and be charged with theft. This is an anti-climax, weakening an
otherwise effective situation, as the immediate result of this scene
could easily be given in a couple of sentences of dialogue at the
commencement of the last Act. It is this fault, far more than the
unpruned passages of dialogue, that makes this interesting and well
acted play _seem_ too long--at least, such is the honest opinion of A
FRIEND IN FRONT.

* * * * *

THE BURDEN OF BACILLUS.

Is there no one to protect us, is existence then a sin,
That we're worried here in London and in Paris and Berlin?
We would live at peace with all men, but "Destroy them!" is the cry,
Physiological assassins are not happy till we die.
With the rights of man acknowledged, can you wonder that we squirm
At the endless persecution of the much-maltreated germ.

We are ta'en from home and hearthstone, from the newly-wedded bride,
To be looked at by cold optics on a microscopic slide;
We are boiled and stewed together, and they never think it hurts;
We're injected into rabbits by those hypodermic squirts:
Never safe, although so very insignificant in size,
There's no peace for poor Bacillus, so it seems, until he dies.

It is strange to think how men lived in the days of long ago,
When the fact of our existence they had never chanced to know.
If the scientific ghouls are right who hunt us to the death,
Those who came before them surely had expired ere they drew breath: