The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-03-28

of warfare. The local regiment has come out in hasty confusion to repel the German invaders. A fussy little amateur captain takes possession of the Englishman's home, vaguely re- earding 1t as a point of vantage. but 70 confused that he forsets all he ever learned of the art of warfare. and relying helplessly on a sergeant. the only man In hts command with any notion of what to do. or how to do It. Forty minutes of hilarity with the mili- tia very ludicrous. made the initial au- dience laugh much. and 1t didn't all stop even when a bullet from the ene- my came in through a winow to hit the famiiy's pet son. as he stood on table peering out amusedly, as he might at a foot race. and he fell clear to the floor, there to curl up in agony before stretching out dead.
 7 Du Maurier decided to lift his argu- ment for Britain's regular army, and against her militia, up to a tragic piex for the typical John Bull as well as. melodramatic boom for the profession al of arms. The author boldly contin- ues his humor into the third act. The house is afire from German shells. wounded militiamen are braveiy nurs- ed by the women of the household and the awfulness of warfare Is setting in: {:
 
 as before and a succession of incidents is as absurd. At length. the sergeant who alone keeps a cool head. and clear memory of what he has studied in military textbooks, takes control and conducts an orderly retreat--but not of the John Bull whose home has not served as his sacred castle. He denounces the whole affair as an out rage. swears that he will demand ae- ton by Parliament for redress and de- fies the invaders to oust him. His family begs him in vain to quit. and has to go away without him. He run away from a foe? Never. He will stay there in his home, although 1t Is burning, and he will denounce the in- truders upon his rights. although he may die on the spot The actor is William Hawtry. made up for the John Bull of Punch, and he has been clever in his delineation of the ma tional characteristics of jackass ob- stinacy; but he has appealed only to the American desire for fun: so now when his obduracy becomes valor- ously heroic. can 1t be expected that the New York audience will grow sud- denly graveY
 The night outside the windows IS lurid with the burning of the old mans home. Cannon balls have torn nOteb III Lnc Wdilo. drop around him through burnt spa ces in the ceiling. He Is one man op- posed to an army. Shells scream past. One bursts in the room. He won't budge. Instead. he picks up repeat ing rifle and stands defiant By this time, the people at the opening per- rormance had sobered. But the ven- turesome author threw them back into laughter by making the John Bull. in his awkward ignorance of firearms, shatter a mirror in his own room with his first bullet, instead of per- forating a foe out wonder. monito- ry hiss of few silenced the many to the gravity of the incident; and I don't doubt that in England there Is no need of call for decorum; nor would 1 be surprised if, in America. ushers will have to be drilled for hush CTS. or the gallery monitors brought down stairs with their rattans to rap for silence in the parquet.
 It Is only for an instant. however, that burlesque snatches An English mans Home" back from the tragedy of It's climax. The sturdy old dolt turns to face the foreign invaders of