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"THE SCOUTS OF THE PLAISS" - Park
Opera House had a large audience last
night, parquette, balcony, and gallery being
each well filled to see the three famous
scouts and their dramas, which is an entirely
new one. The three principals dress in
the half-savage, picturesque costume of
trappers and carry shooting-irons of most
elegant manufacture, which they use with
alariabness unsurpassed in history.
The drama has scarce the shadow of a
plot and is like an animated dime novel
with the Indian-killing multiplied by ten,
but for all that, it "Was enjoyable and
heartily enjoyed, and the bloodier the
tragedy the broader was the comedy.
The story is that Jim Daws, a
horse thief and a renegade,
has stolen a child from Uncle Henry Carter,
a friend of the scouts. Daws gets
marked in the tight consequent thereon
and vows revenge. He becomes leader of
the Comanches, kills off old Carter and
his wife in the first act and carries off the
other two daughters. Time and again
throughout the four sets, either the gırls
or the Scouts are in imminent danger, and
there are three or four scenes of burning
at the stake, but there are always one or
two of the terrible couta who happen
along and handle their titles and pistols
with a celebrity that could only be attained
by a great deal of practice. “Pale Dove,"
A Comanche beauty (who afterwards is
discovered to be the stolen girl), tells
the pale faces of their danger and is
one of those bound to the stake and rescued.
All through the play there is a
Quaker Peace Commissioner attended by
his German servant, dropping everywhere
most inopportunely, and who gets scalped
- as he deserves - before the close. Morlacchi
(Pale Dove) daneed divinely, and
Nick Blunder gave "Dot leotlo German
Band" very nicely. We might mention a
slight incongruity in the pieco, and that is,
the frequency with which the same tribe of
Indians are wiped out, but the oftener
they were shot down, the better the audience
liked it, and roared with laughter
in unison with parks of artillery exploding
on the stage We haven't space
to follow the play throughout, or to speak
individually of the characters, but there is
merit there, the Quaker and the German
being especially funny, and some of the
scenes are very well arranged. But whether
or no it would stand criticism, it certainly
has the merit of being a "taking"
piece, and furnished a vast fund of enjoyment
for everybody.
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