The Fatherley's Misfortune.

(A Clever Play).

The objects of the Peace Society should be considerably advanced by the recent performance of this clever Wessex play. The plot is particularly ingenious. Mr. and Mrs. Fatherley are a happy couple with a family of seventeen sons and twenty-three daughters. Mr. Fatherley has one fault. "he cannot clean his own boots," and hence all his misfortunes arise. His twenty-nine daughters are lost one midwinter might's eve and their father's boots are so dirty as to be indistinguishable from the road, with the result that the thirty-five charming girls, being unable to find either themselves or their family, are page 47 forced to become Golliwogs on the Yoho Road. Shortly after this distressful event Mrs. Fatherley is driven out of England by the conduct of the Backwoods Peers.

The first scene opens a year and a day (the period after an assault within which a person must die to enable his assailant to be prosecuted for murder) after Mrs. Fanny Fatherley has sailed for Terra del Fuego. The scene is in Mr. Fittherley 's shop. and the play opens with an inspiriting song:—

"Our work is done for the day. Hurrah!
We're going for a drink with our Papa.
No one can tell how happy we'll be.
Our work is done for the day. Hurrah! Yes, yes, yes."

The second act takes place in the fields where Mr. Fatherley's forty-eight girls are leading the simple life. but are longing for the society of brothers. Hearing that there is to be a Cup Tie Final at the local Athletic Park. they arrange to steal some brothers from the players. This they do, for when the referee blows his whistle for the kick-off, the girls rush into the middle of the ground and take the boys captive. Then the delightful discovery is made that they are all Fatherleys. At this opportune moment Fanny opportunely returns from the under-world, as the charming lyric says:—

"Homeward in rolly-polly ship she steamed,
A rolly-polly, wholely coaly steamer steamed,"

and the family are all happily re-united.

This is a brief outline. The play contains a number of other unnecessary characters, who do as little as those referred to above to supply any action; in fact, the whole performance drags merrily along from start to finish. The true lyrical quality of the interspersed songs is shown by the quotations we have made. We cannot wish any one anything more than the Fatherley's misfortune.

Epistemon.