Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1909-01-12

which he threatens suicide comes on the
scene. In few brief but emphatic words
she makes it clear to Underwood that
she cast him off because he was scoun-
drel. that she will have nothing furtner
to do with him and that his threat OF sui
eide is a cowardly trick which he hasn't
the courage to carry out. When she has
gone Underwood draws the curtains. puts
out the lights, goes to his room and
shoots himself. Then begins the real
work of the play in which suggestions
of hypnotic influence and new thought
theories are constantly projected
BY their means confession or the
murder is extorted from Jeffries. after
six hours of what the police call putting
him through the third degree. The
second act disclOses the methods alleged
TO be used in this process, and Is power
full feature of the performance. Jeffries
father. believing the confession. abso-
lutely regulates the boy and forbids his
own lawyer to take the case. At this
stage young Jeffries' wife, the daughter
of a saloon keeper of unsavory record.
without money influence any help but
her own affection and implicit confidence
in her husbands innocence. undertakes
the battle of his defense. BY sheer force
of unshakable confidence and grit OF the
pureSt and most persistent type she bends
he great lawyer from the father to the
son. The case once in his hands, it is
soon made manifest how the confession
was eXtorted. and that the same prac-
tees had been resorted to with the same
results by the police captain in other
cases where the innocence of the accused
was subsequently established. These
facts, together with the ultimate con-
fession of the stepmother to the young
wife that she had gone to Underwood's
room that evening to stay the mans
hand against self-destruction, and the
production of the letter that sent her
there. serve to establish the innocence of
young JeffrieS: but not without the most
disastrous effects to his young wife. who.
to also save the stepmother from dis
grace. declares that it was she who went
to UnderwoodS room.
The gossip of his friends, combined with
the work of sensational newspapers,
which persisted in heaping obloquy upon
his wife. in addition to his poverty
prompt young Jeffries to consent to his
fathers suggestion that he give up the
young wife and go abroad. this. however
after his wife, when she saw his leaning
in that direction, had also urged him to
accept his fathers offer. The presence at
this point of the great lawyer, who had
freed him from the charge of murder, and
who proceeded in few vigorous words to
free him from his weakness and the con-
templated criminal desertion of his young
wife, brings him to a realizing sense of
his duty and makes a happy ending of the
play possible.
In the cast the magnificent work Of
Helen Ware the young wife stands
-en1inently in the foreground. Excel
lent performances were given by Ralph
Delmore as the police captain. Edmund
Breese as Richard Brewster, the lawyer,
and Grace F'ilkins the stepmother
The entire cast is deserving of the fullest
credit and entitled to a share of the many
curtain calls with which the play was
greeted. Three hundred members of the
National Press Club Of Washington will
attend the performance tonight. and will
afterward hold an informal smoker at the
clubrOomS.