273

Exquisite Retribution.

When an actor, and particularly when an actress, begins to fade so that the English public can no longer be cajoled out of its shillings to witness his or her performance, with a tremendous flourish it is announced that at the earnest sollicitation of friends on this side Mr. So-and-So or Miss Here-and-There has finall consented to come to America and give a limited number of perfomances. Then it is told how many carloads of scenery and (if a lady) how many shiploads of costumes will be brought ont; the "enormous expense" is emphasized, and the shrewed maager never neglects to keep it before the easily gulled American people that design is to present, on American soil, all the splendor which the coming performer has paralyzed foreign courts with. At last there is the cable announcing the departure of the blazing star; seven days later some steam tugs are chartered in New York harbor; some cheap bouquets are purchased; a cheap brass band is engages; some cheap people board the tugs, go down the bay, meet the incoming ship, bring her to with a bonquet fired across her bow, transfer the "meteor" to the rug, and carry it in triumph to some crack hotel. Next morning, it is wired to the remotest telegraph station on our continent that the paragon has arrived. If it is a lady, her personal appearance is minutely described. Her clothing; the glimpses caught of her ship-load of trunks; the number of times she gave up her dinner to the insatiable sea on the passage, etc., etc., until expectation not only stands on tip-toe but gets up in a chair to do it. At last the grand opening night comes, and the crowded, suffocated audience that have paid four prices for admission, have the pleasure of looking at some English cads walking through ancient roles, in costumes which had been doing faithful service all over England and the Continent for years. They do not like to say they have been sold, so they look at each other and say: "Is it not lovely?" This is wired ot the country and published in the city next morning; another batch of suckers is caught for the next night; this goes on for several days, and then the suckers from the country "catch on" and go down to the city to see the glory, and so the thing runs for from forty to one hundred nights. Then the outside cities are given notice that after an unparalleled season in New York the phenomenal, first magnitude star will make a brief tour through the country, and so the continent is finally milked from shore to shore. This has been going on for forty years and more. Those who have had genius, who have possessed real excellence, may be counted on the fingersof one hand; those who have been utoor frauds, alas! who can count them? Hence it was with especial delight that we ehard that Buffalo Bill was going to return the curtesy, and with exquisite delight we read that he robbed the English public out of 350,000 [pounds]. But we were not quite happy because CODY'S show is an honest one. His Indians and cowboys are the genuine article; his squaws are just as mercenary 2nd degraded as are those of the plains; his shooting is a marvel in any country. But when we read that "an enormous crowd" gathered at St. James Hall to see the big, repulsive Boston champion; that JEM SMITH introduced him, and that big Jack's "smartness greatly pleased the Enlgish critic," then we said to ourself that the score which we had been owing England for lo, thse many years, was being paid, and we exult accordingly. Why should we not exult? SULLIVAN is as good an artist as LANGTRY; he may not strip quite as well to the critical eye ; his back may not be quite as elegant as "the Lily's" or his complextion quite as fair or his neck quite so gracefully poised ; but his feet are not any longer than "the Lily's" and he has better use of his arms. In a real exhibition his would be decidedly the more "striking" and we would wager that he would make double "the hits" in an evening that "the Lily" would. We never liked the big, dirty loafer, but now we warm to him and trust that he will rob the British public with the same careless unconcern that the mercenary men and women of England have manifested in robbing America for years past. The blind goddess that sits up above is awfully slow, but it is a joy to think that she always "gets in her work" at the last