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Debbles.
It is better to rise with the lark than with the bent pin.--Burlington Free Press.
....The fishery question:"Dan Lamont, will you bait that hook for Mrs. C., or shall I?"
....A rich girl may be homely, but she will never know it by hearsay.--Somerville Journal.
....If there is anyone who should be "rapped in slumber," it is the man who snores.--Exchange.
....A young society lady calls her partner at a recent dancing party. "Indian," because he was always on her trail.--Exchange.
....A Butler Club has been organized in Massachusettes. Its paper is stamped with two spoons, crossed, and the legend, "It might have Ben."
...."You say you were very lucky the first time you bought a lottery ticket?" "Yes; I drew a blank, and have never invested since."--Harper's Bazar.
....The thanks of the nation are due to President Cleveland for having found the answer to that side-splitting conundrum:"Which would you rather do in summer or go a-fishing"?
...."How's business?" "Oh, it's picking up. How's yours?" "Well, mine's falling off." "So?" What is your business?" "Going over Niagra Falls in a barrel. "What's yours?" "I'm a rahpicker."--Tid-Bits.
....The ubiquitous small boy has begun to lay his annual contribution of lilacs on the teacher's desk, only to be rewarded later in the season by having his baseball and Fouth of July pistol confiscated.--Portland Advertsier. .... Contributor: "Here is a manuscript I wish to submit." Editor (waving his hand): "I'm sorry. We are all full just now." Contributor (blandly):"Very well; I will call again when some of you are sober."--Gazette and Courier.
....When one of Buffalo Bill's braves was thrown from his Indian pony and severely injured at the Wild West Show, in London, last week, Mr. Gladstone sent a telegram of condolence to show his sympathy for the down-trodden people of Ireland.
....After writing sentences one day, the scholars exchanged work for correction. A small boy marked an error, and then at the foot of the paper made the following explanatory note: "He didn't begin Massychewsits with a caterpillar."--Harper's Bazar.
....Another thoughtless man has met with a serious accident while cutting coupons, by dropping his scissors and fashing his leg. If this thing keeps on the coupon scissors will soon supersede and the toy-pistol as a weapon of destruction, and none of us will be safe.
....Will you allow me to look at your paper for a moment sir?" said a tramp, politely, to a gentleman in City Hall Park."I am anxious to ascertain the weather probabilities." "you are interested in the weather; then?" replied the gentleman, handing over the paper. "Yes, sir. I am going to lie down and take a nap if the elements are in my favor.-- Puck.
...."Aw, Ethel," remarked Charley to his pretty cousin, "I believe--aw--I'll have the barbah--aw--trim my whiskers this mayning--aw." "Do, Charley," said his pretty cousin. "And--aw--Ethel, how would you suggest that I have them trimmed?" "Well," replied the pretty cousin, after sufficient consideration, "I think they would look very sweet trimmed with pink ribbon."--Harper's Bazar.
....One of the drollest incidents that have ever occured in the presence of the editor of this "Drawer" happened many years ago when we were traveling in eastern Massachusetts. The story has never been told, but it is a good one. We were standing in the one room of a small railway station and postoffice combined, when a typical old Massachusetts woman entered and asked with a delightfully rasping New England twang: "Be there any letters for Mrs. Brown?" The clerk handed her a large yellow envelope, which she broke open with a nervous haste and read aloud:"You have drawn a blank in the X----X----Lottery." She had opened her husband's letter by mistake!--Not from Harper's Drawer
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NEWS ITEMS.
ANESTHESIA IN HEART DISEASE.- -A special meeting of the Philadelphia County Medical Society was held on June 15th to receive the report of a Committee appointed, at the request of Dr. H. F. Formad, to inquire into certain testimony given by him at a coroner's inquest ; which testimony, he stated, had been imperfectly reported, giving rise to a false impression in the public mind. The opinion attributed to Dr. Formad was "that ether should not be administered to persons suffering with heart disease." It is true that he did so state, but the important omission of the words additionally used by him, "without due precaution and proper care both during the administration of the drug and after its withdrawal," materially altered the import of his testimony as reported.
That Dr. Formad qualified his testimony by the use of the language quoted, was substantiated by the statement of the Coroner and the evidence of the records of the Coroner's office.
In view of these facts the Committee reported the following resolutions, which were unanimously adopted :
Resolved, That in the opinion of the Philadelphia County Medical Society, the testimony of the Coroner's physician, Dr. H. F. Formad, "that ether should not be administered to patients with heart disease, without due precaution and proper care both during the administration of the drug and after its withdrawal" is correct and proper ; and the same caution should be observed in any other case.
