Richmond Palladium (Daily), Volume 38, Number 271, 22 September 1913 — Page 10

THE RICHMOND PALLADIUM AND SUN-TELEGRAM, MONDAY, SEPT. 22, 1913 PALLADIUM'S MAGAZINE AND HOME PAGE Married Life the Second Year What Do You Think of This "HOME?" Drunkenness is on the Decrease

PAGE TEN

By MABEL HERBERT URNER.

"W;: " w t.hea ELL, that's the best I can Warren threw a small heatre envelope in Helen's lap. "Oh, Warren vaudeville!" "Couldn't get a thing for the play you wanted house sold out. Anyway a good vaudeville show is a darn sight better than most of these plays." "'Oh, but Warren, this is the only ' time we have taken mother to the " theaire. and I' did want her to see something good." ' ' "Take them or leave them. You don't have to go." , . "You know I wouldn't waste the . tickets now you've bought them. We'll go, of course, only I'm afraid mother will be disappointed." "Well, if you're going, see that you're ready on time. I don't intend to be late and drag everybody out of their seats to let us pass" It was just eight o'clock when they i started, and they reached the theatre several moments before the curtain rose. "Here, mother, you sit on this side; 1 think you can see better. Mrs. Allen, who for many years had not been to a theatre, except to the one-night stands at Carterstown's 'opera house, was gazing around wonderingly. The rich hangings and gilded decorations seemed to her very lavish and beautiful. THE PERENNIAL TRAMPS. A uniformed boy came out, placed a large black-lettered placard, "Buckley and Williamson," on an easel at the side of the stage. Then the curtain rose and two proverbial tramps with their stale jokes and boisterous antics. Helen felt more than ever resentful at Warren that her mother should have been brought to a vaudeville show instead of one of the many charming plays they might have seen. Here one of the tramps, having been tumbled out of a wheel-barrow by the other took from his pocket a little whisk broom and dusted himself off, amid the laughter of the gallery. Helen wondered how this antiquated absurdity could still pass for humor. After ten minutes of noisy horse-play, their turn ended with loud applause. The uniformed boy again appeared i and changed the placard annonnce-1 ment to "Mile. Ellyse." The orchestra struck up a lively popular air and the curtain rose on an empty stage hung with dark red curtains. From out of the wings dashed a ybung woman with a long lace coat and an immense plume-covered hat. After the first song she threw off the coat and hat, and appeared in a spangled red and black ballet skirt, with a bodice bo low it was hardly more than shoulder straps. Her hair was bleached and tortured "into many curls, and the rouge and powder painfully obvious. Then the stage was darkened, and colored calcium lights thrown upon while she sang a coon song and danced a cake walk with a high wilk hat and cane. "Bayen and Burns" trick bicyclists came next. The work of one of them. which was really good, difficult and daring feats with the wheels, was spoiled by the other, who dressed as a clown, received more applause from merely tumbling off than the other did for his most skillful work. AN INSANE YOUTH. , "Howard Blynn, an insane youth, with blonde hair, a light flannel suit, red tie, red banded straw hat, a cane and a general air of being "fetching" minced out and sang "I wish I had a sweetheart," while he languidly twirled his cane. "Wouldn't you like to slap him?" Helen whispered, viciously. "Why, my dear!" exclaimed her mother. "Oh, well, if there's anything I can't tolerate it is these simpering affected youths, who come out jauntily attired and yowl about "love." They'd be all right as bell boys and waiters. But to have to sit here and to entertained by an insanity like that!" Here, to Helen's relief. Mr. Howard Blynn, with a final whirl of his cane, waltzed off the stage. A mild applause called him back, but it was not strong enough to justify more than elaborate bows, which showed the careful, middle-parting of his blonde hair over an empty head. "The Carrolle Sisters," musical trio, came next. They played on various instruments bells, glasses, fans and parasols. The idea was not the excellence of the music, but the freakish objects from which it could be produced. "Lillian Pell" followed the imitations of well-known actors, selecting those that had some mannerism of speech or gesture which she caricatured with more vigor than art. It was after eleven before the curtain fell on the last number. "Well, what did you think of the show?" demanded Warren, as they walked to the subway. Mrs. Allen murmured politely that "she had enjoyed it very much," but Helen said nothing at all. GIVE ME VAUDEVILLE, HE SAID. "Oh. Helen's always down on vaudeville," said Warren. "She's rather go to one of these problem psychologi"S'MA TTER POP Si THEETiTi -A5Tr?A,M6t ) LOOKlN' MAKU IVAANTS To 5&E TOU

