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70 MELODRAMA
Mend ", with chapters to serve as an exposure of the way prisons were run. Next he presented the old play with this new title and a brandnew prison scene in 1865 at the Princess's. No one could miss his faith in realism now. In Act I the farm boasted " all the details of Agricultural Life — The Farm Yard, Wall and Gate — The Straw Yard — The Duck Pond — The Barn — The Barley Mow — Pigeons, Ducks, Poultry, Animals, etc. etc." And in Act II the Model Prison, labelled " Abandon hope all ye who enter here ", exposed " the new system — Solitude — Silence and Starvation, represented by the Gaoler — two old systems — the Law and the Gospel, represented by the Chaplain — Despair and Death of Josephs under the new system — reformation by Robinson under the old system — Despair is the soul's worst enemy — 1 My last word to you, and perhaps my last word to you in this world, is, It's never too late to mend '."
Part of this meticulous care in representing actuality consisted of casting a lovely young actress for the boy, Josephs, who is kept at the tread-mill until he dies. The result was that a critic rose in his seat during this scene and loudly protested against its " brutal realism ". On the same spot some dozen years before, " Un-English " had been shouted at the French duel in The Corsican Brothers. At the Queen's, Long Acre, in 1871, Tom Taylor got into similar trouble for burning the beautiful Mrs. Rousby at the stake in his Joan Of Arc, though this time history was largely to blame. And yet, with all this susceptibility, combined with all this rigid attention to detail, the Princess's brought out a programme to mark a revival of Reade's drama in 1879 which read It's Never Too Late To Mend Gentlemen's and Youths' Clothing. The death of another youthful victim of law and order was a more enduring theatrical sensation when Bleak House was at last firmly set upon the stage. To modern eyes there may be a resemblance between Oliver Twist and Jo. Yet a sharp line of social history divides them. One came with the blessings of a public already in favour of befriending outcasts. The other's welcome was chilled by suspicion towards anyone in rags. Nebulous horror evoked by the mere mention of socialism, with its " damning desire to shirk work ", caused a damming of the sentimental tear — except, of course, in working-class districts, for " Bleak House " had been dramatized in 1853 at the Marylebone, City of London and Pavilion. When Mr. Peabody's philanthropy eloquently expressed what an American thought of London slums, public opinion was shamed into a reversal of feeling. This was the general cause of sympathy for Jo ; the particular was Jennie Lee. Her father, an artist, died while she was young and she walked on in the tights of opera bouffe at the Lyceum. In the next piece, Le Petit Faust,