FORMOSA.

Thames Guardian and Mining Record, Volume I, Issue 4, 11 October 1871, Page 3

FORMOSA.

To the Editor of the Thames Guardian. Sir, —It is not often I trouble the press with literary efforts, and 1 may therefore he pardoned for troubling it now' on a subject , my opinions upon which must coincide with the opinions of every right thinking man and woman in the community. 1 refer to the drama of “ Formosa ’ now being played in the Academy of Music, and as the play bills say, “ nightly drawing crowded houses.” My wife and children had expressed a desire to see the great actress and actor, Miss Colville and Mr Hoskins, particularly in the great play of “ Formosa,” which has been in everybody’s mouths for some months past. I knowing something about the play which they were ignorant of, felt it my duty before complying with their wishes to judge for myself whether or not the piece was such that ladies should witness, and I came to the conclusion it was was not. It may be said this is “ old fogeyism,” my taste is purieut, that I have retained and am cramming down the throats of the present, the ideas I imbibed in the now nearly past generation. lain quite willing t« stand all this, and more if I succeed in showing a few only that Formosa is a drama that cannot be witnessed without provoking and encouraging impure thoughts. The great questiou seems to me not to be whether there is actual immorality in the play, or whether it teaches a moral, so much as, does it not paint in the most brilliant colors that gilded life of infamy, the lot of so many unfortunates, and show to weak minds and easily dazzled senses that the attainment of ambition is through vicious courses instead of virtuous, that vice is at a premium, and virtue below par. Does she not attain the object of vulgar ambition by marrying a rich infatuated fool, whose high station in society compared with her infamous conduct should have been quite sufficient to protect him from such a course? Where is the sincerity of Formosa’s much talked of repcntence when she the minute after it accepted this “ rich infatuated fool,” who disgraces and dishonors his family by his rash and insane alliance. Talk not of repcntence such as this; its a delusion and a sham.

Silly girls go to the theatre: they learn that “ painted jezebels” are called ladies, followed and caressed by men of highest stations in society and surrounded by all the pomp, grandeur, and gaiety that money can buy ; and all this at the price of their virtue. Is the dark side of the picture-piece presented to them ? Arc we not shown a woman “ who had a narrow escape of being a virtuous woman ?” Not one word is said of tlioss who commence, and for a time lead quite such a life as Formosa, but who, unlike Formosa, never repent and reform, and bye-and-byc sink to such a depth of degradation, misery, and vice that nothing can ever restore to anything like happiness. I have written much further on this subject than lat first intended. I have attempted to show that such plays as “ Formosa” should not be witnessed ; that however great the moral it teaches, is a moral I have failed to discover ; that the idea of who and what the woman is, is ever present.—l am, &c., Paterfamilias.