Life — January 10, 1895 — page 11: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

might be going to seed! If this should prove true what on earth are American managers going to do for plays to produce ? N importation of a radically different character is * The Fatal Card,” at Palmer's. This is a melodrama by Haddon Chambers and B. C. Stephenson, and contains plot and incident enough to fit out two or three dozen “ Rebellious Susans.” It is handsomely and realistically mounted and admirably cast. It has a large supply of villains, but we are free to say they are not what might be called © slick workers.” They may do for dramatic purposes, but we think that Inspector McLaughlin will bear us out in the belief that a couple of hardened villains who have committed a large and successful robbery do not stop to assume Eden Musée attitudes of remorse just because a murder happened to be one of the incidents and thereby largely increase their chances of detection and capture. A single villain might be thus overcome, but with two, one at least would have had enough of an eye to the main chance to get away with his pal and the swag. But" The Fatal Card" is virile and absorbing. The chestnuts interjected by way of humorous contrast are quite English and wormy, but find some consumers in the audience. The third act, where the murder occurs, is really strong, and could get along very well without the wax-figure tableaux with which it is sprinkled. The unexpected culmination of the play gets everybody out of an apparently hopeless tangle, and is artistic in con- ception as well as most ingenious in execution. As a piece of realistic stage mechanism it is most effective. The cast is a thoroughly competent one, the companies of both Mr. Palmer and Mr. Charles Frohman having been called upon for recrui Miss Amy Busby does not fulfill the promise she gave in “ Arms and the Man,” but in all other particulars the actors’ work, while not above detailed criticism, is entirely satisfactory. “The Fatal Card” seems destined to a long career, and if this should prove true it is further evidence that the theatrical appetite of New York is beginning to crave a healthier diet than it has had of late. Metcalfe. TH HUSBAND (6¢tferly): 1 wish I had known as much before I was married as I do now, THE WI amounted to s Sodo I. You might really have mething by this time. y ISS ELDERLY: I fainted last night. M MAauDE: Who proposed ? A SAD ENDING. O Inspector Byrnes is the one spotless angel in that endless array of thieves and liars? Well, it is certainly refresh- ing and itis also something of a surprise. He has wallowed about in it for thirty years, hand in glove with the blackest of the gang, and yet he emerged im- maculate. And that $300,000 was earned by the honest sweat of his sensitive brow in the most orthodox form of speculation. And he has a great respect and love for Dr. Parkhurst. All this is wonderful enough, but more wonderful still is the ease and comfort with which the Lexow Committee evidently felt it their duty to digest these statements. The hen that swallowed a horse is nothing to it. C4 Syren The Tall One: MY DOCTOR ASSURES ME THAT IT 18 CONDUCIVE TO FAT. The Other: MANt SAYS 1 SHALL SOON GET THIN!