. The title aroused my curiosity, but in spite of all my inquiries I could learn nothing about this piece beforehand. I only learnt that they had not taken the play out of a book, but from a “written copy”; that they got the play from a retired sergeant living in the town who had probably once taken part in a performance of it himself in some soldiers’ entertainment. In our remote towns and provinces there are such plays which no one seems to know anything about, and which have perhaps never been printed, but seem to have appeared of themselves, and so have become an indispensable part of every “people’s theatre.” It would be a very, very good thing if some investigator would make a fresh and more careful study of the people’s drama, which really does exist, and is perhaps by no means valueless. I refuse to believe that all I saw on our prison stage was invented by the convicts themselves. There must be a continuous tradition, established customs and conceptions handed down from generation to generation and consecrated by time. They must be looked for among soldiers, among factory hands, in factory towns, and even among the working classes in some poor obscure little towns. They are preserved, too, in villages and provincial towns among the servants of the richer country gentry.