The San Francisco call., 1898-12-25

plays in the churches, the marionettes
 being made to take the parts of saints
 and various revered personages, the
 Savior himself being not omitted. This
 sort of sacerdotal drama obtained ex-
 ceptional development in Poland, where
 the priests organized most elaborate
 performances, one of the most admired
 being entitled "The Massacre of the h.
 nocents.' In this tragedy little dolls
 represented Jesus, Mary, Joseph, the three Magi, angels, shepherds and even the animals in the stable where Christ
 was born. In fact, this particular play is preserved to this day in Poland as |, popular diversion, though by no means regarded in any blasphemous spirit. In another drama the Prodigal Son wen,
 through series of unpleasant experi- ences. What he was about to eat changed into skulls; the water he
 would drink was converted into flame and finally rock split open and re. vealed a man hanging from a gallows
 The limbs of the corpse fell off one by one, then assembled themselves on the ground and the dead man arose and pursued the prodigal.
 Cautiously illustrative of the preva- lence of this kind of religious drama is word that still survives in the Span ish language in which ''retablo" means either an altar piece or a puppet show. | the employment of marionettes in churches became abused, scandals re- suited from it, and thus the decadence of mechanical saints began. A regula- tion was passed at a synod in the Va lencian bishopric at the beginning of the seventeenth century forbidding the representation of the Virgin and other holy personages by puppets. By this time, however, marionettes had been taken up for secular purposes. Discard ing the solemn air of holiness they turned from grave to gay, substituting profane quips and jeSts for the pious remarks and judicious discourse which had formerly made up their lines Their costumes and stage business underwent corresponding alterations.
 This did not come about all at once. The expulsion of the marionettes from the churches was only gradually ac- complished, and it can hardly be said that the last of them have departed even yet The mechanical saint is by no means altogether unknown in Ro- man Catholic countries at the present day, and it sometimes does some very things, calculated to stimu- late faith and to excite the awe of all true believers. The earliest perform ances by marionettes in Europe out side of churches were of the religious kind. One of these plays which still survives. represents the temptation of St. Anthony. The old gentleman had an exceedingly hard time the wife ofSatan, who is a much -hedizened creature, try ing to seduce him, while lot of little devils attempt to steal his pig, which is represented as his only friend. At length they set the pigs tail on fire, but St. Anthony puts him out and is presently taken up aloft, where the fiends can get at him no longer.
 1t Is said that the first marionettes of the secular kind ever seen in France were exhibited in 1868 by a man named from whom the name applied to them is derived. A century later a dentist named Brioche opened at Paris a little theater in which the actors were wooden puppets. His success was i'm mense. Paris has now 0 good many theaters of marionettes, in which regu- lar plays in several acts are performed. These dramas. as a rule. are not printed