New York dispatch. [volume], November 02, 1884, Image 1

About New York dispatch. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1863-1899

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VOL/~XL.--Fd7"37 ~~~~
Entered nt the Post Office nt New York*
N. Y., as Second Class Matter.
THE NENN' iS DISPATCH,
PUBLISHED AT
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The NEW YORK DISPATCH is a ,journal of light, agree
able and sparkling Literature and News. One page is de
voted to Masonic Matters, and careful attention is given
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Address NEW YORK DISPATCH,
Post Office Box No. 1776.
THEATRIC IMIMSCEWES.
■A BATCH OF OPINIONS.
The Circus and Horse Play Question—A
Score of Letters—A Veteran’s Wrinkled
Front—A Soubrette’s Sarcasm—‘‘Down
With the Critics ”-Pity the Poor
Managers—“ Come to Hecuba.”
BY JOHN OARBOY.
The suggestions in reference to the duty—or rather
What should be the duty—of the managers of our
metropolitan theatres which %ere published in
these columns last Sunday, and entitled " Its All
Circus,” have occasioned the receipt of a score
of letters from those who are interested in the
subject.
Two or three of these letters are painfully stupid
and distressingly unintelligible, One is from a
leading manager in a neighboring city—notably
Philadelphia, the penmanship of which resembles
the final spasms of a grand explosion of fire works.
If the flourishes and wildly and weirdly twisted
tails of its p’s and q’s were straightened out and
put end to end, I fancy the line would be long
enough to reach three or [four times around the
writer’s stage.
Another comes from an old veteran upon whose
dear old wrinkled face the footlights still nightly
flash in one of the local theatres. He is sure that
the profession is going to the bow wows.
A very dainty note written in a fine hand, its
letters as delicately and perfectly formed as if they
were printed from copper plate, lies before me,
signed by an actress who not long since essayed the
performance of several leading tragedy and melo
dramatic roles, and is now working her way steadily
into popularity as one of the principals in a comic
opera company—her only stock in trade being a
handsome face, a plump and shapely physique and
a thin soprano voice.
One missive, the contents of which have the ap
pearance of having been written with a meat skiver
and liquid shoe polish, is signed by a combination
manager and actor who, as his letter suggests, has
just returned from an
UNSUCCESSFUL TWO MONTH’S SKIRMISH
in the west, his longest "jump ” being occasioned
by his desire to avoid a personal interview with a
Sheriff.
One comes from a young lady—evidently educated
and laboring under the delusion that she is to be
the successor of Mary Anderson, and to have the
homage of the world as her own special property
within the brief period of a year or two—or sooner,
if a manager is found who will afford her an oppor
tunity to give Juliet, Parthenia, Rosalind, and a
few other little matters a laying out.
She modestly hints that she is the incarnate in
corporation of all the virtues which glorify her sex,
and that she is not distressed by a lack of dollars,
her father being a merchant, a member of the Man
hattan Club, and director of a bank, and who is
willing to •• buy a theatre for her if she can’t bring
the stony-hearted, speculative managers to a recog
nition of her artistic instincts.”
I have, from the general tenor of her prettily
composed communication, a cheerful suspicion
that she wants the entire earth—or, failing in hav
ing that at her command, she would not object to
an able-bodied, healthy husband. No coachmen
need apply.
Several of these letters, written, no doubt, with
an idea that the wretched Carboy might publish
them, are signed anonymously—the writers, how
ever, taking care, in a " P. 5..” to give their real
names, with a request that, under no circum-
must they be revealed to the vulgar public.
Tie most touching, however, of all these letters
is one from the daughter of
A TRAVELING MANAGER,
who " wants to know ” that if •• managers have no
other object in running theatres and companies
than dollars, how is it that papa is always • hard
up,’ and says he hasn’t made a cent in four sea
sons ?”
