The theatrical season is now in full swing. During the past six weeks some nine new pieces have been produced in the West End alone, and three more are to be soon in the immediate future. Of English Nell" at the Prince of Wales's and Sweet Nell of Old Drury" at. the Haymarket, I have already spoken, but The Price of Peace," Drory Lane's latest sensation, has seen the light since T last wrote, and deserves more than a passing notice, as it is a stupendous production even for Mr. Arthur Collins. The price of peace is murder, the murder of a spy who has learnt a State secret, to save the lives of 5,000 gallant English soldiers in the Esst. Phe piece opens with a scene in the accident ward of St. Thomas's Hospital. Here a man named James Vine, who has been ran over by a brewer's dray, is dying. With his last words he tells his nurse, Lady Kathleen Rosenagh, the heroine of the play, that he has been seeking a villain' who had deceived him and in whose stead he had suffered ten years' penal servitude under a promise that the Teal offender would look after his wife and child during the period of incarceration. On coming out, he discovered that this promise had been broken, and that the man who had made it had left his wife and child to starve. The nurse promises cee to Gind the family and avenge their wrong, but Vine dies without disclosing the vile lain's name.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.