The show business.--The limitations of the stage.--A moral from a toy theater.--Why five acts?--Dramatic collaboration.--The dramatization of novels and the novelization of plays.--Women dramatists.--The evolution of scene-painting.--The book of the opera.--The poetry of the dance.--The principles of pantomime.--The ideal of the acrobat.--The decline and fall of the negro-minstrelsy.--The utility of the variety-show.--The method of modern magic.--The lamentable tragedy of Punch and Judy.--The puppet-play, past and present.--Shadow-pantomime, with all the modern improvements.--The problem of dramatic criticism.