Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/300

 in the old days of savagery, the women did most of the work Near Bloemfontein is a fort large enough to accommodate four thousand English soldiers, but the place is almost deserted; England no longer fears war in South Africa The window in my room looks into an open-air theatre; I can see everything that goes on on the stage, and hear everything that is said. I went to bed tonight before the show was half over. Educational films of great value may be had, but manufacturers of films say the people prefer the foolish melodramas with which you are all familiar in connection with moving-picture shows. Sometimes I fear that the general run of the people have wretchedly poor taste. The main show tonight was built around a woman tight-rope walker. This woman was a society queen, but her father met with reverses, and she became a tight-rope walker in a circus, refusing to marry a high-born and wealthy lover because of the change in her fortunes. The high-born and wealthy lover was entrusted with an important mission; to carry certain valuable papers, and a girl clerk of an opposition concern was employed to follow him and secure the papers. The girl clerk fell in love with the man, and refused to rob him, but became a fury when he met his former sweetheart, the tight-rope walker, in a circus. The girl clerk caused the highborn man to be kidnapped, and locked in a top room in a fourteen-story building, but the tight-rope walker rescued him by rigging up a rope to the building opposite, and carrying him on her back. It was an idiotic performance an hour and a half long, but the people