And whereas, A false impression may have been given to the public by the imperfect reports of Dr. Formad's testimony published in the daily papers, and the medical profession placed in a false and dangerous position, therefore be it further
Resolved, That, in the opinion of this Society, the administration of ether is not only necessary and proper when pain is to be inflicted upon patients with cardiac lesions, but lessens the dangers incident to operation ; provided that due care be taken during the administration of the anaesthetic, and proper regard be paid to its after-effects.
PHARMACY AT CORNELL UNIVERSITY.-A School of Pharmacy is to be opened in connection with Cornell University during the coming Fall. Women and men are to be admitted.
THE TWELFTH MEETING OF THE SOCIETY OF NEUROLOGISTS AND ALIENISTS OF SOUTHWESTERN GERMANY was held on June 11th and 12th at Strassburg. Among the papers of interest read was one on the Use of Hyoscin in Nervous Diseases, by Erb, of Heidelberg, and Demonstrations of Nervous Diseases, by Kussmaul, of Strassburg.
ILLNESS OF PROFESSOR BILLROTH.-As the name of the great Vienna surgeon is almost as much a household word among his English-speaking brethren as it is
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.... The Rev. J.P. Sandlands, Brigstock: England, is contributing a series of articles to The Christian Advocate on "The art of Speaking and Reading." He points out many faults and makes some excellent suggestions. He is not always right, however, nor is his meaning always clear. Take the following as an example:
"Most clergymen distinguish in their pronunciation between prophecy and prophesy. There is no more reason for making such a distinction here than there is in such words as practise and practice. We do not pronounce the verb practize and the noun practiss. Then why distinguish between the noun prophecy and the verb prophesy, and mispronouncing [sic] prophecee and prophesy? If it be examined, it will be found that in all these cases where a distinction is made in pronunciation between the very and the noun the spelling in the same. We havae a good example in pres'ent and present'. The spelling is different in prophesy, and so this reason does not obtain. We may ask, What other does?"
What does he mean to say? if he means to be understood as saying that there should be no distinction in pronunciation between prophecy and prophesy, he is wrong, as both American and English authorities would tell him.
....No dime novel ever told such an awful story as that of the slaughter--shall we not call it execution?--of the Tollivers in Rowan County, Kentucky. These men had been allowed to terrorize the county for years. When there was danger of these men being arrested for one of their murders they had by violence got one of their number elected police, justice and then they killed their enemies under pretense of resisting arrest, going through all the necessary forms of law. At last a mob, if we may call it so, of over a hundred men met and inflicted summary vengeance, after which they carried the bodies of three Tollivers twenty miles to the old Tolliver graveyard and buried them. That whole mountain region of Eastern Kentucky and Tennessee and Western Virginia nad North Caroline, needs at least one good church and school in each county just to civilize it.
....Here is another item in the line of inter-denominational fellowship in Connecticut, which may be compared with the Naugatuck incident. At Watertown, on a late Sunday evening, Mr. Cunningham, the Episcopal rector, planned a memorial sermon and desired to increase his choir for the occasion. One of the pastors expressed a wish to omit his service and attend. The other was equally ready, and Sunday found the three congregations filling the house, with members of the three choirs filling the organ loft, and all joining in the Whitsun evening service, with some additional patriotic hymns. The Rev. Mr. Pelton of the Congregational church and the Rev. Mr. Rippere of the Methodist church, by invitation, occupied the usual places for ministrial guests, and each read a lesson of the usual service. No complaint from the bishop is expected.
....Governor Hill has suffered a good temperance measure to become a law for which, we suppose, the good people of this state should be duty thankful. It is the Curtis measure, which does away with the anomaly of allowing the sale of liquor in quantities of five gallons or more in communities where licenses are not granted. The Governor, whose state papers are undignifiedly partisan, obeserves that this was about the "only temperance legislation of the recent session of any particular merit." The bill forbidding the sale of liquor in the Capitol and to keepers of the Willard Insane Asylum were regarded by those not in league with liquor selling as having some "particular merit," but the Governor vetoed them. His bid for temperance support comes late and too undisguisedly to avail him.
