is well known for her admirable dances, it may be safely presumed that the gentleman is solely responsible for the plot, or rather “the argument.”  It runs as follows:—­“Dr. Burch, newly arrived in London with his pupils, wishes to show them the sights.  What better to begin with than Covent Garden Market in the early morning?” Quite so, the more especially as the lads must be very backward boys.  There are six of them, and the youngest seems about thirty, and the oldest about double that age.  The Doctor must have rescued them from Epsom Race Course, and apparently is attempting to give them an education fitting them to follow what seems to be his own calling—­the profession of an undertaker.  These elderly pupils follow their kind preceptor (for, although he is called Burch, there is not the slightest suggestion of the rod about him, and, moreover, his charges are really too elderly to receive chastisement) to the Royal Exchange, the Thames Embankment, and, lastly, to the Empire.  During their travels, they meet Mr. Rapless, known as “the Oofless Swell,” (a part amusingly played by Mr. W. WARDE), and John Brough, a carpenter with a taste for ballet costumes and drink, the carpenter’s wife, and the carpenter’s child. Dr. Burch, who is evidently easy-going, but good-hearted, after flirting with a lady who has her boots cleaned before the Royal Exchange, suddenly developes into a philanthropist, not to say a divine.  On the carpenter’s wife and child appearing on the Thames Embankment in the characters of would-be suicides, the worthy pedagogue convinces them (to quote the programme) “That they have no right to take away the lives which the Almighty has placed in their hands.”  Mother and child are quickly convinced, and the neat but drunken father (Signorina MALVINA CAVALAZZI) appearing on the scene, the good man informs him that his wife and child are dead, “driven to an untimely grave by his (the intemperate but natty artisan’s) desertion and cruelty.”  The effect of this inaccurate statement is startling.  To quote once more from the argument, “incontinently the now penitent ruffian falls fainting to the ground.”  But he is brought back to himself, his better self, by his child whispering “Father!” The situation is full of pathos, even when witnessed from the Stalls.  Recovering his senses, the converted carpenter promptly borrows money from the good old Doctor, and when that estimable gentleman is about to enter the Empire Theatre of Varieties (accompanied by his school), a little later he has the “satisfaction of seeing his protege Mortimer (the ex-ruffian), returning contentedly from his work.”  This is the simple but pathetic story that Mr. GEO. EDWARDES touchingly tells with the assistance of a full corps de ballet, five tableaux, and last, but certainly not least, the hints of Madame KATTI LANNER.

[Illustration:  Jolly Tar A.B.  “Hip, Hip, Hooray!”]

[Illustration:  Dramatic Situation on the Embankment, as seen from Empire Stalls.]