The little Polichinelle of Belgium is called _Woltje_ which signifies little Walloon and he has many clownish but harmless tricks with which to delight his public. The popularity of the _Poechelnellespiel_ in Brussels may be imagined from the fact that, prior to the war, there were fifteen standing puppet theatres offering every possible enticement. Two very famous showmen were Toone and Machieltje who for forty years gave performances to every class of audience, Machieltje specializing on the popular plays, Toone giving private performances. The successor of Toone was George Hembauf while the show of Machieltje descended to Laurent Broeders, who have a wonderfully equipped theatre in the suburbs. They possess over six hundred marionettes whose elegant costumes can be changed (there are over eleven hundred of these elaborate costumes). The Laurent Broeders do all the speaking for their dolls and the repertoire includes a wide range of subjects from important events in Flemish history to Dumas, adapted for puppets, and the old play of _Les Quatre Fils Aymon_. Another large puppet show is that of Pieter Buelens. He has four hundred puppets consisting chiefly of officers, chevaliers and kings, each knight so richly dressed that his robes cost from thirty to forty francs apiece. The dolls are about a metre high, made of cardboard and carefully articulated so that the gestures are extremely graceful. The scenery is naïve but picturesque; eight complete sets including two palace scenes, two wood scenes (one Winter, one Summer), two rooms, a prison, a rock, etc. The latest and most modern theatre for marionettes is the _Petit Théâtre_ founded by a group of æsthetes,--Louis Picard, James Ensor, Thomas Braun, Gregoire le Roy,--and devoted to a naïvely refined art of puppetry. It was opened with the pastoral opera of Mozart, _Bastien et Bastienne_, the poetic version by Gautier-Villars. In Antwerp the puppet shows are less elaborate and are generally to be found off in inconspicuous corners around the wharves where they are frequented chiefly by the laboring classes. There the drama varies from mockery of local occurrences to tales of Turks, bandits, kings, shepherds, sailors. One of these shows was the famous _Poesjenellenkelder_, the cave of the Polichinelles, where in a dark, gloomy cellar by the glimmer of a few smoking oil lamps the old and ever moving romantic dramas of the puppet show were performed for an appreciative and unspoiled audience. Hendrik Conscience, the Flemish novelist, has described how in his boyhood he often spent his last penny to witness the sufferings of the patient Genoveva or some similarly affecting performance. This old underground theatre, we are told, was open until the outbreak of the war. _Puppetry in England_ “Triumphant Punch! with joy I follow thee Through the glad progress of thy wanton course.”