....The Voice asks us how we would propose to disentangle Republican and Democratic parties from the saloon connections. We fully explained the method in the editorial referred to by our contemporary, which actually copies the paragraph. It is, brief, to nominate third tickets, wherever the candidates of both parties are saloonmen; and to support candidates of either of the old parties whose position and record are right. By this policy, if a party of nominates the right kind of men it is supported, if not it is antagonized. Bur The Voice says, this "means guerilla warfare." It means that good men will only vote for good men. If that is guerilla warfare it is highly commendable. The Voice has a tender conscience for one of the most notorious of bushwhackers.
....The fact has been published that Miss Wolfe, at one time, gave by her will a million dollars for the Cathedral, and then withdrew it. If we are not mistaken, her reason was not any cooling of ardor for the Cathedral, caused by the fiasco of the Gardeu City Cathedral, or by any other reason. She simply was not satisfied that the scheme was being properly pushed, and it was her plan to put the money into the hands of a trustee, Dr. Nevin, of Rome, then abroad, who would push the project. She sent for him, but before he reached the country she was dead. She had tried, when she found what was her condition, to compete the transfer through her agents here, but did not succeed. This is a great loss to the project, but not a really serious one.
....On the 7th of April, 1888, it will be just a hundred years since the first settlement of white men was made in what is now the great state of Ohio. On that day Gen. Rufus Putnam, with about fifty men, landed at the mouth of Muskingum River, on the site of what is now Marietta, to found the new colony. The Ohio Company had appled to Congress to purchase land, and bought a million and a half of acres. This enterprise interested the whole country, and was the immediate occasion of the passage of the celebrated ordinance of 1787, which gave the new settlers such a government as they desired. Out of this beginning grew our great Northwest territorial expansion, and it is suitable the centenial should be celebrated in the Marietta next year.
....Our compliments to The Presbyterian which see "pious simplicity" in our praise of Dr. Huntington's sermon on the proposed Cathedral. It says: "DOES THE INDEPENDENT really suppose that a Cathedral, whose pulpit will be shut to all ministers ordained in the good old Congregational way, whose collegiate clergy will be forbidden (as Episcopal clergymen are to-day) by a restrictive canon from recognizing officially the validity of the ordination of its own Dr. Storrs, is going to hasten the coming of the Kingdom of God?" We understood precisely what Dr. Huntington meant. He made it clear enough that he detested the narrowness which would forbid Dr. Storrs to preach in the Cathedral. That is just what he meant in the passage we quoted.
....We find no fault--far from it-- with Maurice Thompson's article this week on "passion in Poetry and Fiction." We turn to our own files to see what we have said, and find the following on Tolstol's "Anna Karenina," showing how different is its motive from that of the French novels which depicts crime:
"In Toistol's novel there is distincly, almost pitilessly, taught a solemn lesson, which works of fiction touching on a similar moral proposition do not often so convey to-us--that sin, willfully deliberately commited, carries its own punishment with it, and that the man or woman who succumbs to temptation and strays from rectitude, must at least be prepared to receive bitterness of soul and death as its wages."
....The Irish had a good opportunity to do a wise and generous thing on the occasion of the Queen's Jubilee. They are accused of being disloyal to the Crown, and it is evident that many, if not a majority of Englishmen believe it. If they had adopted an address to the Queen, expression their good-will toward her as the Sovereign of the United Kingdom, they would not have prejudiced their cause, but would have strengthened their position before the English public, It is the English public, be it remembered, that must settle the Irish question; and the occasion would have been a good one for a good-tempered protest against coercion.
....Her is The Pilot making most erroneous statements about the Dawes Indian Severalty Law. It really looks now as if that little Council Fire society in Washington, which somehow is in the interest of Indian corruption, had got hold of the Catholic papers, and was using them for its purpose. The Pilot says the Dawes law, contrary to the treaty, takes the Sioux Reservation from the Sioux and divides a part of it up "without the consent of a single Indian." Of course this is not so. That law expressly requires their consent in accordance with the treaty, without which "this act becomes of no effect, null and void."
....High ritual is supposed to be very artistic, esthetic, and all that. But we fear its literary reputation will fall if it is to be judged by a hymn on "Reverence at God's Altar," sung at St. Andrew's church, Baltimore. The rhymes are beautiful. We give the two first verses:
"Fasting from food, at early dawn Go forth to meet your Lord, Where hovering angels throng around The Altar of their God.
"A reverence to that Altar made, The Cross devoutly marked Upon our bodies; called to be Pure temples set apart."
