[Footnote 111: The Dutch are not, however, to be entirely blamed for
repulsive scenes on the stage. Shakspeare's Titus Andronicus, and many
of the dramas of our Elizabethan writers, exhibit cruelties very
repulsive to modern ideas. The French stage has occasionally exhibited
in modern times scenes that have been afterwards condemned by the
censors; and in Italy the "people's theatre" occasionally panders to
popular tastes by execution scenes, where the criminal is merely taken
off the stage; the blow struck on a wooden block, to give reality to the
action; and the executioner re-enters flourishing a bloody axe.]
[Footnote 112: Ned Shuter was the comedian who first introduced a donkey
on the stage. Seated on the beast he delivered a prologue written on the
occasion of his benefit. Sometimes the donkey wore a great tie-wig.
Animals educated to play certain parts are a later invention. Horses,
dogs, and elephants have been thus trained in the present century, and
plays written expressly to show their proficiency.]