PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
Volume 109, October 26, 1895.
edited by Sir Francis Burnand
WINTER COVENT GARDEN OPERATIC NOTES.
Sir Augustus Anglo-Operaticus has done well at Covent Garden,and will probably go one better. To Miss Alice Esty, as Elsa, inLohengrin, we say "Esty perpetua." All are good: and the houseshave been apparently as good as the company.A season of German-French-Italian Opera inEnglish is a risky venture for a winter season;still, if successful, and at popular prices, thereis in it good promise for the future. The conductorsare Messrs. Feld, Henschel, Glover,and Mr. C. Hedmondt, which sounds like anEnglish rendering of Tête Monté. A TêteMonté can carry many a project throughtriumphantly where a Tête moins Montéwould fail.
Tuesday.—Excellent Faust. Mr. PhilipBrozel, first time in English, decidedly good.Sir Druriolanus thought the old opera"wanted a fillip," and so gave us PhilipBrozel. Kate Lee a capital nurse, and FannyMoody a delightful Marguerite. Olitzka apleasing Siebel, and conductor Glover, as hisname implies, keeping all hands well employed,and ready to give fits to any hand that might be "difficult." Theremainder of the week "going strong."
In the interests of English opera, or rather of opera in English,we wish Druriolanus Covent Gardensis Operaticus, withMessieurs Tête Monté et Cie., every possible success.
THE AMNESIA BACILLUS.
IT was an alarming state of affairs. The first indications of thenew epidemic were noticed in the autumn of 1895. A lady whomislaid her identity at Brighton, and failed to recover it for a wholeweek, had the doubtful distinction of being the initial case. Herexample was very shortly after followed by a servant-girl who "losther memory" at Three Bridges Railway Station. Not beingproperly labelled, there was naturally some delay before she wasreturned to her supperless and sorrowing mistress. Then the plaguespread.
Among the first to suffer were the numerous class of persons whohad been so unfortunate as to borrow money. The simple operationof transferring a half-crown or a fiver seemed to carry contagionwith it. From the instant that the fatal coin was in the palm of theinnocent and unsuspecting borrower, all recollection of his previouspersonality vanished. The unhappy victim had no resource but tostart life afresh as he best could, with new struggles to face, newlenders thus to victimise him—and new capital (a paltry equivalent!)wherewith to mourn his hopeless loss of memory. It wasobserved that these sufferers were subject to recurrent attacks of theamnesia bacillus. Some scientific alienists went so far as to maintainthat the complaint was no new one, but had been prevalent, ina more or less virulent form, ever since the first leather coinage wasinvented.
The Woman with a Past was the next to succumb. She was notquite so much en évidence as in the two o