Daily Wabash Express, Terre Haute, Vigo County, 3 March 1889 — Page 6

WOMEN ON THE STAGE.

Nym Crinkle, of the New York World, Tells Some Plain Truths.

TALENT INSUFFICIENT WITHOUT PERSONAL CHARMS.

Tlae Conditions of the Theater, Not th.e Immorality of tlie Drama, to Blame.

Nym Crinkle, the New York amusement critic, writes as follows for the New York World:

A lady brought this chestnut to me not long ago. It has been kicking around journalism ever since women took the place of boys in the drama: "Can a young lady go into the dramatic profession and succeed and retain her modesty, her delicacy, her judgment and her purity of character?"

A man has to brace up to answer that question conscientiously and clearly to a lady whose choice may depend upon his answer.

Can a man go before the mast and preserve his kid gloves? I suppose he can with care. But wouldn't he be better off without them?

Modesty, delicacy and judgment do not depend upon the place or the work. A great many indelicate women go into the theater and they remain indelicate. Pure and modest women also go there and remain pure and modest. Just as a woman can remain white and unfreckled in the blazing sunlight, but it is more difficult than to remain so in a cellar.

Can a man be as gentle and forbearing in the front ranks of a fighting brigade as in a back parlor.

Doesn't war rub off his tenderness and toughen hiB sensibilities and deaden his sympathies?

Well, I mean to say he will have to fight for it if it doesn't? There isn't as much repose in a' whirl pool as in a promenade.

But even whirlpools cannot change some people's character. It is much harder to be delicate and modest and pure on the stage than in your own bed-room. Just as it is much harder to be honest in Wall street or the common council than it is in your study or your corn field. But I have it on fairly good authority that there are honest men on Wall street and that there have been honest men in the common council. "You have studied the stage like a philosopher," said this lady to me, "and you must have some convictions upon this subject. I wish you would give them to me." "With pleasure," I said, "if they be of any service to you."

In the first place these women do not go to the stage because they are hunt ing for virtue of any kind. They do not even approach the temple with any consideration of their modesty, their purity or their delicacy. As a rule, they are thinking about their board-bills, their wardrobe and their laundry account.

The theater is not a moral academy. It is a workshop where everybody is in the show-window. It doesn't offer a higher character it offers an avocatioD. If a girl has curvature of thespine it will not cure ii. If she is a born liar and a thief it will not reform her. If she is highly organized, extremely delicate and deliciously modest, the best it can do is to toughen her to her work. Of course it isn't possible for a girl to be as timidly modest on the stage as on a hearthrug. Public exhibition in any case does not develop the retiring charm of coyness it does not tend to enhance and perpetuate the dolicious blush of shyness. We might as well make up our minds to dispense with the bloom of pudicity where we accept the boon of publicity.

But I do not think we need waste any sympathy just here on this account. The girls who go on the stage are not overburdened with thai, delicate and delightful bashfuluess that we read about. As a rule they face audiences much better than men. It springe, I think, from an overweening faith in their personal attractiveness.

I can not imagine a worse place than the stage for an oversensitive girl. If she has ideals, aspirations, tender memories if Bhe has been gently bred and soft.y nurtured nmong spiritual women and chivalrous men if she is the soul of candor and the flower of truth, her surprises are many and her shocks are plentiful. If she retains her delicacy to the end she is a heroine.

Do you ask ine what it is that would rob her of her delicacy? I am surprised that you Should ask if you have given the matter any attention.

The conditions of the theater, not the immorality of the drama, rob her. The petty jealousies and envies of her companions. who hate and despise her in the exact ratio of her success. The necessary familiarity of the sexes herded into close and stewing quarters in all kinds of dresses, and above all the tyranny of a vulgar public, which overrides the judgment of the management.

She has to learn very speedily that she must do, in a measure, what the public wants. It wants exposed limbs, sensuous motion, voluptuous tableaux. If the public wants them so will the manager.

She tinds out that an actress, and especially a subordinate actress, has no right of judgment or of conscience. She brings herself to a market with her charms and she is expected to put her wares on exhibition.

