There have been JOES not a few on the stage. Coming down from
the time of JOE GRIMALDI, we pass on the way _Joseph Andrews_,
_Poll and Partner Joe_, _Poor Joe_ from _Bleak House_, and many other
JOES until we come to _Gentleman Joe_, hansom cab-driver,
played by ARTHUR ROBERTS. The question and answer in the old
idiotic nigger song applies appropriately here, with slight adaptation:
What! _de_ JOE? Yes! _de_ JOE.
Spruce JOE kicking up ahind and afore,
KITTY LOFTUS playing up to Mister JOE.
And with the assistance of the always graceful PHYLLIS
BROUGHTON--of whom _Gentleman Joe_ might have sung, but doesn't,
"PHYLLIS is my only _Fare_"--aided also by the pretty-voiced
LETTIE SEARLE, helped by the sprightly earnestness of Miss
CLARA JECKS, who has turned over a new leaf and come out as a
page, and kept moving by the dashing "go" of Miss SADIE JEROME
(not at all a "sad eye" nor a "say die" sort of young lady) as _Lalage
Potts_, this two-act musical farce, beginning as a kind of _High Life
below Stairs_ and ending anyhow, offering, as it does, opportunities
to Our Only ARTHUR for introducing into it any amount of
"divarsion" in the way of new songs, eccentric speeches, nods, winks,
becks, and wreathed smiles, may be continuing its successful career in
the summer of '96, there being no apparent reason why its run should
ever stop, that is as long as _Gentleman Arthur Joe Roberts_ handles
the ribands as the popular _Cabbing-it Minister_.
* * * * *
A NEW TITLE.--Our GRACE, the cricketer, is not made
a "Sir" or raised to a dukedom. There is, however, in view of present
craze, a great chance for conferring the greater honour on a champion
bicyclist. His title would be "The Duke of WHEELINGTON."
* * * * *