....Dr. Cunningham, of St. Andrews, Edinburgh, has been lecturing on the feasibility of uniting the Established Churches of England and Scotland, by federation if not incorporation. The difficulty about Episcopacy he proposes to get overm by getting all to recognize every minister of congregation as a bishop, and to call him so; and he suggests that a beginning might be made at once by an exchange of pulpits, and by the passing of a Mutual Eligibility Act. If our bishops will taks the view of the "historic Episcopate," their propositions for unity will be very favorably considered.
....We would not put Herbert E. Clarke's remarkable elegy in memory of his friend Philip Bourke Marston, which we print on page 26, by the side of Milton's peerless "Lycidas," for that has a ring of triumph, a heartsome courage of loss, such as sorrow very seldom has had the strength to assume. Much closer does it come to tha tother admirable elegy of our own day, which, perhaps, comes next, but longo intervallo, to "Lycidas," the "Thyrsis" of Matthew Arnold, which commemorates his friend Arthur Hugh Clough. Certainly it must take a very high rank in the short list of monodies.
....We do not believe a word of the report from South Carolina that the Negroes are forming assemblies of the Knights of labor to demand a dollar a day for their work and that they "threaten murder" to accomplish their demand. They have just as much right to combine as white mechanics have. The South is not yet ready anywhere to allow that the Negroes are free to make contracts, and when they combine for living wages they are resisted by force. The whites, we are told, "have organized a cavalry company for protection"! Protection indeed. It is for intimidation.
....The present method of discrediting all laws interfering with the saaloon business on Sunday is to designate them "Blue Laws."It is an appeal to public opinion to remove all restraint on saloons. If the saloons are allowed to have their way they will become the arbiters of liberty. Our merchants, whose lines of business are some benefit to the world, do not raise the cry "Blue Laws," because they are not allowed to open their stores on Sunday. It is only those whose business is a curse who protest against restraint in one day in seven.
....Our statistics of the Moravians were taken from a table published in the Moravian. The Moravian kindly points out some errors in our count which, when corrected, relieve the Church from the charge of having lost in ministers and churches in the past four years. There has really been a gain of one church and three ministers, as our contemporary informs us. its list of ministers was not, it appears, complete. Its correction is made on the basis of the moravian "Text-Book."
....A Minnesota Presbyterian paper complains that "the Northwest is ignored again, as usual," that "Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, Dakoa, Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Washington Territory, Alaska and Minnesota are not of sufficient account to have a place on any of the boards of the Church. We had on representative on the college board, but are now deprived of that. one elder is appointed to the Pan Presbyterian Alliance, but no minister." Now that is not worth fretting about. Fancy Paul saying that!
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The old scyth bearer has been unusually busy in harvesting among professional during the past few days. From England we learn of the death of Thomas Wilson under peculiarly sad surroundings. One of his four children fell out of an express train, and impulsively he jumped out after her. The child was only bruised, but the father injured his spine. He was a pantomomimst of repute and a farcical actor of promise, and was under contract to the dramatic company of Mrs. George Crowe (our Kate Bateman) for next season. Charles Octavius Wood, son of the English scenic artist Charles Wood, and himself scenic artist at the {Tyne?} Theatre, Newcastle, has been drowned while boating and bathing. Many circus performers now among us knew Walter Beckett, bandmaster of John Henry Cooke's Circus, who has died of consumption at Dundee, Scotland. Paul and Alfred Martinetti, who are as well known here as upon the other side, have in Charles Wilford, who in private life was Charles Williams Dukes, lost one who was a valued member of their company of the pantomimists. England also records the death of Charles Garland, under which name he will be recognized by not a few in this country, although abroad, where he was an advanced tenor both in concert and in English opera, he bore the professional designation of Joseph Plerpoint. He should not be confounded with Bantock Pierpoint, an English bariton. The cable on July 6 announced the demise of Lindsay Sloper. A pianist of rare excellence and a composer whose work showed tasteful discrimination, he will, more because of his years than in spite of them, be missed in English musical circles. He was not a stranger here personally, having concluded a tour of this country 15 years ago as a member of the Dolby Concert Company, in which were Mme. Patey, Edith Wynne, William Cummings, and Charles Santley.
Australia contributes three deaths in the person of the wife of Signor Agrata, a Melbourne manager; of Arthur Redwood, a young comedian recently from England, and who had become a confirmed paralytic; and of Mrs. H.R. Harwood, wife of an Australian comedian and manager, and herself au actress of long standing.