John B. Studley, in his off-hand, cynical way of
expressing his thoughts, says :
♦'lf you want decency on the stage, and the chil
dren cry for the luxury, and the bald heads are
praying for the boon—why not adopt Stetson’s
plan, and buy in a job lot of it, and put it on exhi
bition for a ' long run.’
" The spectacular effects of decency, as one of the
attractions of a comic opera performance, would
discount all the dime museum 'freaks’ ever seen.
My boy, you are all wrong in your ideas. Decency,
refinement of speech and all the attributes of clean
ly, wholesome humor are specialties which are too
precious for public display; they are kept for home
use, and, like the parlor bric-a-brac, only to be
dusted and shown up when the blinds are drawn
up and visitors are present.
" If goodness and virtue were shown upon the
stage without the presence, in contrast, of vice and
wickedness, slang and ribald jests, what sort of
plays could we have ?
"If you put a temperance play onto illustrate
the evils wrought by an inordinate use of gin, whis
ky and other fragrant and captivating alchoholic
fluids, you can’t do it by having all the characters
in the cast sons and daughters of temperance
every soul of them a teetotaler. You must have at
its head a ‘frightful example/ a good man gone
wrong and surrounded by tramps and rum-soaked
vagabonds. There’s where your indecency and
degradation gets in with its fine work, and, by the
contrast, brings out the strong points and the
beauty of sobriety and the virtues,
"You have got to have your boots muddy and
soiled before there is a necessity for shining them
up.
" And you can’t shine up a play nowadays with
popular approval unless there is some dirt in it.
The last act, where the goodness gets in with its
highest polish, is the brush which shines up the
play and makes everything lovely.”
And in closing his brief letter John makes the
casual remark that during the coming season he
proposes to play "Monte Cristo ” for all it is worth,
and that he will travel with an extra baggage car in
which to pack the reams of " Injunctions ” with
which Stetson's attorneys will no doubt liberally
provide him-as readingianatter for his leisure
hours.
MR. HORACE WALL
comes to the front with his views of the situation.
Mr. Wail is an experienced hand at the managerial
bellows. He was, long years ago, an actor. Ido
not know that he ever made his appearance in the
pulpit, or that in his earlier dayr he lectured upon
the "rights of man’* or the Darwinian theory. I
do know that he is something of a farmer; that he
made a great deal of money by his skill and buei
usm talent in managing the late E. A. Sotbcra and
his wonderful Dundreary; that he did not make
any money In the brief period of bls management of
«>tk«r et g» M « Mtftero, ana thU h. 1. no,
prospering as the manager of the New Haven Opera
House.
This is Mr. Wall’s way of considering the* question
of *' Dollars and Decency.”
" I read last Sunday the article on * Dollars and
Decency.* It is right and to the point, but you
can’t cure it. It is all to be summed in this—you
must change the taste of the playgoer. The man
ager is willing.
" The fact is, the playgoers have been educated by
the journalist to think that Irving, Booth. Mary
Anderson, Bernhardt, and a few other great ones do
the only • legitimate’ work. The columns of all
papers are open to these people with folio after folio
of unlimited praise. New this being the case, what
can we get done for the' struggling ones’ of the
stage ? Nothing. There ifi no encouragement for
those who have made no great position. The box
office tells the tale and regulates the whole business
and represents the public demand.
"Since I began management here, I have had
eight or ten good legitimate performances, and not
one of them drew over three hundred dollars. I
played Lotta, Emmet, The Rentz-Santley Troupe,
and the Adamlcss Eden Company—all of them
variety and leg shows, and not one of them played
to less than five hundred dollars,
" Now what do you ask me to do f Open a
house for glory, as a steadfast disciple of dramatic
high art, and pay for it too ? Ob. no—none of that
sort of speculation in mine.
«' TEACH YOUB PUBLIC
—" that vast audience over which you newspaper
critics wield an almost limitless Influence—teach
your public, 1 say, if you can, to shun the rubbish
and circus business which now holds the stage, and
we’ll all fall into line and begin the good work of
making actors and creating a legitimate school.
