The Express.
London, England, 1868-12-16 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, WEDNESDAY EVENING, DECEMBER

cater, by the slightest motion of the arm or itiqL
the frontier line between fan and elleoning. 7
But perhaps it is in the sore odder
tions of our theatres that the fashions of
great cities, the capital of of is
cookery and the toilette—and Vie mortal of am-
merce—ust and react upon each other most
rapidly and remarkably now-a-days. Last
week we on this side of the Channel were
all crowing loudly over an astounding fact,
very frankly and handsomely acknowledged,
however, on the other side of the water. This
was the production at a Paris theatre of a drama
of which the principal situation was actually
taken from the English ! It would not, we dare-
gay, be very difficult for anyone tolerably
familiar with theatrical history in both oonatries
to show that Frisch dramatists, who can certainly
afford to avow the souroce of their plots, have not
now for the first time derived at least suggestions
from English literature. There has never been
that shameless systematic pillage by French dra-
matic writers from the brains and pens of their
foreign brethren, in which our so-called " dramatic
" authors" so long indulged without apparently
being conscious of the potty infamy of their
trade. Happily of late years there has been
just enough of international copyright legis-
lation to compel our dramatic authors to plead
guilty to the real parentage of their" original adap-
" tations ;" and when a French version of Ns
Thoroughfare was produced, and ran more than a
hundred nights, at the Vaudeville, there was
some consolation in the thought that this
success of English imagination and in-
vention had earned the right of hospitality.
Other changes are taking place in the dramatic
tortes and sympathies of Paris audiences,
to which we may find immediate analogies in
London. In France five act tragedies are became
impossible ; they are scarcely pomade in London,
except perhaps on the &array side of the Thaws.
In Pariathe =dimness are getting *odor sensational
pieces ; among other resione perhaps beelines sensa-
tional pieces, which depend on the some painter, the
machinist, and the ballet master. very soon exhaust
their sensational capabilities. What may be called
the drama of common sense and ordinary social
life is coming again into favour in France, and
unites we are greatly mistaken we see symptoms
of the same wholesome change in London. At
more than one of our metropolitan theatres a
genuine swans is now being achieved by good act-
ing—we mean the good acting of a whole company,
ores the French say, the ewe/able—and by the at-
tractions of a lively and facile, if not always very
brilliant or witty dialogue. There are, however, to
a critical eye two or three obvious fellatio' into
which our dramatists and actors are running in the
laudable desire to escape from the conventionali-
ties of a past era. Our dramatists are, it seems to us,
a little too disposed to forget that in London as in
Paris, in these days, • considerable proportion
of the playgoing public now consists of
people from the country—people of compara-
tively unsophisticated minds, to whom the
slang of the side scenes and the jargon
of very small literary celebrities is not
the vulgar tongue, but sheer gibberish. And
the actors, we mean the new quiet school of
gentlemen of still life, who have learnt (among
other accomplishments) to enter a drawing-room
with their hats off, are a little too disposed to
mistake a drawling languid air, an absence of rant
and noise, easy familiarity with chairs and tables,
and the frequent introduction of a pipe or a cigar,
as sufficient in themselves to a perfect presenta-
tion of the manners and customs of society, the
feelings and emotions of human nature, and the
rra iBClllblarve of human life.

THE RED INDIANS AND THE MAORIES.

THAT what we are accustomed to call the
" inferior races " must die out before the progress
of the white man is, it would seem, inevitable.
The advance of the one is the destruction of
the other, and there is not a more melancholy
chapter in the history of colonisation than that
which records the vain efforts of the Aborigines to
resist the encroachments of the civilised usurper.
In past years the most frightful atrocities were
committed on native tribes by the English, the
Americans, and the Dutch, who endeavoured to
hasten the process of extermination by cruelty and
bloodshed. In the present day deliberate cruelty
is extremely rare ; nevertheless, frequent collisions
are unavoidable and the destructive process con-
tinues. A war against the Indians is now going
on in America, which promises to be bloody and
expensive. The Indian question has always been
a problem in the United States, and an attempt has
been made to solve it by endeavouring to confine
the Aborigines within specially reserved territories.
But how to keep them there is the difficulty, and: so
serious has this difficulty become that General Su= -
11411! considers it should be entrusted to the War
Deportment. There are now 300,000 Indians in
the states, and as half of these are hostile it is
obvious that the Government has no trifling task
to accomplish. Already active warfare has com-
menced, and there is little doubt that the loss of
the Indians will be enormous. The mail that has
just arrived brings with it an account of the first
instalment of sacrifice in this melancholy warfare.
General 8111:111DAX has come upon the track of
" BrAcir Iffirrris," and he, with 102 of his braves,
have already crimsoned with their blood the snows
of Manses. A defeat from such foes would be a
dire disgrace, but, on the other hand, a victory
brings no honour, and if the General follows the
Indians to their villages and attacks them in their
winter quarters there will probably be consider-
able slaughter but little fighting. It is expected,
indeed, that by the end of spring there will be an
end of " the Indiana of the Plains."

If an ignoble conflict has been forced upon the
Americans in the Western States, it is our lot to
be enraged in a dill more unfortunate struggle in
New Zealand. More unfortunate, we say, because
the Yantis are • much finer race than the Bed
Indiums, and it is sad to think that despite the
many noble qualities of these people. their truth-
fuhsess, their courage, their devotion, they also
are doomed to fall before the white man. The
very suooesses they have met with will assuredly
precipitate their destruction. They have defeated
the colonists several times in guerilla warfare, and
it is acknowledged that in the bush we have no
chance against them ; nevertheless, it is obviously
impossible that in the long run 00,000 natives can
contest successfully with 1110,000 liaglia settlers.
But, if the Nudes and the English could live in
peace, the former would evesalmally di* out. The
extraordinary beentiomenees of the native women,
combined with a number of other causes, are
rapidly thinning their ranks, and just as the
native products of the country are being displaced
by English importations, so an Nantes themselves
disappearing before the progress of • stranger
and a civilised people. We are glad to en that
Kr. Drum, who is the most recent, and oninnlY
one of the ablest of English travellers in New
&shod, considers that, beyond the original an-
taxation of their country, the natives have re-
ceived little Wadi°, et our heads.

OUR 00]

crass AsyfrlN -
0. si.,
The Times sip that the shituirof 4.. a Anse,
wlfor premelbse Set these wire set* ellseleafiet the
crown shall vacate their oats, but be Maio fir re.eise-
tiio, boo now feueserated kW s cumbrous id floe's-
fag hem If there were w uslieisat reams der
Maisie( it, the remits sight be berm with patinas ;
but it is to feet never weds, more lima ma embenues.

meat, sad under ferainad• oirommetesees it Shims as a
unique expedient for caving trouble and provoking an-
mosseary =penes Nobody can now pretend to sp.
Prebend danger from the power of the mown, against
which this statute wee created as a onboard, and there
is, in fact, nothing but a vague and idle sentiseant of con-
marstime to swam to is abolition. It musk the Bows
thinks, be a matter of regret to all who consider it that
the proposition to repeal the sot, when made is tam reform
discussions of 1867, gasped attention in the multiplicity
of topics which than engaged situation.