the midst of associates as lowly and degraded as herself, comes to know almost miraculously and to teach the spirit of Christianity. It is a pathetic, human document, written with understanding. "Vera, the Medium," a dramatization by Richard Harding Davis, from his own novel, likewise a new vehicle for Miss Robson, is less significant. It is, in fact, a disappointment in its dramaturgic values, though it may be retained for some time in the star's repertoire. It is evident that Mary Mannering has made a wise choice in staging "A House of Cards," by Ivy Ashton Root. Built sincerely, with a strong moral, it should head the list of recent problem drama. In its wake follow "The House of Bondage," by Seymour Obermer, a writer hitherto unknown, and "The Great Question," by Frederic Paulding. The former presents an old sex theme in a novel way, and the play affords the emotional star, Florence Roberts, an agreeable and well-developed rôle. The latter play deals with a great national problem, that of the intermingling of white and negro blood and its inevitable, resultant social tragedy. It is a worthy work, both in treatment and subject matter. The Goddess of Reason The height of the season has revealed no event of pronounced importance. "The Goddess of Reason," Mary Johnson's poetic play of the French Revolution, produced for the first time by Julia Marlowe, is still on the road, and constantly under rehearsal. It is too early to predict its fate in either metropolis. It is, how ever, a sumptuous and elaborate production, with a return to the romantic stage mob. The cast is big, the rôle of the star heroic, and it marks an interesting revival of the melodrama of the better class so popular a decade ago. HELOISE DURANT ROSE The American author of a poetic drama, "Dante," now being played by Italy's foremost actor, Ermete Novelli Thomas, the playwright. A number of men with motives variously approaching the altruistic have endowed this theater, the only playhouse of its kind in the world that exists without government subsidy. Now half completed, the structure will open its doors next November under the direction of Winthrop Ames. Modern and classic plays are to be produced by a stock company. an An exceptional honor has been shown. American woman, Heloise Durant Rose, in the first produc"Dante" tion of her poetic drama, called "Dante," by Ermete Novelli, Italy's foremost actor. The premier occurred at Verona, Italy, and aroused great enthusiasm. The Italian press devoted columns of criticism to the event, emphasizing the skill of both playwright and actor in revealing truthfully the spirit of Italian life in the fourteenth century. It is a notable and worthy work MARY GARDEN, GRAND OPERA STAR Who is showing unquestioned power in Pelleas and Melisande " by a member of the American Dante Society of Boston, who wrote in English, and who found a capable translator for her drama in Professor Arbib Costa, of the City College of New York. spirits of affianced damsels whose lovers have proved untrue. They return to haunt the faithless ones. A comic writer would win renown with this theme. "Tiefland," too, was an unhappy choice, but Caruso carried "Pagliacci" to a triumph. At the Manhattan, Mary Garden's repeated appearances in "Pelleas and Melisande," performed with unquestioned power, Mme. Melba in "Othello," Mme. Tetrazzini in "Crispino e la Comare" and. the melodious "Samson and Delilah," form together such a season as neither Paris nor Monte Carlo may boast of at the present hour. A wave of grandopera enthusiasm has spread over the whole country. Fifteen traveling companies are touring the road, while every large city maintains a permanent established company, giving daily perform ances. Light London success. Light comedy, embodying both satire and humor, has its own enthusiastic public. "The New Lady Bantock," by Jerome K. Comedy Jerome, has repeated its The servant problem is amusingly and brilliantly presented. The piece has moments of irresistible irony. It has been the vehicle for the introduction to American audiences of a new star, Fannie Ward, who, though she comes from England, is an American by birth. As a comedienne, she is delightfully sincere, with many graces of person and a convincing talent. George Broadhurst has written with commercial perspicacity in building up "An International Marriage." He shows the absurdity of a proposed alliance between an American girl and a royal prince. The play appears to satirize a certain similar international Great audiences are nightly filling the episode in real life, but it is believed that Metropolitan and Manhattan opera houses. It has been one of Grand Opera the most successful seasons, artistically and commercially, that the musical stage has known. Many new operas never before heard in America - have recently been presented. Catalani's "La Wally," with Mme. Destime in the leading rôle, met. with an ovation at the Metropolitan. Puccini's "Le Villi," however, with Mme. Alda, Bonci and Amato, was disappointing. "Le Villi" (The Willies) are the the playwright had completed his work before that recent episode became publicly known. The latest play of Clyde Fitch, an adaptation from the German, called "The Blue Mouse," though farcical in its import, presents a grossly vulgar situation which even the fine art of the players does not alleviate. It is no less than salacious, and it is hoped that this is the final farce-comedy of unclean European morals with which managers and playwrights will pollute the American stage. The Religious World The spread of interest in psychotherapeutics is very rapid. All over the country clergymen are under The Emanuel taking the work. In some Movement cases their energies are intelligently exerted, in other cases their zeal is born of a desperate determination to find something that will interest the people in the Church. It is natural that there should be opposition to the movement. Even in Boston the physicians are warning the people against too enthusiastic devotion to the subject, and particularly warn