Drury Lane, however, still retains its pre-eminence. One is inclined to smile every your at the stereotyped announcement that the coming pantomime at Drury is to" eclipse all previous efforts; but in the matter of staging and scenic effect it really is true that each year the pantomime is a little more brilliant than that which preceded, and this year is no exception {to the rule. The electric apparatus which has been recently fitted by Mr. Sachs for the raising and lowering of the stave has enabled wonderful things to be done in the way of rapid changes of elaborate scenes, and the electric light has once more been made use of. The subject, this year is The Forty Thieves, the story of which has somehow been made to include x trip to England and a visit to the Zoological Gardens, where wonderful things inthe way of strange beasts and birds delight young theatre-goers; and the scene in the robbers' cave and transformation scene are things of dazzling beauty. he humours of the performance again rest mainly on the shoulders of Mr. Dan Leno and Mr. Herbert Campbell; but it must be confessed that the pantomime as a whole is again a glorified music-hall performance. For fanciful pantomime, telling an ry story poetically and faithfully, one must go to the Adelphi, where Mr. Oscar Barrett, who shifts from theatre to theatre at' the Christmastide, ix this year pro ricing Dick Whittington. At the suburban theatres Cinderella ix again the ite. Thereare xt least six Cinderellus vightly on the boards in Lou-don alone.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.