How long will it take to discover that the woman with the most charms will be the favorite? The Prado story now running in the World makes that clear.

On this point let me say one word more. 11 is the proper hypocrisy to say that the public wants ability and" talent that the theater is searching for them that mere physical attractiveness will not suffice. I doubt if the facts will sustain these assertions. The public demands that which is pleasing first of all. You may add as much talent as you please afterwards. But just at present, clear, hard, unmistakable talent, without personal charm, will have a hard road to travel, and personal charm without talent—well, I'm not writing a history of the stage.

But these conditions, it should be remembered, are not peculiar to the 6tage. They are the conditions of life itself, whenever and wherever the appeal is made to mankind. The same aggregate of common tastes and unrefined desires makes up the mass of the public, whether you appeal to it in literature, in art or in philosophy.

The fact is the drama in our country is a public convenience, using the excuse of art. It provides entertainment and the theater selects its material with reference solely to the public demand

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and with no reference to the art standard. Looked at broadly, the actors choose to lie regarded as bread-winners rather than as artists. They insist that their avocation is a competitive industry only. They combine for industrial purposes and charitable assistance, not with conservative and progressive aims.

This much on the intellectual side. On the moral side it cultivates assiduously an attitude of untruth in its methods. The greater the sham the greater the illusion. It lies systematically and competitively. It insists that its entertainment is the best on earth that its physical beauties are talents that its business is overwhelming that its written puffs are the free expression of criticism that its expenses are incalculable that its methods are "heaven's truth" and not lies. It bulletins its failures as instant successes. It holds incompetence against good taste by means of money, and it forces mere impudence into recognition by its machinery of enterprise and its system of working upon the curiosity and the appetites of the masses.

It has no reformers in its ranks who perceive its own defeats and faults, and boldly stand up and denounce them for the good of the guild. Its worthiest men and women are always excusing its shortcomings. It will not allow that it has its black sheep and its organic defects like other human institutions. Its inevitable and constant moral summary is, we are no worse than other institutions.

It is true enough that its worthiest men and women, after they have retired from the stage and written their biographies, let out some truths and some regrets, but to have a brave conviction and to denounce that which is ignoble and vicious in their ranks, while they themselves are in the ranks, is called "fouling one's own nest."

Anything like a just estimate of the stage as a great and potent factor in social life necessitates some recognition of these facts.

And these facts have a direct bearing upon the comfort, the well-being and the conduct of all who enter into acting as a profession.

If we open a path among the eager tradeswomen who throng the portals of the theater, carrying their textile wares on their backs or wearing their skindeep goods in their faces, and find the girl who comes to this arena with lofty purpose, generous impulses, an unbounded faith and a charming belief that honesty of endeavor and sincerity of intent will meet with cordial and instant sympathy and hearty recognition, we have only to wait a while and get from her the same sad story.

Between the naive impulses of the dreaming girl, with her abstract ideals of stage art, and the hard-working, disappointed and calculating professional woman there is a great gap. She has learned the lesson of her avocation. One disappointment after another has beaten against that sensitive surface until she no longer winces and scarfs. That which looked like an enormous salary to her unsuspecting eyes is a working pittance when she has paid for her dresses. That which once seemed the spontaneous acclaim and welcome of the world is now seen to be the "working up" of the manager. One by one the goddesses of her dreams sink into practical, "wGll-handled" stars. The sensitiveness that was a divine efflorescence of her character in her private life is a beastly nervousness in her public career. Her moral judgment that was

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instant and determinative now waits till it hears what the conscience of the parquet and the morning newspapers say.

She has learned the last sad lesson of all, and it is this—that when a woman steps from the protection of private life into the glare of publicity with a challenge of merit she invites not only the opinions of the discreet but the abuse of the unscrupulous.

It is for these reasons that I say a young lady can retain her modesty, her delicacy and her purity of character on the stage, and I have to add that if she does she deserves a great deal more credit than if she had preserved these things in a dormitory or in a young ladies' seminary.

I suppose that good old-fashioned gentleness and courtesy and honesty would shine much more resplendently on the curbstone in Broad street than it would in a quiet country rectory. The element of unexpectedness alone would add some splendor.