There are, in this land of "blessed civilization," thousands upon thousands of such homes every one a disgrace, a cancer in the body of society.

The Man Who DEAR MISS FAIRFAX: I had been keeping company with a pretty young lady for about eight months when she moved, and after confessing her love for me she decided with the aid of her stern father that there were plenty of vnniiiT mpn in her vicinity who could give her all the good times she de sired. Now during tms stretcn i became acquainted with a young lady who, although not as pretty as the first, has proven herself far more educated and serious. Sh.e seems to be greatlv interested in me. and I try to make "her as happy as I can. I love the first and like the second. Kindly advise me what I should do. CONFUSED. By BEATRICE FAIRFAX. OH, fudge! you and your "liked the second and loved the first" what are you doing, anyhow? Trying to make yourself think you are i dead in love when you aren t even in knee deep? What shall you do, indeed what shall any one do who isn't in love with the girl he is paying attention to? Go on being nice to the girl and stop trying to make her or yourself think that you are in love with her. You don't have to be, you know, with either of them and whisper, "Confused." I wouldn't worry about the serious young lady and her deep interest in you. Ten to one she's just mailed a letter asking what to do to a man who seems to be dead in love with her. but thinks about some one else, as she is too serious ever to care deeplv for one so lightminded. What's the matter with all you young fellows, anyhow? Don't you want to have any fun at all before you marry and settle down? Marriage is the thing for you, of course, the only neal thing for any one. But you don't have to marry the first girl you say how de do. to or fall in love with her either do you? And the first girl she thinks there are plenty of young men who can give cal plays where the people dwadle about the stage and do a lot of talking i and do nothing else. I'll take vaude ville every time. The turns tonight may not have been up to the mark I but they usually have a ripping good ! bill." v- -

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L a 4 J.

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Thinks He Loves

1 her all the good times she wants. Is I that what she liked you for the good ! times you gave her? I Didn't she care any more for you ! than that poor, silly little thing? How could you ever think of being sej rious with a girl like that? I And as to the "pretty" part when j a man's been married to a woman six j months he doesn't know whether she's j the prettiest girl in Harlem or the j ugliest woman who ever lived. If he i loves her she's pretty to him and if he doesn't love her she'd look ugly to him if she was a Venus and a Broadway broiler and saint all rolled into one. Beauty! How many happily married men are married to beauties? Honestly, now, young man, think it over and you'll see. And then what have you to offer a beauty any way? Beauties want fine clothes and a fine house and automobiles and jewels to set off that beauty. They're born that way. What are you going to do to make them contented and happy with you a man in average circumstances? You're going to live with the woman you marry a long, long time, I hope. Find out before you think of marrying at all whether she's the sort of girl that you'll love better every year of your life. Is she good humored? The prettiest thing on earth is hideous when she frowns. Is she light hearted? One of those sad lonely women will drive love out of any man's heart in less than a year. Is she good, is she in love with you really, truly in love? Will she stick to you through thick and thin you two together against the whole world if things come to that pass? Can you see yourself spending a long vacation with her, just with her, and not wishing you were back at work? No, she doesn't have to be brilliant for that, nor wise either. She has to be your kind, the kind that your nature seeks and you must be her kind and that's all there is to it. Her Only Mood. Inquisitive Friend D.on't you find that your wife is very subject to moods? Enpeek No; she has only one mood, the imperative, and I'm the one that's subject to that. Judge. IU Be

I what n ! f 1 r-i now wriv J

ZMectly;

