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Wisdom while you wait

Chapter 48: OUR GALA NIGHT.
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About This Book

A brief satirical miscellany masquerades as promotional material for a ludicrously grand encyclopaedia, blending parodic advertising copy, faux testimonials, a boastful preface, and absurdly detailed terms of sale. Fragments include mock lists of editors and departments, ridiculous delivery and storage schemes, secret-packing forms, and officious warnings that escalate into surreal consequences. The piece lampoons commercial hype, publishing pretension, and bureaucratic pomposity by using hyperbole, formal documents, and comic inversion of practical concerns.

OUR GALA NIGHT.

In connection with the completion of the new edition of the INSIDECOMPLETUAR BRITANNIAWARE the publishers have arranged for a festival performance at Drury Lane Theatre of a new musical comedy entitled—

THE SUPPLEMENT GIRL;

OR,

THE BELLE OF PRINTING-HOUSE SQUARE.

Written by Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace. Lyrics by Hugh Chisholm, B.A. Music (for wind band only) by the Chevalier de Blowitz. Incidental American dances and effects by the Clark Comical Cake-Walk Company.

PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS.

MORTALS.

JOHN BULL MR. G. E. BUCKLE.
PING-PONG (an old-fashioned Chinaman) DR. MORRISON.
PRINCE POLYGLOT (with criticism) MR. A. B. WALKLEY.
JOB LOTT (a municipal desperado) MR. JOHN BURNS.
MRS. CENTLIVRE (a chaperon) MR. GOSSE.
AND
LA DONNA (with Lackawanna coon song) MOBILE BELL.

IMMORTALS.

THE GENIUS OF ADVERTISEMENT BARNUM’S GHOST.
THE SPIRIT OF KNOWLEDGE DR. GARNETT.
THE DEMON OF UNREST ALFRED HARMSWORTH, O.M.
CUPID MR. ARCHER.
Chorus of Subscribers.

SYNOPSIS OF SCENERY.

ACT I.—A subterranean chamber in Carmelite Street.

ACT II.—The Reading Room of the British Museum.

ACT III.—Scene 1. The Banks of the Lackawanna River.
Scene 2. Sunrise in the Plain of Universal Knowledge.
Triumph of the Supplement Girl.

Stage ManagersMESSRS. KLAW AND ERLANGER.

Musical ConductorJ. A. FULLER MAITLAND, ESQ.

Costumes by Messrs. Hatchard.Wigs by G. R. Sims.
Ices by Lieutenant Peary.Zero whisky by Professor Dewar.