Alike in dramatics and in operas Harwood is a name old to the stage on this continent, as well as mark in naval cirlces. It was the English actor, John Harwoodm who in the closing year of the last century, while playing in this country, married Sarah Bache, granddaughter of Benjamin Franklin. He quit and stage and became a wine merchant in Philadelphia. His son was Rear-Admiral Harwood, of the United States navy, and his grandsons were Lieut.-Col. Franklin Harwood, of the Engineer Corps, and Lieut. Henry Wood Harwood, of the Marines. The latter died in Philadelphia eight years ago.
Last Sunday this column referred incidentally to a marriage in the circus ring in the Quaker City in 1877. The unnamed groom was Rudolphe Mette, one of the acrobatic brothers of that name. He became careless of himself, and last Sabbath morning his dead body was found in a stable in Brooklyn.
These brief necrological records would be in complete without a passing reference to Edward Lamb. We remember him as the hateful Haley in the original production here of that particular brand of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" in which all the Howards began to occupy the National Theatre in the Summer of 1853. Spate of frame, with not five pounds of flesh on him were the water squeezed out, he was, except in height, another Charles Burke. Even his voice was more like Burke's or Stuart Robson's than like H. E. Stevens's or that of some other "heavy man" of these very "heavy" days. Lamb was clearly out of his sphere until on night, about a year later, we saw him in a sort of the Lone Fisherman role at the Bowery Theatre. It was one of the soldiers in "Putnam." Lamb had but a word to say here and there, but his exits were in themselves an entire comic play. The short, quick, nervous step, the sidling movement, the upward jerk of the chin, and the peculiar bobbing of the head told better than a dozen "lengths" of speech could possibly have done. Later his Jaques Strop in "Robert Macaire" proved a real treat in conjuction with the Robert of Leffingwell, who was undoubtedly the best mock-heroic actor the American stage has never known. Many years later Lamb did Strop at the Winter Garden by special request.
Except for his advanced years, there should be no alarm felt because of the disappearance of Henry Scharf. It is not the first time he has been missing. He kept himself out of sight of professionals for nearly 20 years, and about 1881 reappeared upon the stage after those who had played him with when he came from England and opened at the theatre on the broadway near Anthony-street, early in the '50s, had supposed him dead. He had been quietly living South, pursuing another vocation.
It is in contemplation unwittingly to summon George L. Fox and broken-legged Harry Seymour from their graves. Each will come up with a stiff protest. A new "skit," to be called "Amanuensis," is reported to be in preparation for the Bijou Theatre. Among its threatened novelties are dog to impersonate a cat, with the idea of making the feline appear of unusual size. Fox and Seymour conveyed the same idea in pantomime by using a boy, who makes a bigger cat and can always be intelligently directed, whereas even a trained dog will flunk. Another novelty is to be a full moon of hugeness, which will first change to a human eye that winks, and finally resolve itself into the man who is popularly supposed to inhabit the domain of Luna whenever the supply of green cheese has run out. It is confidently predicted that this innovation will make audiences laugh. there is no doubt of it. It made them cackle ages ago. According to a published synopsis of "Amanuensis" that play is to bristle with the unshelled casianea vulgus. This is the commonest kind of "chestnust." The starting point of "Amaneunsis" is described as "hynotism, the new form of magnetism." This is Hell--at least, it was a german named Hell who, in the last century, discovered hypnotic thralldom and taught some valuable things in animal magnetism to one Mesmer, to whom posterity has, as a matter of convenience, given the credit of the whole somnambulistic or nerve-racking business. If the new "skit" has nothing in it fresher to the stage than hypnotism, big cat, and comic moon, it may cost H. E. Dixey something to experiment with it at the Bijou for the purpose of casting it out upon the road.
The popularity of the catch phrase "You know" seems almost simultaneously to have inspired two local song writers. One of them is certainly ahead of the other in the matter of copyright, although behind in publication, and he is now going about town inquiring what the words "colorable imitation" mean when used by the "Librarian of Congress, Washington, D.C." All the same, he wonders that no comic song writer caught on to this title ahead of him. His squib is dedicated to Roland Recd.
The death of Edward Lamb could not well fail to call to mind W.J. Florence's alleged mental feat in relation to "Caste" just 20 years ago. There was no need for the court to pass upon the question whether it would be legal for a man to hire some one with a good memory ro see a play and commit it to paper after leaving the theatre, if it would be illegal for him to hire stenographers to jot it down in the theatre. Mr. Florence probably volunteered his somewhat surprising testimony in extenuation of his having the play for production at Barney Williams's theatre in the face of the fact that the right to it had been secured from the author by Lester Wallack; but it is doubtful if the Judge gave the mnemonic performance any weight at all.
