196

The Scouts of the Prairie, the drama produced at the Arch Street-Theatre last night, was written by Mr. "Ned [Buntline]" for the purpose of affording two genuine scouts an opportunity to tread the boards a[?] win histori[cal] honors and dollars. As might have need expected, the play, considered as a literary work, is beneath contempt. It is written with a purpose, down to the very low [intellectual] level of the boys and the adult [?] who obtain enjoyment from the [?] of [?] novels. There are skirmishes and scrimmages, captures and rescues, love passages with maidens of a brick dust color, wardances, scalping and all the stuff whereof the popular Indian stories are constructed. But the heroes of the play rather than the play itself, are the attract[?]. The part of "Buffalo Bill is taken by William himself, while "Texas Jack" [?] [?] by that identical exile from the Lone Star State. This arrangement at least has the merit of novelty. Imagine Julius Caesar playing his own part in the tragedy named after him, or Ri[?]lieu himself interpreting Bulwer! It would be very interesting, and yet if we thought that eiter of these gentlemen could possibl have acted upon the stage as badly as there two persons from the far west, we should rejoice that death had made such a terrible mischance impossible. Nothing could be worse from an artistic point of view than the performance of Buffalo Bill and his friend and there never was anything worse of its kind since Thespis bellowed from a cart-tail. This is one of the first fruits of the pacification of the Indians. The operations in hair conducted by Buffalo Bill, were interrupted. Having no Sioux to scalp, he nightly scalps the muse of tragedy. If the establishment of the peace policy of the President is to be followed by such by such consequences as this, every lover of the drama will at once become an enemy of the administration and demand war to the knife against the red man.

The lines allotted to Buffalo Bill are not arduous, and no vast amount of study and intellectual effort is required to unfold their meaning to the audience; and yet the wild and ineffectual struggles of the actor with them would make a contrary impression upon the uniformed. Imagine a boy of ten years, at school, explaining the unnecessary filial piety and devotion of Casabianca, and a very correct idea of the Buffalo's methods of treating the English language will be obtained. It is absoliutely picturesque in its absurdity. Texas Jack speaks rather more naturally, although with a certain awkwardness which, even in the author's finest passages, impresses one with the conviction that the actor is perpetrating a somewhat clumsy gag. The most effective members of the company are two or three Indians, who, when they are not executing a war-dance, or brandishing tin tomahawks, stand grim and silent, looking as gloomy and sad amid all the hurley-burley and noise, as if their squaws and popooses had just been ushered to the happy hunting grounds at the very moment when those last fragments of baked dog disagreed with the bereaved relatives.

But it is undeniable that a certain interest does attach to the two white men apart from their absurd attempts to act. They are both fine-looking men, Buffalo Bill particularly, having an exceedingly handsome face and noble carriage. And then, when we see them rush in with pistols and rifles and slay a dozen Indians at a time, or watch the dexterous gentleman from Texas throw lasse with delicate precision, or observe both of them tear the red-flannel scalps from the heads of their fallen enemies, it is comforting to know that they have done this kind of thing all their lives in deadly earnest. The exitement in the gallery during these passages was something wonderful to witness. There was not one boy of all the thousand present who did not scream and yell whenever there was a genuine war

The Scouts of the Prairie, the drama produced at the Arch Street-Theatre last night, was written by Mr. "Ned [Buntline]" for the purpose of affording two genuine scouts an opportunity to tread the boards a[?] win histori[cal] honors and dollars. As might have need expected, the play, considered as a literary work, is beneath contempt. It is written with a purpose, down to the very low [intellectual] level of the boys and the adult [?] who obtain enjoyment from the [?] of [?] novels. There are skirmishes and scrimmages, captures and rescues, love passages with maidens of a brick dust color, wardances, scalping and all the stuff whereof the popular Indian stories are constructed. But the heroes of the play rather than the play itself, are the attract[?]. The part of "Buffalo Bill is taken by William himself, while "Texas Jack" [?] [?] by that identical exile from the Lone Star State. This arrangement at least has the merit of novelty. Imagine Julius Caesar playing his own part in the tragedy named after him, or Ri[?]lieu himself interpreting Bulwer! It would be very interesting, and yet if we thought that eiter of these gentlemen could possibl have acted upon the stage as badly as there two persons from the far west, we should rejoice that death had made such a terrible mischance impossible. Nothing could be worse from an artistic point of view than the performance of Buffalo Bill and his friend and there never was anything worse of its kind since Thespis bellowed from a cart-tail. This is one of the first fruits of the pacification of the Indians. The operations in hair conducted by Buffalo Bill, were interrupted. Having no Sioux to scalp, he nightly scalps the muse of tragedy. If the establishment of the peace policy of the President is to be followed by such by such consequences as this, every lover of the drama will at once become an enemy of the administration and demand war to the knife against the red man.

The lines allotted to Buffalo Bill are not arduous, and no vast amount of study and intellectual effort is required to unfold their meaning to the audience; and yet the wild and ineffectual struggles of the actor with them would make a contrary impression upon the uniformed. Imagine a boy of ten years, at school, explaining the unnecessary filial piety and devotion of Casabianca, and a very correct idea of the Buffalo's methods of treating the English language will be obtained. It is absoliutely picturesque in its absurdity. Texas Jack speaks rather more naturally, although with a certain awkwardness which, even in the author's finest passages, impresses one with the conviction that the actor is perpetrating a somewhat clumsy gag. The most effective members of the company are two or three Indians, who, when they are not executing a war-dance, or brandishing tin tomahawks, stand grim and silent, looking as gloomy and sad amid all the hurley-burley and noise, as if their squaws and popooses had just been ushered to the happy hunting grounds at the very moment when those last fragments of baked dog disagreed with the bereaved relatives.

But it is undeniable that a certain interest does attach to the two white men apart from their absurd attempts to act. They are both fine-looking men, Buffalo Bill particularly, having an exceedingly handsome face and noble carriage. And then, when we see them rush in with pistols and rifles and slay a dozen Indians at a time, or watch the dexterous gentleman from Texas throw lasse with delicate precision, or observe both of them tear the red-flannel scalps from the heads of their fallen enemies, it is comforting to know that they have done this kind of thing all their lives in deadly earnest. The exitement in the gallery during these passages was something wonderful to witness. There was not one boy of all the thousand present who did not scream and yell whenever there was a genuine war