We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
94 MELODRAMA
better such a part as the erratic man-monkey is acted the more offensive it becomes ". There were seven acts with a unique climax to their synopsis of scenery. A grand panoramic effect of moving streets and houses ended in Eternity prolonged by " ! ! ! "
Revolting realism was tried in 1883 at Drury Lane when preparations for hanging Harris were made in A Sailor And His Lass, in which Robert Buchanan had a hand. " This last Drury Lane monstrosity is really too much for us ", complained another of those debilitated critics, although he had seen the country with a real cow, the docks with real rain, and a real horse. The sailor was Harris and the lass a farmer's daughter with the real cow. Her ruined sister and baby are being taken by Harris to start life afresh in a new world. But a gang of dynamiters, having persuaded the farmer to blow up a London street in one sensation scene, now disguise themselves as sailors in order to scuttle the ship in another. Harris floats to safety on a few spars only to be sentenced to death at the Central Criminal Court for a murder actually committed by the farmer. In the scene of the condemned cell Harris hears that his last moments have come. There are shrieks and sobs, he is pinioned, there is a procession to the scaffold, and the black flag is hoisted. The trap-minder is asked, " Are you ready? " The order, "Pull ", is given and then retracted — the farmer has confessed. The public were not amused.
Because he liked " monosyllabic titles " Harris wanted to call his next effort Humanity. But as the Standard had staged three years earlier a drama called Humanity ; or, A Passage In The Life Of Grace Darling, he chose the title of a piece by his father instead. Accordingly the autumn drama for 1885 at Drury Lane, written by Petti tt and himself, was Human Nature. Captain Temple, the hero, comes home from service abroad to find that Cora, once his mistress, is now his wife's paid companion and turns her out of the house indignantly, whereupon she makes him believe that his wife is Paul de Vigne's mistress. Captain Temple, fighting in Egypt, leaves the zareba at night to bring in a fugitive. It is Paul de Vigne and he confesses conspiracy with his last breath. As Cora is murdered by her angry husband, everything ends happily for the parts played by Henry Neville and Isabel Bateman. The next year, in A Run Of Luck, Harris and Pettitt caused their heroine to be decoyed to a house of ill-repute, and the filly, named after her, to be seized as security for debts. Both are freed so that they may win in a canter.
Meritt, odd man out, sent Harris reproaches that filled several pages, until he found cause for satisfaction. To Sims he said, " I read my last