rial than many actresses need. Give her half a fighting chance,
and she is satisfied. It is pitiful to think of this clever young
woman freighted with affairs like "Brother Jacques" and "Jinny the
Carrier," but it was wonderful to watch her genuine efforts to do the
very best she could. There can be nothing sadder in the life of an
actress than this struggle with a forlorn hope. When that actress is
intelligent, well-read, artistic and up-to-date, as Miss Annie Russell
surely is, her plight is even more melancholy. One can scarcely view,
in cold blood, this reckless waste of fine talent.

May I pause for a few moments, and say something about the Hippodrome?

The Hippodrome was such a stupendous affair, and its opening took
place at such a singularly opportune moment, that a wave of enthusiasm
swept over this island. Every dramatic critic in town went to the
opening of the Hippodrome, while many of them crept into the "dress
rehearsal," in order to get their adjectives manicured and be ready to
rise to the occasion. This in itself was quite unique. As a colossal
American achievement, the Hippodrome loomed. It combined spectacle,
ballet, specialties, acting, singing, novelty.

In its ballet, particularly, it invited and received the admiration of
every lover of art. Nothing more beautiful than "The Dance of the Hours"
has delighted the eyes and the ears of this metropolis, that fell in
love, at first sight, with its magnificent staging, as the excuse for
the lovely music of "La Gioconda." The Metropolitan Opera House never
offered anything so sumptuous. It appealed irresistibly to the artistic
instinct. It exploded the fatuous policy that causes the appearance in
this city of those senseless, antiquated spectacles--food for neither
adult nor juvenile--known as "Drury Lane pantomime," a form of
entertainment that in its native land has begun to languish.

The ballet at the Hippodrome was a revelation, for this city has never
taken kindly to ballet, probably for the reason that it has never seen
one of genuine artistic merit. A capital performance entitled "A
Yankee Circus in Mars" was not a bit less "dramatic" than the alleged
comic operas and tiresome musical comedies that have afflicted us with
such drear persistence, and it was certainly infinitely more
plausible. It had novelty, sensational features and a superb
equipment. In addition to all this, there was a wonderful aquatic
arrangement, in which the huge stage s