It is an advantage in practical jokes that the greater
number of them cats be transferred from one country to another without difficulty; pro- vided always they are not connected with bals masquds, houses with a pone cocb6re or the Bastile —for these stick to Paris like limpets to a rock.
L'Almanach 25,000 Ads:esses is a piece which shows all the possible embarrassments in which you will be involved if you attempt to find out a M. Lefebvre in Paris without knowing his exact address, and a few im- possible embarrassments into the bargain. Convert Lefebvre into Briggs, and let London be the scene of embarrassment, and you have the Adelphi extravaganza of Webster's Royal Red-Book. The jokes being chiefly prac- tical, introduced at random, and pushed to the last degree of improbability, anything like criticism on the structure of the piece is out of the question. We wish, however, that the dialogne had been written with a little more neatness and refinement. There is an attempt at greater elevation than its the French original; but the straggles for verbal brilliancy, though stre- nuous, have been generally made in vain. The Adelphi audience, however, enjoy their old luxury of seeing Messrs. Wright and Bedford in all sorts of dilemmas, and the success of the piece is unquestioned.
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