LAUGHTER is just as much a commodity subject to bargain and sale as is any piece of merchandise or other article of value. Like everything else, its value depends on the way in which it is handled, in order to get the mjst out of it. A laugh has a commercial value not alone to the producer of it, but to the one who is made to give up the laugh, and also to the laugh broker who puts both the laughee and the laugher in the position to swap the coin of the realm to forget his worries for a time and the other to get an equivalent for the time, thought and energy expended in order to bring about the desired result. One of the greatest exponents of the gentle art of making people laugh, is Charlie Case, known from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans, as "the man who talks about father." A few days ago he was standing in the wings of a local vaudeville house preparatory to "doing his turn." In another moment he was before the footlights and in the fifteen minutes he was out there he obliged the audience to give up a laugh at least once every thirty seconds or two a minute. It is only a matter of arithmetic to divide his salary by the number of performances in a week to discover that each laugh was bringing him in a revenue of $1.50. You will no doubt be heard to say, "pay a man $500 a week for two performances a day and only working fifteen minutes at each performance. It is not worth it." But stop a moment to think how the man used his brains and developed hidden talents to be able to not only demand, but receive such a remuneration. When Mr. Case was asked to tell what he knew about a laugh's commercial value, one might have thought

LEARN TO THINK

LIFE plays no favorites. Some-; to work striving with all its might to times it seems a little one-sided. : learn to think, but when we inquire into the j This little organism lies in its mothfacts of the case we find a just bal- j cr's lap. and every need and want are anee. i provided, with love and a smile. And Where he fall short is in not ad- j yet even in the midst of this soft snap justing ourselves. Watch a baby get ; the little one is all alert, all attention

What do lawmakers and candidates for office plan, what do power and wealth propose to do for this woman and her children, for the father and daughter, slaves, fastened to a machine?

The Commercial Value of

him a diffident school boy in the hesitancy of his replies and his inability to put his ideas into words. After he got a start, however, the narrative went along more smoothly, and was like this: "I was born in Lockport. N. Y. While you might not think it, I was educated for the law, studied for three years to get my degree, and then practiced only one year, when I began to discover that I was only a ten-cent lawyer and I wanted to get into something where I could be at the top. Look as I might I couldn't find it, so just keep disgusted with myself; to think T was a grown man and had never been to any of the big cities. I often met men on the road for commercial houses or in the show business and when I hfard them talk of New York, Philadelphia, Chicago or Boston, I made up my mind that I would see these places or know the reason why. "One day a show came to town and was compelled to leave without the manager, who was stricken with paralysis, and some of the boys got up a minstrel show for his benefit and I wrote and delivered a monologue. This was my first appearance on the stage. The monologue made a hit, but I was not satisfied that it was the merit of the work that made It go, and thought it might be th kindness of my friends that brought the applause. "Finally I got work in a troupe that was playing in our theatre and gave my monologue again. This resulted in my being hired at $20 per. That was my start. Then I began to study the possibilities of my new job. I worked and thought out new stunts, and do the same to this day. I do a great deal of work at night when every thing is quiet, or I go out in the parks or the country w here I will not be disturbed,

a Laugh

and there go over the situations, business, and methods which I hope will win approval from my audiences, for that means more money to me the following season. "The art of making people laugh consists, to my mind, in painting a pretty picture with words and gestures and then with one stroke to draw a line and make it into something funny. The contrast is so great in going from the sublime to the ridiculous that people are bound to see the humor of it. "Then I have another method which is to start and tell a thing and then don't tell it. The audience usually is intelligent enough to understand what you are trying for, and if they don't you had better cut those stories which are not comprehended, as it is your own and not their fault. I get just as much fun out of the work as the audience, and w hen I am on the stage, I forget everything else but the fun I am having in making the people enjoy my work. "If 1 should ever have an engagement where I could not get the audience in the proper frame of mind tappreciate my work and this condition would keep up for .a week. I would go to the manager and tell him I had not earned my money and to pay me what he liked and I would quit the place. I would then go off to a quiet spot and trp and find out what was the matter with me. "When you see an artist working on the stage and every thing moves along smoothly and without apparent effort; when the words just seem to flow from the mouth and the smile is always ready and you think he is talking extemporaneously, just remember this, that it is application and the knowledge of cause and effect, light and shade and many other things, that make his work look so easy and simple." to understand this strange and complex world into which it has come. Nothing in life Is more marvelous than the degree of development that takes pjace in a child from the moment of birth, when it is pitifully helpless, to its sixth year, when it is a type of amazing complexity. The change in these six years Is so wonderful that we take it as a matter of course and nver think about it.. But let us suppose you wake up