A proprietary right in plays has since been recognized, and we no longer see foreign authors resorting to the subterfuge of doubling up with some American citizen in order to secure a copyright; but the consequences of Mr. Florence's setting the world a bad example by his testimony as to personal memorizing are observable even to-day. There is before us the dead-earnest circular of one who prides himself upon being "America's foremost young dramatic author." He proves that he is--bu citing the wearisome number of other men's plays he has written after having somehow got into a parquet seat and committed them to memory.
It may contribute largely to Mr. Florence's ethanasia for him to realize, when at last the A.G. does his double tonguing on the cornet, (the cornet has superseded the bugle as a solo instrument on earth, and why not in favor with the Angel Gabriel?) that he was not alone in encouraging the mnemonic method of playwriting. Prof. J.H. Siddons, who died some months ago in Washington, boasted that he had memorized "The Dead Heart" for the Bowery Theatre. The right to it had been secured by a Baltimore manager, and Edwin Adams had already made a specialty of the leading role, Robert Landry. This was before Mr. Florence had, as he claimed, surcharged his brain with the lines and business of "Caste." Ancestry was no bar to Siddons's act of constructive literary piracy. The Professor was something more than actor, journalist, reader, lecturer, and dramatic tutor. He claimed to be a son of that George Siddons who was the son of the great Sarah Siddons.
Julian Cross, a comedian of some artistic worth when he came to this country with Mrs. John Wood, and worthier now by reason of the seasoning due to lapse of years, has "given the sack" to a troublesome sac. The other day a London surgeon relieved his face of a cyst.
This cheerful allusion to the keen cuts of surgery is a reminder that Dr. Moreil Mackenzie, whose knife has recently been making life worth clinging to by the Crown Prince of Germany, is a newphew of the noted English actor, Henry Compton, who died but a few years ago, and therefore cousin of Edward Compton, who supported Adelaide Neilson in America during one season. Miss Neilson and young Mr. Compton profoundly esteemed each other. A year or so after Adelaide's death he married Virginia Bateman. Dr. Mackenzie has a son on the stage.
This leads us to be inquisitive. Have the Mackenzie family lost a member? There was an English actor of that name who came here a half century ago. All went well enough with him until he strayed into Philadelphia. There the critics "sat upon him," and the next day he baffled them forever by jumping into the Deleware River.
Minnie Palmer has done much better with "Pert" in Melbourne than with "My Sweetheart." John R. Rogers is instituting the usual complimentary dinner to himself in Australia. His star will come home by way of San Francisco, and is due in this city in November next.
Almost everybody knows the song bird Catherine Devrient, at least by reputation that time has thoroughly stamped. A London manager recently engaged her for the leading role in "Le Postillon de Lonjumeau," which he shelved after the first night. She sued him for $300 by his testimony, and they gave that amount to Madame.
Nothing is commoner than to designate some of the alleged funnyisms of the stage as "rot." a term which, bu the way, originated among the circus folks. Perhaps this will explain why a leading comic actor of the Berlin stage bears the name of Rotter.
Thomas A. Hall, actor, stage manager, and house manager from time nearly immemorial, returned last week from England, where he had been stage manager for Mary Anderson. Gilbert Tate will represent him abroad.
Rumor not having euceeded in marrying Mary Anderson to an English Duke or an English Earl, the voluble dame has at last engaged her to an actor. This gives the press an opportunity to say, with much more prettiness than originality, that "she is wedded to her art alone." But the cynic thereupon has his whine, and it ends in "cash box."
Another actress with a large head for business is Mrs. Langtry, but she has not been meeting with too much of it during her present engagement in San Francisco, although in the entire season in America she has reason to congratulate herself. The wiring that she has taken out preliminary naturalization papers in San Francisco need not cause the English public to fear that they will lse her. She is desirous of procuring a divorce. It is not an easy thing to obtain in England, and our courts have no time for recitals of the marital infelicities of non-citizens.
John Gourlay has been in poor luck professionally during his visit to relatives in Australia. The plays that have gone so well for him elsewhere have not "taken" there. When he sprang "Skipped by the Light of the Moon" on the Melbournese, somebody was so inconsiderate as to fancy that in it he recognized the "Gay City," which is from the pen of the inventor of "'Ostler Joe,"George R. Sims.
