleverly written. Another good story no novel i - eader should miss bears the title " Introduced to Society," and is by Hamilton Aide". A rich Australian heiress, who has neither father nor mother, and whose English relations are middle-class tradesfolk, persuades Sir Norman and Lady Davenport, people of good family and unquestionable social position, but poor, to introduce her to " society," in consideration of her handing over to them £4,000 a-year towards expenses. The experiment proves a success, but the girl runs considerable risks, being coarted first by one scamp and then by another for her money. Lady Davenport, however, does her duty by her protege, and the heiress eventually meets the right man and marries him. This tale is written with considerable ease, and forms very pleasant reading. The " Queen's Journal " has run through three large editions of ten thousand each, and a fourth came out yesterday. Mr Hakes's " Chinese Gordon " also continues in great demand. Anthony Trollope's last work, " An Old Man's Love," is to be brought out next month by Blackwoods, who have already run though the large edition issued of " George Eliot's Essays." Robert Buchanan is busy revising his " New Abelard," the powerful but disagreeable story which ran through the " Gentlemen's Magazine ' last year. It describes the horrors which accumulate on the head of a luckless parson,who, after allowing himself to doubt,secedes from the Church of England, and sinks through a purgatory of transcendentalism into a hell of doubt and atheism. The spiritual downfall is accompanied by a moral ditto, which leads to the rev. gentleman deliberately committing bigamy. His son, of course, find him out, and the woman he adores leaves him forever, only to fall into the hands of the Jesuits, who promptly convert, kill her, and absorb her fortune. When the new Abelard learns this, he despairs utterly, but presently finds time to hobnob with a prettly spiritual medium from America. She turns out a fraud, upon which Mr Parson goes half mad, and wanders about in Germany till he strays to Ober-Ammergan, and is re-converted to Christianity by the Passion Play. Eventually the peasants find him dead on the stage of the Holy Theatre with his arms round the Cross. The tragedy denouement is fairly well led up to, but the whole story revolts one. Charles Ileede haß commenced his new novel, " A Perilous Secret," in several provincial papers, He told an interviewer the other day it would be one of the best of his works. Chatto and Windus announce a cheap edition of Zimmern's "Half Hours with Foreign Novelists," and I see 2s reissues of Anne Thomas s "Eyre of Blendon," Rita's "Dame Durden," and Miss Braddon's " Phantom Fortune" on all the book-stalls. You should certainly buy the last-named if you haven't read it yet,

||No\v the ballad concert season is over, the advertising columns of the papovs brim over with announcements of inviting new songs. Amongst others that have- apparently gained popularity, I may mention Tosti's "At Vespers," Blumenthal's "Her Smile," Isidore de Lara's setting of Clement Scott's pretty vorses, "Last Night," and Michael Watson's patriotic " Our Guards." The music from " Princess Ida" and "Falka," one of course hears everywhere, but I don't think "Nell Gwynne' takes as woll as the publishers fancied it would. Padhille's "Suzanne" is, they say, to be the comic opera of the coming season.