AustLit

An advertisement for a performance of William Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Merchant of Venice, together with Charles Selby's farce The Bonnie Fish Wife, at the Prince of Wales Opera House on 31 October 1868.

Also noted is the 2 November 1868 premiere of the 'sensational new drama' Stewart Routh; or, Woman's Devotion (produced in England under the title Black Sheep), written by John Palgrave Simpson and Edmund Hodgson Yates.

An advertisement for a four-night season at the Sydney Mechanics' School of Arts, featuring Grace Egerton and George Case, on 2, 3, 4 and 5 November 1868. The program is to change nightly and will include 'Odds and Ends', 'The Lost Party', 'Sketches of Odd People', 'Married and Settled' and the illusion, the 'Protean Cabinet'. (Many of these sketches and items were performed during the Cases' August 1868 season at the School of Arts.)

The publishers of the Times advise that they have become the proprietors of the newspaper 'hitherto known as the Evening Mail'. From 20 June 1868, the newly acquired newspaper will be known as The Mail and published twice weekly.

An advertisement for the 31 October 1868 issue of Bell's Life in Sydney and Sporting Chronicle, featuring 'great news per the Panama Mail'.

The Empire reinforces the content of an advertisement carried in it pages for the upcoming performances of Grace Egerton (assisted by her husband, George Case) at the Sydney Mechanics' School of Arts prior to her departure for England.

A review of the 30 October 1868 Royal Victoria Theatre production of Richard Brinsley Butler Sheridan's School for Scandal starring William Hoskins and M. E. Aitken.

The reviewer notes that the production 'would not only have commanded a great house at Saddlers [sic] Wells, but would also have brought down torrents of applause from a discriminating London audience'.

The 'Flaneur' muses on Sydney's recent political and social occurrences. He reflects on the need to extend the New South Wales railway system into the city of Sydney, and he continues his comments (made throughout his October columns in the Empire) about the recent political upheavals involving Henry Parkes whom he dubs 'the member for nowhere'. The 'Flaneur' also informs the public about a US-patented 'life-preserving coffin' and humorously ponders some of the ramifications of such a product.

An advertisement, probably placed by Samuel Bennett (sole proprietor, printer and publisher of the Empire), for the sale of a single cylinder printing machine. The sale is being offered 'to make room for a new machine daily expected from England'.