For the acting--it is admirable. Miss GENEVIEVE WARD is superb as _Madame Paul Astier_, and it is not her fault, but the misfortune of the part, that the wife of _Paul_ is a woman old enough to be his mother, with whose sufferings--with her eyes wide open, having married a man of whose worthlessness she was aware,--it is impossible to feel very much sympathy. She is old enough to have known better. Mr. GEORGE ALEXANDER'S performance of the scoundrel _Paul_ leaves little to be desired, but he must struggle for dear life against his--of course, unconscious--imitation of HENRY IRVING. Shut your eyes to the facts, occasionally, especially in the death-scene, and it is the voice of IRVING; open them, and it is ALEXANDER agonising. No one can care for the fine lady, statuesquely impersonated by Miss ALMA STANLEY, who yields as easily to _Paul's_ seductive wooing as does _Lady Anne_ to _Richard the Third_. After Miss WARD and Mr. ALEXANDER, the best performance is that of Miss GRAVES as _Little Em'ly Lydie_, and of Mr. FREDERICK KERR as _Antonin Ham Caussade_,--the last-named enlisting the genuine sympathy of the audience for a character which, in less able hands, might have bordered on the grotesque. The comic parts have simply been made bores by the adapters, and are not suited to the farcical couple, Miss KATE PHILLIPS and Mr. ALBERT CHEVALIER, who are cast for them. If this play is to struggle successfully for life, the weakest, that is, the comic element, should at once go to the wall, and the fittest alone, that is, the tragic, should survive. Also, as the play begins at the convenient hour of 8.45, it should end punctually at eleven. The only realistic scene is in _Paul Astier's_ room, when he is dressing for dinner, and washes his hands with real soap, uses real towels, and puts real studs and links into his shirt, and then suddenly reminded, as it were, by a titter which pervades the house, that there are "ladies present," he disappears for a few seconds, and returns in his evening-dress trowsers and nice clean shirt, looking, except for the absence of braces, like a certain well-known haberdasher's pictorial advertisement. It is vastly to the credit of the management that all the articles of _Paul's_ toilet, including Soap(!!), are not turned to pecuniary advantage in the advertisements on the programmes. But isn't it a chance lost in _The Struggle for Life_ at the Avenue? * * * * * CITY VESTRIES AND CITY BENEFACTIONS.