Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1881-04-12
Tuesday Evening, April. I2. 1851.
..Forpef.lIe.Not.,,


This attractive addition to society
drama" by Herman Merivale and f.
G. Grove, is the rage in Chicago.
Miss Genevieve Ward, by her rendi-
ton ofthe principal character, is win
ming deserved laurels. The following
is the text Of the play
A beautiful and good girl is COM
PEELED by her parents to marry a gam
bier and roue, who gradually degrades
her into assisting him in sWindling
those who participate in his games.
She is no greater sinner than that; for
a woman it is enough. Among those
who frequent their house is Corsican
who becomes deeply infatuated with
her. She trifes with him, while the
marquis, her husband, robs him.
Frenzied by the double discovery, he
assassinates the husband and tries to
kill the wife. He is sentenced to the
galleys for a long term. A son, mar
rying before he is of leOal age, weds a
young lady Of good English family,
and dies soon after his marriage, leav-
ing his widow with, under the laws Of
France, an illegitimate child, unless
his parents, by failing to record. their
protest within a year or by recording
their consent to the marriage, remedy
the defect. A young English noble
man, who had soWn some of his wild
oats IN the house of the marquis, is
about to wed the sister Of the sons
widow; and at this point the drama
begins.
Stephanie, the marquise, has re.
solved to recover the place in society
from which her husbands habits had
driven her. She has committed only
the sin Of gambling and assisting the
marquis to deceive his victims. She
determined to make her courageous
effort for restoration under the protec-
ton Of the family into which her son
had married she tells his widowed
sister how in her hands lies the honor
Of the family; and from her EFFORTS
the pledge that she shall reside in their
house in Rome for six weeks. 70 into
society with them, and, thus restored
to the position to which she was born.
she will then sign the papers making
her sons marriage legitimate. She has
arrived in the house and installed her.
self when she encounters there Sir
Horace Welby. Mutual recognition
follows. He is resolved that she shall
leave the house. She reveals the
secret of her connection with the
Verney family and defes him. He
discovers the Corsican's story BY acct
dent and by convincing her that the
man is only waiting a chance to take
her life, and revealing to her that she
is at liberty, having rendered the gov.
eminent a service while in prison
succeeds in driving her back into the
career of an adventures.
The play is full of strong situations.
indeed, it is a series Of exciting epi.
sodes the interest in which docs NOT
flag for a moment. The action /,
rapid, being in only three acts; the
dialogue is keen. the denouement sen.
sational. The moral? AS human ma.
ture has manifested it,elf up to thi,
period in the affairs of men anc
women, there is no moral. The pla,
is a picture; but it is scarcely a SER
mon. 1t is a picture aud a powerful
one Of the helplessness of woman anc
the pitilessness and cowardice anC
cruelty Of man. Itis a picture Of tina
monstrous fact established since th,
beginning Of time, and likely to endur,
to its end, that a man may commit
with impunity all the sins in tn,
decalogue and be forgiven-especiall
by women-and that the woman whc
commits any one 0 fthem, and is in ;
mans way. must go down. AS thu
authors of the drama are both English
perhaps it was a bitter satire on tht
chiyalry OF British ar~istoeracy thai
the agent by whose cowardly and
guilty hands Stephanie is thrust back