clergymen against the use of hypnotism. So prominent a preacher as Dr. George A. Gordon, in connection with the movement, has judged it necessary to preach on the dangers of being led into anything like fanaticism. All of which warning is necessary, but it is not clear that it is more than a call to caution. Psychotherapeutics can not be practiced safely by those who have no special knowledge of that which psychological suggestion involves, but the Church may well become a spring of health-breeding optimism if only the optimism be rational. For the first time during its life of two centuries the corporation of Trinity Trinity Church has made a public Church, New statement as to its propYork City erty. It was none too soon. No small amount of criticism has been passed upon the corporation for the character of the property which it rents to poor people. The total amount of property this report shows to be $14,079,330.49, with liabilities of $886,768.55mostly incurred in building operations. The receipts for the year ending July 31 were $779,775.94, with expenditures of $791,741.86. These expenditures, with the exception of about $100,000 for office and maintenance expense, and approximately $130,000 for taxes, water rates, etc., were in the interest of churches and chapels. We are glad to note that this report denies that liquor is sold on any of its property except in two cases where the property is under ground leases made over thirty-five years ago and not under its control, and also in a club which is in a large office building owned by the corporation. As regards the condition of some property under its control, the corporation states that it is true that it owns a number of small houses, but tenants prefer to live in them even as they are than in ordinary tenements. This report is satisfactory as far as it goes, but to the outside observer it seems that the Trinity corporation has too little regard for the welfare of the community. It has just sold a little park belonging to St. John's Chapel in Lower New York to the New York Central Railroad for a freight yard, and now proposes to abandon the chapel. Denominational Union in Canada A basis of union between the Presbyterian, Methodist and Congregational denominations in Canada has been finally completed by the joint committee which for five years past has been working on the problem. It believes "the organic. union of the negotiating churches is practicable." Even the most difficult matter for adjustment the invested funds of the three churches has been satisfactorily arranged, with due regard to the desires of the donors and yet in accord with the absolute organic unity on which the whole basis is planned. For final acceptance by the churches concerned, the proposed method of union is to await simultaneous action in 1910, as the Methodist General Conference does not meet until then. This delay is considered wise, as it will permit full and free discussion by all interested, there being no desire to hasten unduly the issue in any way. A STREET OF A THOUSAND MILES BY ALEXANDER HUME FORD HERE is a thickly populated American boulevard that extends a thousand miles north and south in an almost straight line. It is the longest street in the world. I have covered its length from end to end, and know whereof I speak. It began with a wager. I undertook to walk the length of Broadway in a day. The wager was made at night and early in the morning I started out to follow The Great White Way to its end where the houses ceased to be. Weeks later, I was near the mouth of the St. Lawrence, still on The Great White Way in a wellpopulated street that, beginning at the Battery, runs northward for five hundred miles, a thickly settled street for almost that entire distance, and one on which the few uninhabited gaps are rapidly closing, and along which the trolley is making its way to the uttermost end. I started to walk! Nearly dead with fatigue, I pushed forward in an automobile and finally completed my journey on an electric tram lost my wager of course, but won an unbounding appreciation for the greatest street in the world; so much so in fact, that I determined to start afresh from the present northern terminus of Broadway and follow this wonderful street to its southern end, even if it landed me in the Gulf Stream, which it did. either side of which stream (virtually a great dividing gutter) its houses face each other, and so the street goes on and on until it crosses the international boundary line and passes into the United States. But for Lake Champlain, this city street, that starts far to the eastward of Quebec, might extend uninterruptedly southward to the other end. Already cities and villages along the lake on both sides are being connected by the interurban trolley, while southward to Troy a city street has already extended its way, and Troy merges into Albany, from whence the trolley line along the banks of the Hudson is rapidly extending the great interurban street that is connecting every city between Albany and Manhattan. From Tarrytown southward the gaps are all closed and Broadway passing through the great metropolis from end to end, dives beneath the North River, runs without a break through Jersey City, Bayonne, along the northwest shore of Staten Island, through Elizabeth and on to Rahway, Bound Brook and New Brunswick. A recently constructed trolley line is making a street of what was lately a highway, and near Trenton the thickly populated portion of the great boulevard once more begins and does not stop until it crosses the river, runs through many Pennsylvania towns, including Philadelphia, cuts the little State of Delaware in two and halts at Delaware City on the banks of the Delaware and Chesapeake Canal. I traveled leisurely by land and water from the mouth of the St. Lawrence to this point, always in the great roadway, and along both waterway and trolley line found a continuous city street extending most of the way, while the end was not yet. From Delaware City, the great Delaware and Chesapeake Ship Canal is to be |