Los Angeles herald., 1909-10-12

Det Sergeant MalOney. .... .ADner Syihihohs
Elevator attendant. ...... Andrew BuckIey
Odicer er................ Charles NJ. Hill
Servant at Brewster's. Andrew Buckley
Annie Jeffries. ............. .ternanua n lseu
Mrs. Howard Jeffries. ...... Margaret Drew
BY w. HERBERT BLAKE
Packed with both verities and incon-
sistencies. which are interesting even
when least credible 1.-THE Third Degree"
came our way last night 1t is power
full and a vital drama, with several tre-
mendous characters, who at times DO
tremendously unreasonable things. lts
moral appears to be that the life OF the
husband and the reputation of his step
mother are worth more than the honor
of his wife, which seems at least dis
putablc.
Howard Jeffries, jr., is the son of a
man whose gods are social position ana
a family name for aristocracy. The son
marries a girl whom his father thinks
beneath him. The father is a widoWer
and marries again, his second Wlte re-
iecting Bennington, a rival suitor, VINO
writes her forthwith, threatening 10
blow his brains out if she does not save
HIM from arrest as an embezzler pg
continuing as his friend. Mrs. Jeftrles'
ST.. visits the rooms of her desperate
admirer to plead with him. Howard,
ir.. is there to seek the return of loan
from Bennington, who had introduced
him to his wife when they were chulns
at college Howard is drunk and mas
fallen in a stupor, Bennington hldlng
him behind a screen as the woman en-
ters. Mrs. Jeffries, sr., refuses to ald
her former admirer, and goes away,
bennington enters an adjoining room
and blows his brains out.
Howard is found asleep in the room
and accused of the crime. Under the
hypnotic third degree he loses control
of himself after hours of torture and
assents to a brutal police chiefs sug-
gested confession that he is the MUIR
derer. To save her husband, Annie,
Howard's wife, pleads with his father,
who is obdurate. Annie then visits
the offices of Brewster, a celebrated
lawyer, and enlists his aid to prove her
husband innocent.
Two things remain to be done-to
clear Howard by proving his confess
sion extorted and find the woman who
visited Bennington the night of the
suicide. The former depends on the
latter. Annie discovers that Mrs. JET
fries sr was the visitant even as the
police are filing the yellow journals
with insinuations that she herself was
the woman Mrs. Jeffries, ST., balks at
facing the disgrace, and to spare her
Annie is made by the playwright to
take the stand and perjure herself by
declaring she is the witness wanted,
practically blazoning herself to the
world as a faithless wife, her lawyer
reluctantly consenting.
Howard is acquitted, and his un-
speakable father at once moves to get
him divorced from Annie. She agrees
to her husband taking trip to Eu-
rope-a ruse to get him out of the way
DIT DfsptK
ster, the lawyer, eVinces belated penl-
tence over the violation of his oath,
tells Howard the truth and saves the
girl a husband, without restoring to
her her honor In the eyes of the world.
So the play ends.
The inconsistencies are obvious.
Jeffries, ST., is an impossible aristo-
crat, no less than an impossible father.
His type of false pride breads nothing
so much as disgrace. He pays money
for his boys defense, but insists upon
it's being kept secret. Yet at the start
he abandons the youth willingly
enough to his fate. Why? The family
honor is bound up in the prisoners
name. IF he is condemned, he is con-
demned as Howard Jeffries. The fam
lily honor-dubious thing-is inevitably
smirched the more so If the papers
are allowed to print the interesting
him. Family pride alone would have
driven Jeffries, sr., to fight for his
sons life as for his own reputation.
But the false handspring of the
whole is Annie's ready acceptance of
the load of infamy to spare the feel
ings of her stepmother-in-law. She
had no reason to shield Mrs. Jeffries,
sr. She did not love her. She owed
no duty to her The woman was not
even her husbands own parent When
the way open for Annie to swear away
her own good name on the stand, and
perjure herself, all her woman's wits
incredibly deserted her and she in
stantly consented, an action which ar
gued a moral chaos in her nature
which her character, as drawn up to
then, belied.
This is the basic flaw in the drama.
The lie, once told, reacts. She has
ceased to trust herself, and she ceases
to trust her husband. She is ready to
consent to a divorce, anything for him.
To smooth things up, Brewster tells
Howard the truth, but he dare not tell
the world because it would ruin his
good name as a lawyer who consented
to perjury. Annie is branded a faith
less wife for life. 1t is unmerited and
unnecessary martyrdom, and one
fancies her husband will not long rest
serene under their impossible situation.
| have dWelt on the defects of the
play. They intrude. It's merits are
even more patent. 1t aims a righteous
blow at insolent and stupid police tor
ture of the weak and helpless, The
police themselves are seen as the slaves
of the third degree and their own
swollen vanity. They believe in it, the
play tells u.s. as they believe in them
selves, as Jeffries. sr., believes in him
self Family pride, official pride, it all
comes to the same tragic thing, that a
woman suffers for the stupidity and
brute tyranny of men. In this motif
the play is strong and sane and nobly
conceived.
The acting is discerning and well
modulated Miss Eliscu gives a real
character, blending audacity and dip
lomacy in her attack on the reluctant
lawyer. and reading him a lesson in
that elemental human justice from
which the law derives it's warrant.
Underneath all she showed us a plain
tive sweetness in Annie and a grim,
yet wholesome, humor, in her satirical
thrusts at her husbands Grass and in
soent relatives The lowly birth of
the girl was as clear as her inherent
womanliness and loyalty. One even
felt that they represented cause and