Good and brave people anywhere are not good and brave because the path was cleared for them.

But because it wasn't! Nym Ckinki.e.

THE POISON HABIT.

All of Them Are Progressive and Gain With Each Dose. All poison habits are progressive, says Dr. H. C. Stickney in the St. Louis Magazine. Every time an individual indulges in the use of a stimulant, whether opium, alcohol, cocaine, quinine, etc., the habit gains strength. The dose must be repeated more frequently and increased in quantity. The popular language in in which a habit is said toj be "growing upon" a person is very expressive. In a very short time the system becomes so habituated to the use of these poisonB that any attempt to withdraw them is followed by a tremendous commotion. Have you ever seen the man or woman who is accustomed to drink tea or coffee every morning, placed in circumstances where it was impossible to obtain the accustomed beverage? The physical ,and mental nature of the person is completely changed. Languid, stupid, sick, irritable, the system will not be satisfied until it has received its accustomed stimulant. And the tea and coffee habit is the mildest to overcome. The poisonous principle of tea is theine, a strong narcotic poison in its concentrated form. Deprive the tea leaves of this poison and no one would drink tea. It would be like so much steeped blades of grass. The poisonous principle of coffee is of much the same nature. But the tea

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An Interruption.

Miss Kissan—Oh, Calvert! This is so-o-o-o unexpected. Her Maid—Excuse me, Miss Mary, but yure mother sint me down t' tell yez that about that little matter she wor talking over wid yez this mornin' fer youse t' say "Yes." She said youse would know phat she manes.—[Time.

More Bad Luck.

Mr. Winks (looking over the paper)— Cheap, Drugg ifc Co. are selling all sorts of patent medicine at half price.

Mrs. Winks—Just our luck. There isn't anything the matter with any of us. —[New York Weekly.

Amelie Rivee-Chanler is painting a picture of her husband. She complains that she can not do justice to his eyes.

THE TERRE HAUTE EXPRESS, SUNDAY MORNING, MARCH 3, 1889

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O! for a plungfe Into Lethe's stream, And a long, long sleep with never a dream, Nor even one passing thought. Of Hie with Its cares and sadness, Of love with Its fevered madness

Or Its pleasures dearly bought.

Oh, for a sleep which knows no waking To life's routine, with heart half breaking. This Indeed were perfect rest Where the heart would never throb again, An end of passion, an end of pain.

A return to Nature's breast. —[The Wasp.

THE OVERGAITER CRAZE.

It's Stylisli, and All the Girls Are Wearing Them. A girl with rosy cheeks and the dreamiest of dreamy eyes, strolled down Chestnut street yesterday as proud as a peacock, says the Philadelphia Record. She was very fashionably dressed, and there was in her attire a harmonious blending of colors which at once stamped her as a young lady of exquisite taste. But she seemed oblivious of all her pretty finery, and, as was plain to be seen from her frequent looks to the ground, was conscious only of a dainty pair of russet-colored overgaiters that encased her tiny feet, and the admiring glances of a small knot of whimpering dudes, who ogled her vulgarly, yet smilingly, from the opposite side of the street. She was proud of her gaiters, and she put each foot forward with a vigor that showed it. By and by another girl came along, and she wore overgaiters, too, and just as proudly as her predecessor. These overgaitered apparitions of charming femininity became so frequent that a reporter who witnessed the procession called upon a swell foot-dresser to inquire about the cause of the grand turnout. "Oh, it's all the rage now," said he, "and when the flowers bloom in the spring it will seem curious to see a young girl or a young man either who does not wear the articles. It is purely a matter of style, of course, and the fashion was revived in London by the swell society women last fall, and was sent over by the Johnny Bulls to their American cousins by cable. "They will be generally worn in the spring, and nobody can deny that they are a handsome addition to a welldressed man or woman's walking costume. There, you see that old gentleman going up on the other side? See those overgaiters, and how nicely they set off his shapely patent leather shoe and stylish trousers? He is a man who probably wore them in his younger days, when it was almost a crime not to have several pairs {of them at least—one pair to match each Gostume. Even now I see a great many young men wearing them, and if this weather continues they will be all the rage within two months. "What do they cost? Well, they can be bought for any amount from two dollars upward. I made this pair for a young girl, who will call for them this afternoon."