Then we’ll have another batch of * palmy days’ for
some future generation to roll over like a sweet
morsel upon their tongues.
" We are doing nothing that way now, and have
made but few in the last decade.
"Tell your public to keep away from Patti,
Nilsson, Langtry and Bernhardt, while the de
mands of these artists are so extortionate and so
entirely out of keeping with the demand for such
phenomenal luxuries.
"Get your public to do this, and the manager
will soon so regulate the condition of the stage and
its attributes that younger people will feel that
there is some opportunity for progression. It kills
the ambition of a young actor when he sees it con
stantly paraded in the journals of the day that
these great (?) people are the only living recognized
examples of dramatic or lyric perfection. There is
no encouragement for the youth in the profession
—in the majority of the criticisms in the press.
" There is no more criticism. It is either fulsome
praise or rampant abuse, and not infrequently
blackguardism. The manager cannot change it,
and both he and the actor resolve themselves into a
committee of the whole and say, ' We’ll get as much
as we can out of this rubbish while it lasts.’
" Beside, it is cheaper as it is. Cheaper for the
actor as well as the manager. The leading features
of the combination system—l mean the financial
success—can be and are traveled at about one-third
the cost of the legitimate. The actor has no be
jeweled harbeck to pay for, no robes, no velvets, no
box of dress, Roman and combat swords—nothing
but modern togs—and for the majority of plays on
ly a dress suit, an eye-glass and an opera hat.
" Now then you have my views in reference to the
subject, the nature of which was so sharply defined
in the Dispatch last Sunday. AU legitimate mana
gers must certainly grieve over the increase of this
‘rubbish/ but it is there and they have to take it
all in. They are in the same dilemma in which the
guest at a hotel table who didn’t want soup but
roast beef found himself when confronted by the
fresh Milesian waiter.
"' There’s yer soup, sur/ he remarked, placing
the soup before him in defiance of his objections
and desires, " There’s yer soup—an’ damn the taste
of onything else 'll yese git till ye ate it. D’ye
moind that now.’
"We’ve got to get through with this horseplay
craze first before we can make a trial of the
<' MORE SERIOUS STYLE OF WORK.
"Let the critics in the papers do their share of the
work of ridding the stage of this stuff which you
denounce as "rot;” let them commence a war upon
it, and refuse to regard it as worthy of criticism, or
of any regard other than that of condemnation; let
them be stern and just in dealing with it, and in
stead of venting their scorn of it upon the manager
and the actors, let the press aim its editorial and
critical shafts of sarcasm and abuse at the de
praved condition of the public taste in dramatic
matters. Go for the public, who is the master that
orders the feast, not the poor servants who prepare
it as it may best suit his palate.
" To right a great wrong, arraign the perpetrator
of that wrong—not those who are its enforced vic
tims. It is easy to scold; it is easy, and no doubt a
pleasure to some people, to tear down an edifice, but
they take good pains to avoid telling how to build a
better one in its place. The work of the stage and
its productions move in cycles. It has its round of
changes,from the heavy,blank-verse tragedy.througb
the list—melo-drama, comedy, farce, burlesque, pan
tomime —each in its turn holds place at the call of
the public, and each in turn—good, bad and indif
ferent, clean and foul, sensible and foolish —is ex.
tolled by the press when it should condemn, and
is damned when it should praise. And all this in
order to keep in with the tide of public favor.
" Therefore, let ns reform public taste, and after
curing it of its vagaries, whims and caprices, its
revels in the unclean, and its hankering after what
you term "circusing,” then turn your attention to
the faults and shortcomings of the managers and
the people Wf the stage.”
To this Mr. Wall subscribes his name, and I haven’t
a doubt but that the veteran is dreadfully in
earnest.
Not more in earnest, however, than one corres
pondent who, in his letter, takes precisely the oppo
site view of Mr. Wall’s opinion.
