246 
THE PLAY. 
round amid great general hilarity. As far as I 
could understand what I saw on the stage, two 
hired assassins or lonins entered, disguised, and stole 
the child of some great Daimio. The mother 
appeared just in time to witness the unexpected 
abduction of her darling. Indignant and dis- 
tracted, she was carried out in a demented 
state, with dishevelled hair, by her distressed 
young handmaidens. The two conspirators again 
appeared with the unliappy child, whom they 
barbarously murdered before om’ eyes, the blood 
flowing freely from — a pig’s bladder, hid artfully 
from view. The acting of the boy representing the 
dying child was perfectly marvellous. He stretched 
out his little limbs, moaned, gasped, became faint, 
and Anally closed his eyes and died, producing as 
painful a sensation as the deformed man in the 
play of the Colleen Bawn. 
At this juncture the bereaved mother again 
appeared, looking anxiously around with wild eyes 
and clasped hands. Perceiving her child lying 
upon the ground, she leant over him, snatched him 