William Calder, who, with his wife, Alfy Chippendale, has been in England several years; is on July 14 to bring out the Joseph Jefferson and Lin Shewell drama of "Shadows of a Great stop-gap for Grace Hawthorne's deferred presentation of "Theodora" there. It would not be a surprise if some Londoner should fancy that in this drama he sees somewhat of a resemblance to one that John S. Clarke exported from England to this country about 17 years ago. It will certainly surprise almost everybody but Luke Schoolcraft, the minstrel, to be told that Alfy Chippendale, who married into the family of "Old Chip" and early became a widow, is a grand niece of President Zachary Taylor.
The cabled news that an action has been brought in London to restrain Buffalo Bill from rifle shooting in his Wild West exhibition in that city on the ground that it is a nuisance is perhaps more practical than it seems on its face. It will probably transpire that it is the entire show which is a nuisance to somebody, in the sense that it is attracting too many people, and thereby is hurting the business of other shows.
It was vengeful little Coney Island that started the cry "Overcrowded boats!" when, 12 days ago, Forepaugh opened at Erastina. Yet the boats were so little jammed that jammed that Forepaugh during the first few days was considering whether or not he should strike his tents. He concluded to wait and see what the Fourth of July would bring him. It proved a rich yield, and he is yet on Staten Island, which, what with St. George and Erastina, continues a thorn in the side of Coney.
But it is not always from rival showmen that opposition of this kind comes. Albert Cassidy, agent and manager, is dead, but the memory remains of what happened to him in Philadelphia 22 years ago. He was press agent for Lucille Western, who was then bringing out her budget of dramatic horrors known as "The Child Stealer." Cassidy, thinking that the [hour?] had come for cute work, and that he was the man for the hour, published an advertisement cautioning the public against a female child stealer reported to have arrived from Australia, and minutely describing her appearance. On the ground that this, although it was nine years ahead of the Charlie Ross affair, tended to frighten parents, the agent was not only indicted, but was also actually held for trial.
It is always a satisfaction for one to learn of the whereabouts of one's friends, regardless of what sometimes may be the wishes of the latter. Maud Forrester, who is of notoriety in connection with the spectacular drama, has been figuring in a London court with the result of being formally committed for 12 days, although the Judge kindly suspended the order for a month. A costumer had sued her for a debt of []30, contracted when she was in her heyday as Lady Godiva, and before she came to this country to make display her physical abundance in "Mazeppa" equestrianism. She has been making money since her return to England, but the costumer has had to be content with the judgements the courts have awarded him.
Of the minstrels of the very olden time, only Dan Emmett, Sam Sanford, Charlie White, Cool White, and Dave Reed are living. Dave Wambold, R.M. Carroll, R.M. Hooley, and William White. (Bernard, of the San Francisco Minstrels,) are still pulsating, but they were some years behind the others named in entering the business. Hooley is a theatrical manager in Chicago, Cool White is stage manager for Hooley's Theatre, Sam Sanford is at present manager of a traveling troupe playing the drama. "Under the Lash." Dick Carroll. (originally Master Marks, a jig dancer, who succeeded the negro boy Juba at Charlie White's Melodeon, Bowery, this city,) has for many years been out of minstrelsy or black face, although in a different line of stage business his feet continue as nimble as of yore; Dave Wambold is enjoying his fortune as well as a confirmed invalid is capable of doing, Charle White and Bernard long ago shook themselves clear of professional harness, and aged Dan Emmett, whenever he is physically able and can get the chance, "rosins his bow" for a dance party in Chicago.
Dave Reed was a boy when Emmett, Frank Brower, Dick Pelham, and William Whitlock, (father-in-law of the late Edwin Adams,) started whom George Wooldridge (afterward "Tom Quick," of John Clancy's Leader) took to England about 44 years ago. Dave is no longer juggling or jingling on the end, he has quit"Shoofly" since Dan Bryant's death, and his "Sally. Come Up," probably not one of us shall ever see and hear again; but there is not a gray hair in his head and he feels as young as the spryest of us. Having trained the "Reed Birds." he is arranging to play one-night stands in minor cities, and especially in towns along the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. The "Reed Birds" are all his own. Not counting himself and "mother," there are five of them, but the fifth is as yet in swaddling clothes, and only gets upon the stage when Mother does not know where else to put it. The party do an entertaining little sketch, into which Dave and his four children introduce 10 specialty acts, Mrs. Reed, (a sister of L.R. Willard, the actor, Reed's first wife having died without issue,) doing what is technically termed "staight business." Davis is looking for some man who is topographically posted as to the few towns in which it is not necessary for a troupe to lease all the fences and dead walls in order to let the public know that they are coming. He has a novel scheme of advertising.