DRUNKENNESS is on the decrease. One hundred years ago all nun who drank ak-ohol liquors drank far more heavily than any save confirmed drunkards drink today. In the das of George Washington drunkenness was not considered a vice A man as ene-n.i t keep obr during the day. but most gentlemen indulged in orgies of tinnk a' dinner time. Oxer ui lleuiellvft;. Germany, there is a statue of Perkio. the oourt jester of K'.ng Charles Phthp. This jester record of wine Unukm.s was eighteen quarts a day ! Men Could Endure More Alcohol Than Drinker of Today. Perkio dined at the royal table, and he was a man of Rood education, and no doubt his companions drank Quite as much as he. although they had leg wit and therefore were not made immortal by havtue their statutes fashioned for the ornamentation of the Vault of Heidelberg Castle. Whether he died of too much drink or how history does not state. Men in those das could endure more alcohol than they can today. They lived much in the open and they were not as highly de eloped as the men of this era. Yet now and then we find one who suffered for his excesses. Charles the Fifth, of Spam, and ruler of Hollai.d. Belgium and Sicily, abdicated the throne in I.V-2V. He was only fifty-five years old. jet he was a decrepit old man throuch gluttony and heavy drinking. He breakfasted at five "on fowl seethed in milk and dressed with sugar and spices." After that he went to sleep again. He dined at twelve, partaking always of twenty dishes. He nipped twice once before vespers and once after. His midnight meal was his heaviest. And at each of his four repasts he drank immense quantities of beer and wine. It was no wonder that he was crippled with gout and every other malady before fifty. Science and hygiene and education in all progressive ways are lessening tho use of stimulants of all kinds among the better classes of people. Now there is a great idea on foot which will. If carried into execution, help to do away with drunkenness to a much larger degree than any previous method has gone.

some fine day and say to yourself:- i s

"I will now get down to business.! i

stop bluffing, quit deceiving myself; J and begin again at the start ins point.! !

! 1 am going to learn to think. ) f

Suppose you suddenly perceived that the world la. after all. the one great place for self-development; that J

you nave not to wan until you pass

on to the next life, but that right her? j

ana now you say to yourseir: xviy iiicr is eternal and It Is of eternity this minute." This is the most Inspiring statement; you can make. Then you put In. say. five or six years learning to think, from the new starting point, just as , the baby does. , Life is a series of stairways. Some j of us climb one flight and sit down 1 until the undertaker comes. We are content with little effort. So Is he. The one real task that will make us free and independent citizens is to keep on climbing flight after flight, until we are well up in the open life of liberty. Nothing . is so amazing as the change that comes to us when we begin seriously to think. "The Proverbs of Solomon are great wisdom," said the professor. "Anybody can write Provabs. said the freshman. "Come back when you hare written one good Proverb, my boy." After a week he registered for a course in poultry raising. SHORT SERMONS. fie needs ugf other rosary whose thread of life Is strung with beads of loTe and thought From the Persian. The most beautiful of altars la the soul of an unhappy creature, consoled, thanking God. Victor Hugo. Let the only motive te read be the love of truth. Thomas a K em pis Life, like a dome of many colored glass, stains the white radiance of eternity. Shelley. All that thou glTet thou wilt carry away with thee- Turkish Proverb. Life Is only bright when It proceeded Toward a truer, deeper life above. Adelaide A. Proctor. By C. Fovnc

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