Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 January 1879 — A Stage Joke. [ARTICLE]

A Stage Joke.

During a recent performance of “Hamlet,” in New York, the graveyard scene was in progress, and every one was wrapped in melancholy. Hamlet and Horatio stood in the gloomy churchyard where the grave-diggers were, at work. The first grave-digger threw up a shovelful of bones. “Whose skull is that?” said Hamlet, in a sepulchral voice. “Stewart’s! I claim the reward ! ” said the grave-digger, in an aside. The reply was so unexpected that Mr. Booth, old stager as. he is, came near laughing. Horatio, who had not so much self-control, had to go up the stage, and the second grave-digger hid behind the pile of earth till he could recover from the effects. But Owen Fawcett never smiled. He is too good a humorist to laugh at his own jokes. In German railroad cars the separate apartment, instead of being set apart for smokers, is for the non-smokers. It is, in view of the prevailing custom, quite small compared with the smoking apartment. Even with this literal provision, Government has been compelled to issue a circular instructing smokers not to smoke in the small apartments.