Robert Fraser, also, has a novel schems. In a circular at hand he proposes to bring out a new pantomime, to be called familiarly "The Spider and the Fly," and to give every manager who plays it a stockholding interest therein. It is to be hoped, for the old-time clown's sake, that the project will prove profitable to him and the stockholders. But the modern manager, who turns his back upon the theatrical stock company, is not likely to dabble in other kidnds of stock. J.H. Haverly is an exception, and john E. Owens has ceased to be.
It may be called "Foli's Folly." Seeking to prevent the Devonshite, Club whose house is next door to his in London, from erecting a wooden stand in front of their premises on the plea that it would interfere with the Americo-Italian's view of the procession on Jubilee Day, the operatic Signor Foli has brought costs of court upon himself. The Judge substantially held that, while light is essential to an Englishman's enjoyment of perfect freedom, a mere view of a thing cannot be copyrighted, so to speak.
A propos of copyright, why did not Cool White, who wrote "The Fall of Babylon" nigh onto a half century ago and produced it, enter it "according to act of Congress?" The Staten Island Amusement Company would be his oyster now. Last season Cincinnati, which then had the St. George idea, but on not so ambitious a scale, would have been Cool's plum pudding.
The junior partner of Koster & Bial sailed last week for Berlin, Vienna, and Paris in quest of musical talent for their hall, which is to open in the Autumn as a concert room for those only who seek the cantatrice by gaslight. No matinees. Mr. Bial intends to reintroduce Strauss to the American public if he will make the journey once more. He was here in 1872. it is said that of late he has become an inveterate card player, and would rather shift pasteboard than swing bat.
Wonder if the Kiralfy's mean it? Their big bulls style their forthcoming spectacle "Legardere." That is probably nearere the truth in one sense than the big bills usually get.
Manager Daniel Shelby, of Chicago, is in town with his wife. She is ill and Mr. Shelby himself is not bragging. Manager Dudley McAdow has struggled to his feet after a severe battle with typhoid fever. James Armstrong has been chosen to manage the "Early Birds" company. Patterning after G.S. Knight, who shifted from the vaudevilles to the legitimate by playing the Dutch Captain in Evangeline," Bonny Reynolds, who used to be of the Dutch team of Reynolds and Walling, is next season to essay the role of the Captain Aimee. "The Human Fly" is passing her leisure in town driving a dogcart. She and the other Austin sister will travel again next season with R.G. Austin's company, opening Sept. 5.
The mother of the Standwood sisters, sketch artists in the vaudevilles, was yesterday giving expression to a tribulation that emphasizes the heavy black she wears. Gertie, the younger of the girls, had mysteriously disappeared, and her mother had recieved a letter, as she says, from a man named Wilson, stating that he had mattied Gertie as far back as may 30, having been divorced from his prior wife may 15. This maybe news to that prior wife. The mother of the girl declares that Wilson is a Harlem amusement manager and is 60 years old. Unless in her grief she is extravagan in estimating the age this, cannot be isaac N. Wilson, who has been a manager in Harlem, has resided there many years, although born and brought up in the Fourteenth Ward, seems not much more than 52 years old, and has been generally credited with more sense than to desire, as legal phraseology euphemistically puts these cases sometimes, to deprive a parent of the services of her daughter. The disappearance of one sister has thrown the other out of engagements.
Robert Fulford and wife (Annie Pixley, a New York girl, whose "Uncle Shea" once stood well up in Brooklyn jurisprudence) are to sail for England July 12. Tony Pastor and wife will sail thence at the close of this month, and probably "Pony" Moore will accompany them on one of his frequent visits to the land of his birth. Dutch Daly, who had intended next season to tour the States again, writes that he will not come. Katie Putname, who is in Paris, will be back early in August. John S. Clarke, who is again here, is to begin his next American season under the management of the veteran John T. Ford, who 30 years ago directed the first startting tour of Edwin Booth, whose sister Clarke married. With reference to the young Edwin of those days Ford made a prophecy. It hasn't come true yet.
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WE are glad to know that William F. Cody "ain't got the big head worth a cent," and that he is the "same old Bill Cody, the bullwhacker," that he used to be. Mr. Blaine has not yet been heard from, but the friends of John Sherman are of opinion that, although it is just possible the man from Maine may get the "big head," he will certainly continue, so far as the Ohio Senator is concerned, the identical "bullwhacker" he has been for several Presidential seasons.