Here the dealer exhibited a pair of overgaiters that would tickle the vanity of the most fastidious creature. They were made of very line corduroy and were fastened at the sides with rather large and glistening buttons of pure mother-of-pearl. At the bottoms there were delicate little straps that passed under the shoe and were fastened on the other side with large bupkiee of solid silver. "When the girl comes," continued the dealer, "she will pay me—but here she is now. 'Good-afternoon, miss. Your

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gaiters? Yes, just finished. Fourteen dollars, please. Good-day.' That will give you an idea of what they cost. Of course, the price could be much higher. I am making a pair now for a Walnut street young lady which will cost her S48, but the buttons and buckles are to be of unburnished gold."

WHO SAID IT?

Dean Swift is credited with "Bread is the staff of life." It was Keats said: "A thing of beauty is a joy forever." "Man proposes, but God disposes," remarked Thomas A. Kempis.

Franklin is authority for "God helps those that help themselves. "All cry and no wool" is an expression found in Butler's "Hudibras."

We are indebted to Colley Cibber, not to Shakspeare, for "Richard is himself again."

Edward Coke, the English jurist, was of the opinion that "A man's house is his castle." "When Greek joins Greek then was the tug of war," was written by Nathaniel Lee in 1G02.

Edward Young tells us "Death loves a shining mark," and "A fool at 40 is a fool indeed." "Variety is the spice of life" and "Not much the worse for wear" were coined by Cowper.

Charles Pinckney gave the patriotic sentiment, "Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute." "Of two evils I have chosen the least," and "The end must justify the means," are from Matthew Prior.

To Milton we owe "The paradise of fools," "A wilderness of sweets," and "Moping melancholy and moonstruck madness."

The poet Campbell found that "Coming evens cast their shadows before," and 'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view."

Christopher Marlowe gave forth the invitation so often repeated to his brothers in a less public way: "Love me little, love me long."

To Dr. Johnson belongs "A good hater," and to Macintosh, in 1701. the phrase, often attributed to John Randolph, "Wise"and masterly inactivity."

Thomas Tasser, a writer of the sixteenth century, said: "It's an ill wind turns no good," "Better late than never," "Look ere you leap," and "The stone that is rolling can gather no moss." "First in war, first in peac9 and first in the hearts of his fellow-citizens" (not hiB countrymen), appeared in the resolutions presented to the house of representatives in December, 1 U!), by General Henry Lee.

Yoang but Gifted.

Lie I. Time 11 a. m. Mother—Now mind, Johnnie, there's a ghost in that dark closet guarding the jam!

Johnnie trembles violently and commences to water at the mouth. Lie II. Time 2 p.m.:

Johnnie—Oh, mamma! The ghost has eaten half the jam!—[Lies.

Some Reformer*.

"What is a reformer, pa?" asked young Caution, after reading the morning papers. "A reformer, sonny," replied Mr. Caution, meditatively, "is a politician who oosts more than the ordinary kind." —[Pitteburg Chronicle.

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AMONG THE ELECTRICIANS. An electric car line to the top of Missionary Ridge is proposed.

The electric traveling crane in Minneapolis has a capacity of twenty tons. The electric lighting of Hoosac tunnel has been a pronounced success.

The sparking of a transformer-wound motor is claimed to be altogether insignificant.

Three hundred miles an hour is the proposed speed for the electric postal railroad of the future.

The new electrical signal apparatus for ships' use is said to be a perfect marvel of mechanical ingenuity.

The accumulators in use for two years on the Boston &, Albany road show only 1l per cent, depreciation per year.

Recent Russian experiments show that it is not an easy matter to disable a search light with machine gun or small-arm fire.

A general substitution of electric power or steam cable roads for horse power is proposed for the tram power in Washington.

Anew submarine cable, giving the United States an independent line of communication with Europe via Halifax, is proposed.

