The statement of our article of last week with respect
to the censorship of political attacks on the Government in the panto- mimes has been exactly confirmed by the evidence of this week. The Era, challenged to produce any case in which an interdict had been put on attacks on the Government, published part of a letter from the Examiner of Stage Plays, Mr. W. B. Donne, con- taining the following sentences:—" Dear Sir,—There arc three passages in your pantomime which must be omitted in representa-
tion Names and political allusions are not permitted. I have struck Lowe's name and the matches out of every pantomime for 1871.—Yours truly, W. B. Donne." And on Tuesday a letter appeared from hr. Donne himself, explicitly stating that this has always been his course for fourteen years past, that it is not due to any instructions received this year from the Government or any other quarter, and that it was the course of Mr. Kemble before him. That is precisely what we maintained, but it is simply ridiculous to suppose that there is any purpose now answered by retaining this foolish restriction on political satire.
What we can have in all our papers, we can have on the stage. No party is so very sensitive as to take fire at a joke at its ex- pense, and as for the Daily Telegraph's discovery that we don't want our amusements spoiled by politics, why, that is a mere matter of taste ;—you might just as well put a fine on publishers of illustrated poems ; for our own parts, we can say honestly that we don't want our poems spoiled by illustrations, but we should hardly think of imposing our taste in this respect on all mankind.
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