middle-class
surroundings. All this is sheer irrelevance; for the type of journalism
in question is not characteristically an outcome of any phase of
provincial life. Mr. Bennett may allege that Sir Charles Worgan had to
be born somewhere, and might as well be born in Bursley as anywhere
else. I reply that, for the purposes of the play, he need not have been
born anywhere. His birthplace and the surroundings of his boyhood have
nothing to do with what may be called his journalistic psychology, which
is, or ought to be, the theme of the play. Then, again, Mr. Bennett
shows him dabbling in theatrical management and falling in
love--irrelevances both. As a manager, no doubt, he insists on doing
"what the public wants" (it is nothing worse than a revival of _The
Merchant of Venice_) and thus offers another illustration of the results
of obeying that principle. But all this is beside the real issue. The
true gravamen of the charge against a Napoleon of the Press is not that
he gives the public what it wants, but that he can make the public want
what _he_ wants, think what _he_ thinks, believe what _he_ wants them to
believe, and do what _he_ wants them to do. By dint of assertion,
innuendo, and iteration in a hundred papers, he can create an apparent
public opinion, or public emotion, which may be directed towards the
most dangerous ends. This point Mr. Bennett entirely missed. What he
gave us was in reality a comedy of middle-class life with a number of
incidental allusions to "yellow" journalism and kindred topics. Mr.
Fagan, working in broader outlines, and, it must be owned, in cruder
colours, never strayed from the logical line of development, and took us
much nearer the heart of his subject.

A somewhat different, and very common, fault of logic was exemplified in
Mr. Clyde Fitch's last play, _The City_. His theme, as announced in his
title and indicated in his exposition, was the influence of New York
upon a family which migrates thither from a provincial town. But the
action is not really shaped by the influence of "the city." It might
have taken practically the same course if the family had remained at
home. The author had failed to establish a logical connection between
his theme and the incidents supposed to illustrate it.[1]

Fantastic plays, which assume an order of things more or less exempt
from the limitations of physical reality, ought, nevertheless, to be
logically faithful to their own assumptions. Some