The photograph-telephone concert, recently held between New York and Philadelphia, was the most successful of the kind yet attempted.

The competition between alternating and continuous currents may be called a race between the alternating motor and the accumulator.

The difficulties which principally concerned the working of the vacuum brake to be used by the electric traction company in London have now been removed.

One peculiar function of electric motors is for places where the power is so small that the loss in economy is fully overcome by the facility afforded for transmission.

Uncertainty as to the actual temperature of the wire to the extent of one or two-tenths of a degree centigrade renders nugatory elaborate arrangements for very accurate measurements of resistance.

The ideal insulation for a marine cable is a layer of braided cotton next the wire, then the dielectric of white rubber containing no sulphur, protected by okonite, with a wrapper of tape to guard against abrasion, and, finally, lead tubing to resist chemical action.

Caught by a Parrott's Talk, French detectives obtain their hints and clews from many sources, but it is not often that they receive them through the instrumentality of parrots yet this is just what has happened during the researches of M. Goron, the head of the Paris criminal department. This officer has been lately looking for the chief accountant of the "Catusse band," a fellow Yiamed Victor Chevalier, and, going the other day into the rooms of a natorious receiver of stolen goods in Paris, be heard himself addressed in harsh tones as *ood old ictor! there they are!" This was enough for the detective, who having silently satisfied himself that the loquacious bird was the property of the man for whom he was looking, proceeded to search the receiver's den for indications of a more substantial character. After a long and minute investigation of the premises he found a letter from Victor to the receiver, in which epistle the robber an

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nounced that he was in Angers under the nBtne of Felix Cro/.et. M. Goron immediately set out for that town and arrested the owner of the too voluble parrot in the raiUvay station.

MEN'S FASHION NOTES.

Seal rings, the seal being small, are growing in favor. It is evident now that the Ascot scarf has come to stay.

Fashionable handkerchiefs run largely towards embroidered designs. Night robes with flowers woven into the bosoms are in great demand.

One of the newest fancies in rings is made of a gold or silver chain, knotted on top.

A new shade in spring derbys is smoke color. It is an exceedingly soft and delicate tint.

The fad of putting up collars and cuffs in half-dozen lots in fancy boxes is on the increase among outfitters.

In vests, the notched collar is still the favorite, although extreme dressers are affecting other styles in order to differ from the multitude.

The fancy summer vest brought out last season continues in good form and promises to attain the zenith of its popularity during the summer.

The dead, or unpolished, finish on collars, cuffs and shirt fronts, is now considered the proper caper. Highly glossed linen is looked upon as vulgar.

Some startling effects are to be seen among the recent importations of hosiery. A pronounced design is in bottle-green grounds, flecked with golden butterflies.

A Dead Give-Away.

Mrs. de Pink—Oh! Oh! Oh! I shall go distracted. Mr. de Pink (springing to her side)— Merciful heavens! What has happened? "The washerwoman has made^ a mistake and sent me one of Mrs. Westend's lace handkerchiefs." "Well, what of it?" "What of it? What of it? Oh you— y0U Why, Mrs. Westend must have received my miserable cheap, imitation lace handkerchief, and it has my name on it."— Philadelphia Record.

Cause Kuougli.

IJe Bigsby—What makes you so down in the mouth, Rigley? Uigley (with a long-drawn sigh)—Addition to father's family last night.

De Bigsby—Then why the deuce are you so glum? Was it a boy or girl? Rigley—Neither. Miss Recusant came my sister.—[ Buffalo Courier.

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Aliout the Same.

WTife (who has just been through Ins pocketB)—You wretch, you have been playing the races again.

Hubby—No, my dear. I spent the evening at the ladies' bazar. -[New York Sun.

A Hal Combination.

There is no truth in the rumor that Amelie Rives-Chandler and Edgar Saltw are contemplating a collaborated novel. This is lucky for the English language and American moralB.—[New York World.

It Cain* aLong Distance.

Waiter—Here you are sir this coffee comes direct from Java. Guest (who has been waiting a long time for it)—I thought it was farther off than that.—[Texas Sittings.