This procedure was only just in so far as it affected the character of the plays, for there was nothing in them to recommend them as means of elevating or educating the masses. They had had their origin at a time when amusement was the only watchword, and they had had no time to evolve new phases. Seeing that in order to succeed he would have to furnish something more substantial than his farces, Goldfaden produced in succession three historical dramas: 'Doctor Almosado,' 'Sulamith,' and 'Bar-Kochba,' to which at a later time were added 'Rabbi Joselmann, or the Persecution in Alsace,' 'King Ahasuerus, or Queen Esther,' and 'The Sacrifice of Isaac,' and a fantastic opera, 'The Tenth Commandment.' None of these are, properly speaking, dramas, but operas or melodramas. They have at least the merit of being placed on a historical or Biblical basis and of following good German models. Their popularity has been very great, and the many songs which they contain, especially those from 'Sulamith' and 'Bar-Kochba,' rank among the author's best and most widely known. The latter two operas were translated into Polish, and given in a theatre in Warsaw. Just as the Jewish theatre was entering on its new course of the historical drama, the Government, by a rescript of September, 1883, closed them in Russia, and this was followed later by another prohibition of Jewish performances at Warsaw, where the first law had been obviated by giving them in the so-called German theatre. About that time two young men, Tomaschewski and Golubok, of New York, started a theatre in New York. The troupe consisted of actors who had just arrived from London, where they found it too difficult to establish themselves. The first performance was given in the Fourth Street Turner Hall. As formerly in Russia, the Reformed Jews of the city used their utmost efforts to prevent the playing of a Jewish comedy, but in vain. It was given in spite of all remonstrances and threats. After that the theatre was permanently established in the Bowery Garden, under the name of the Oriental Theatre, which soon passed under the directorship of J. Lateiner. In 1886 another theatre, The Roumania Opera House, was opened in the old National Theatre, at 104-106 Bowery. It would not be profitable to enter into the further vicissitudes of the companies, their jealousies and ridiculous pretensions at equalling the best American troupes. Unfortunately, the authors upon whom they had to depend for their repertoires were Lateiner, Hurwitz, and other worthy followers of Schaikewitsch, who by rapid steps brought the Jewish stage down to the lowest degrees of insipidity. Not satisfied with producing dramas from a sphere they knew something about, they began to imitate, or rather corrupt, existing foreign plays, to give foolish versions of 'Mary Stuart,' 'Don Carlos,' 'Trilby,' and similar popular dramas. There were, indeed, some men who might have saved the stage from its frightful