River Falls Journal

Poor Bazaine.
It is not often that the French show bad taste in theatrical management, but a flagrant instance has just provoked the anger of all the critics. A play called 'Juarez' has been produced, which deals with the Mexican war and the fate of the Emperor Maximilian. One of the characters on the stage is Marshal Bazaine, who is held up to every description of contumely and disgrace. The facts of history are outraged. The war is represented as a mere Napoleonic intrigue, in which Bazaine, by order of the emperor, first betrays and then hands over to his fate the unfortunate Maximilian. It is notorious that Bazaine was the most able and popular of all the French generals. Jules Favre, writing of him in the Journal Officiel, characterized him as the glorious general. The production of the play at this junction is interesting, because the question of the licensing of stage plays is very much on the tapis. It is proposed to abolish the office of licenser and to allow criminal prosecution against any manager who produces a play of which the tendencies are immoral or the allusions dangerous to the public peace. It is suggested by many of the critics that this play, which is allowed to pass under the old regime would be stopped under the new.—Pall Mall Gazette.