situation by avowal of her delinquency, thus providing her corrupt parent and spouse with considerably more information than they desire to publish as to the amatory weaknesses of the obdurate _Standish_. This was the cast with which that play was first presented in New York: _The Hon. Jim Blake_ John W. Cope. _Tom Blake_ Harold Vosburgh. _The Hon. Mark Robertson_ Edwin Holt. _Grace, Mrs. Robertson_ Jane Peyton. _The Hon. Matthew Standish_ Cuyler Hastings. _Ralph Van Dyke_ Carleton Macy. _The Hon. Silas Gregg_ Stephen Fitzpatrick. _The Hon. Tim Neligan_ William Holden. _A Guest_ Langdon West. _A Page_ George Van Blake. _A Waiter_ José Rossi. _Wanda Kelly_ Mary Nash. The exceptional success of Belasco’s production of “The Woman” prompted a genius thitherto unknown to fame, a certain inspired and amiable barber of New York, Mr. Abraham Goldknopf, to assert that it was stolen from a sublime drama indited by himself in the intervals of tonsorial exercise and entitled “Tainted Philanthropy.” Belasco, in defending himself against this preposterous claim, resorted to a unique and costly though conclusive expedient. But before describing the trial of Mr. Goldknopf’s allegations, it is convenient here to examine with some particularity the general subject of BELASCO AND PLAGIARISM. “FOLLY LOVES THE MARTYRDOM OF FAME.” No person rises to eminence without exciting antagonism and incurring detraction. Malice is quick to perceive any possibility, however trivial, of tarnishing a distinguished character, and hatred is ingenious in devising specious means of disparagement. The slightest appearance of weakness in any talented person favorably conspicuous in the public eye is eagerly seized as a ground of condemnation. Every close student of biography must have observed, relative to almost every eminent person commemorated, that there is always some one particular form of reproach which, by diligent, persistent iteration, is made to adhere to that person’s name, so that at last the one is seldom mentioned without association with the other. Eminent actors of the Past have been particularly singled out for defamation in this way. Barton Booth, for example, scholar and poet as well as actor, is stigmatized, on no competent authority, as a gross voluptuary; Garrick, because he was prudent, especially while he was poor, is styled an avaricious niggard; Kemble, an opium sot; Edwin Booth, a drunkard, which is a specially contemptible slander. Henry Irving was one of the greatest of actors, but, because he happened to be a person of many peculiarities, perfectly natural to him, we are forever hearing that he had “affected mannerisms”--which is distinctly untrue. Every department of biography furnishes examples of this form of aspersion. In the case of Belasco the customary disparagement takes the shape of an iterated charge of _Plagiarism_. In this work an examination of that charge is essential.