TO digress ever so slightly: this idea of topical verses to

songs in revues ought soon to kill itself with its own, or even a borrowed, petard. It never gets a laugh. And yet so strong is the legend of What the Public Wants that each year the lyric-writers feel obliged to insert at least one verse dealing with the news of the day, or, as it turns out by the time the show is produced, the news of three months ago. Thus, during the current season we shall have to hear countless extra verses about Mr. Doheny, the two Presidential candidates, and the Prince of Wales, none of them any good, none of them enjoyed by the audience, and each very obviously not relished by the performers, all because there is a rule to the effect that there must be something timely in a revue, whether the public laughs at it or not. Our idea would be to leave all timely matters and quips on the news to Mr. Will Rogers, and have every one else confine himself to being funny with the eternal verities and all that sort of deathless thing.

PRACTICALLY nothing keeps "Flossie" from being

pretty bad. "Flossie," in case you hadn't heard, is a musical comedy, and one of the worst. It has all the earmarks of having been produced as a favor to some one. Certainly not as a favor to us.

The worst brace of lines in "Flossie" we reproduce herewith:

ONE CHARACTER (entering the room): I see there is nobody here.

THE OTHER CHARACTER: Well, why speak about yourself?

This badinage has a slight advantage over most of the dialogue in the show in that it is at least clean. For the most part, the situations and lines are the kind that were given up several years ago by burlesque shows as too uncouth. A particularly pathological character is an old voyeur of an uncle, who, unfortunately, has one of the best songs in the score. It is so good that for the first few bars you think that it is going to be "Mary" from "Poppy."

WHICH, oddly enough, brings us right back to the sub

ject of catering to the Convention trade with plays about politics. The first one to get in line for the distribution of the delegates' bribe-money was "So This Is Politics," and it still remains to be seen whether or not the harassed visitors, steaming all day in what might well be termed "the vast auditorium" of Madison Square Garden, will seek entertainment at night in a playhouse so patently dedicated to an extension of their troubles.

"So This Is Politics" manages to be at once a very ordinary play and a comparatively engrossing one. Starting out like one of the worst on record, it slowly picks up speed, especially after the entrance of William Courtleigh as the seasoned political boss, and becomes at least good enough to keep your mind on the action. There is what promises to be a novel last act, in which the heroine (Marjorie Gateson, late of musical comedy) does not get elected to office, but that was evidently too much to expect and a last-minute

SOMETHING has got to be done about the increasing num

ber of shows which are put on by independent philanthropists as a testimonial to some friend of the family (or she may not even be friendly with the family) who has ambitions to star. We hold no brief for the Old Guard Managers, but at least when they put on a show you have a certain amount of confidence that the leading lady isn't going to come out and do a scarf dance to "Les Papillons" or recite "De win' she blow lak' hurricane." There is no law that we know of to prevent wealthy middlemen from giving aspiring ladies a chance to do this if they want to. No law, that is, except the Law of Supply and Demand.