and of Mr. FREDERICK KERR as Antonin Ham Caussade,—­the last-named enlisting the genuine sympathy of the audience for a character which, in less able hands, might have bordered on the grotesque.  The comic parts have simply been made bores by the adapters, and are not suited to the farcical couple, Miss KATE PHILLIPS and Mr. ALBERT CHEVALIER, who are cast for them.  If this play is to struggle successfully for life, the weakest, that is, the comic element, should at once go to the wall, and the fittest alone, that is, the tragic, should survive.  Also, as the play begins at the convenient hour of 8.45, it should end punctually at eleven.  The only realistic scene is in Paul Astier’s room, when he is dressing for dinner, and washes his hands with real soap, uses real towels, and puts real studs and links into his shirt, and then suddenly reminded, as it were, by a titter which pervades the house, that there are “ladies present,” he disappears for a few seconds, and returns in his evening-dress trowsers and nice clean shirt, looking, except for the absence of braces, like a certain well-known haberdasher’s pictorial advertisement.  It is vastly to the credit of the management that all the articles of Paul’s toilet, including Soap(!!), are not turned to pecuniary advantage in the advertisements on the programmes.  But isn’t it a chance lost in The Struggle for Life at the Avenue?

* * * * *

CITY VESTRIES AND CITY BENEFACTIONS.

I have lately had the distinguished honour conferred upon me of being unanimously elected a Vestryman of the important Parish of Saint Michael-Shear-the-Hog, which I need hardly say is situate in the ancient and renowned City of London.  I owe my election I believe, to the undoubted fact that I am what is called—­I scarcely know why—­a tooth-and-nail Conservative, no one of anything approaching to Radicalism being ever allowed to enter within the sacred precincts of our very select Body.  Our number is small, but, I am informed, we represent the very pick of the Parish, and we have confided to us the somewhat desperate task of defending the funds entrusted to us, centuries ago, from the fierce attack of Commissioners with almost unlimited powers, but with little or no sympathy with the sacred wishes of deceased Parishioners.

Our contention is that wherever, from circumstances that our pious ancestors could not have foreseen, it has become simply impossible to carry out literally their instructions, the funds should be applied to strictly analogous purposes.  For instance, now in a neighbouring Parish, I am not quite sure whether it is St. Margaret Moses, or St. Peter the Queer, a considerable sum was bequeathed by a pious parishioner in the reign of Queen MARY, of blessed memory, the income from which was to be applied to the purchasing of faggots for the burning of heretics, which it was probably considered would be a considerable saving