doctor's
certificate; that at every marriage the part of the doctors is at
least as important as that of the lawyers. Even if it were a less
accomplished work of art than it is, _Les Avaries_ is a play
which, from the social and educative point of view alone, all who
have reached the age of adolescence should be compelled to see.

Another aspect of the same problem has been presented in _Plus
Fort que le Mal_, a book written in dramatic form (though not as
a properly constituted play intended for the stage) by a
distinguished French medical author who here adopts the name of
Espy de Metz. The author (who is not, however, pleading _pro
domo_) calls for a more sympathetic attitude towards those who
suffer from syphilis, and though he writes with much less
dramatic skill than Brieux, and scarcely presents his moral in so
unequivocal a form, his work is a notable contribution to the
dramatic literature of syphilis.

It will probably be some time before these questions, poignant as
they are from the dramatic point of view, and vitally important
from the social point of view, are introduced on the English or
the American stage. It is a remarkable fact that, notwithstanding
the Puritanic elements which still exist in Anglo-Saxon thought
and feeling generally, the Puritanic aspect of life has never
received embodiment in the English or American drama. On the
English stage it is never permitted to hint at the tragic side of
wantonness; vice must always be made seductive, even though a
_deus ex machina_ causes it to collapse at the end of the
performance. As Mr. Bernard Shaw has said, the English theatrical
method by no means banishes vice; it merely consents that it
shall be made attractive; its charms are advertised and its
penalties suppressed. "Now, it is futile to plead that the stage
is not the proper place for the representation and discussion of
illegal operations, incest, and venereal disease. If the stage is
the proper place for the exhibition and discussion of seduction,
adultery, promiscuity, and prostitution, it must be thrown open
to all the consequences of these things, or it will demoralize
the nation."

The impulse to insist that vice shall always be made attractive
is not really, notwithstanding appearances, a vicious impulse. It
arises from a mental confusio