ST. ANDREW VOLSTEAD

Prohibition, the curse of America; Prohibition, the blessing of the age; and now, Prohibition, the subject of an epic by the talented M. Pillionel, who promises to turn the shafts of his Gallic wit on this topic in the very near future.

One can only speculate as to the treatment accorded the Great Temperance Movement by one who was not brought up in the American atmosphere of W. C. T. U. tent meetings, Carrie Nation, and soda pop. A mere St. George-and-the-dragon plot would be trite, unless handled in a novel manner. On second thought, it seems that the choice of the epic form has not all the advantages of some other methods of treatment. The French epic has been dormant since Voltaire's Henriade; and the American epic is still unborn; this leaves the opera as the logical form for such a subject. Here, as nowhere else, could the whole breadth and depth of Prohibition be revealed. Nothing would be more effective than a chorus of Rotarians in derbies, rolling forth grandiose melodies reeking with noble sentiments; or the orchestral blare as Prohibition, garbed in black, rushes full tilt at the lurid figure of the Demon Rum; or the carrying off of the latter's corpse to the tune of "Blue Heaven". But if such treatment is a possibility from the more violent native sons, M. Pillionel, with a calmer, foreign point of view, will doubtless leave it for them.