ACTORS, AUTHORS, AND AUDIENCES.
A TRIAL BY JURY.
Scene: Interior op a Playhouse.
An original (but tedious) play has just been damned. The audience is furious. The manager comes forward and implores them to listen to him. They agree to do so. He suggests that the Author be tried then and there, by a Jury of the audience, for having had his play damned. They agree. A Jury is empanneled and a Judge is appointed. A Gentleman offers to act as Counsel for the Prosecution. The Prisoner conducts his own case.
The Counsel for the Prosecution immediately proceeded to open the case against the Prisoner. The Prisoner was charged with one of the greatest offences that a man with any pretension to a literary position could commit—that of having written, and caused to be produced, an original stage-play, which had not come up to the expectations of the audience. For that offence