This writer claims to be a manager "who never
yet disappointed the public nor beat an actor or
actress out of a cent of salary.” He asserts that he
has traveled thousands of miles every season with a
large company and a "star tragedian,” and has
found " an ample income of dollars in giving pure
and decent performances,” and that
THE PUBLIC WILL WILLINGLY PATRONIZE
TRAGEDY,
high class comedy and bright and cleanly farce
work—if the managers had the courage to put them
on the stage.
In effect, this manager echoes the sage and remark
able aphorism uttered by Vanderbilt—" The public
be damned.”
A soubrette sarcastically attributes the existence
of comic opera in its present lavish exposure of
female anatomy, to " the vast increase of dudes,
slims and bald-heads, to whose vitiated desires and
vulgar inclinings the manager caters in order that
thrift may follow fawning.”
And so they go, and scarcely one—whether experi
enced in the work of the stage, or not—has fairly
and squarely answered or discussed the proposition
and argument of the article—" It’s all circus.”
They get all around, over it, and under, but never
into its meaning. They seem disinclined to "come
to Hecuba.”
GEORGE AND HIS MISTRESS.
MISS PARKHURST’S FELINE PET
WHICH SHE TAKES OUT ’
WALKING WITH HER.
One afternoon last week, Sixth avenue enjoyed a
seneation in the person of an elderly lady of a be
nevolent aspect, who led a big, fat angora eat by a
collar and chain. The novelty of such an appari
tion soon gathered a crowd that forced the lady and
her pet to seek refuge in a atore till a policeman dia
pereed the mob. To a Dispatch reporter she said:
"I am only giving George an airing. I usually do
it at night, but this evening I have an engagement.
bo X thought I would bring him out now. I had no
idea it would be eo annoying. Poor darling, and
did the ugly boys frighten him ?’•
NEW YORK; : SUNDAY, NOVEMBER g, 1884.
George, who was squatting on the counter beside
his mistress, disdainfully rejecting the advances of
a couple cf cash girls, purred and rubbed his head
against her cheek, which he then nipped between
hie teeth.
•' He is kissing me now,” aa!d hia proud mistress,
with a beaming smilo. " Poor creature. He is so
affectionate. He follows me without a chain, but I
am afraid to bring him out without it. He might
be stolen, and that would break his missus’s heart
—wouldn’t it, co little darling ?’*
And she caressed her pet again, who licked her
chaek, Georga, she went on to say, had been
brought from China and was five years old. He
was valued at untold gold, but an ordinary Angora
of his si-ze could be purchased for a hundred dol
lars. His sagacity was illustrated by numerous
traits, such as not liking doge, begging for some
thing to eat, and always sleeping on a lounge or
some other soft spot. He is given a bath daily in
order to keep his-fine white coat in good condition,
and resides with bis mistress at Seventeenth street
and Seventh avenue. His name in private life is
Parkhurst, that being the name of his owner, with
the prefix Miss, cjf course. George will cast his
vote for Blaine.
THELIIRDI’IOGIE.
An Act of Vengeance and its
Reward.
AN INNOCENT MAN’S DREADFUL FATE.
The Strange History of One Known for
Years as “ The King of
the Beggars.”
wag a small land-owner and farmer,
near Gowrie, to the west of Dundee, Scotland. He
was the boon companion of one Ramsay, who lived
on a small estate a few miles distant, called Balgay.
Ramsay also owned what was known as the Logie
Farm. Watts was forty-six years old, and a wid
dower, with one son, Andrew, aged twenty-two.
Ramsay was also a widower, and had a daughter,
Maggie, turned thirty, and wanted to get rid of her,
as she was a virago, and would not hear of her fa
ther’s taking a young wife, or any other, for that
matter. Ramsay wanted the elder Watts to marry
his daughter, but Watts was timid.
"When you marry her,” said Ramsay, "I will
give you the Logie Farm.”
•* What is the size of it ?” asked Watts.
"It runs from the hill of Balgay to the Logie
spring,” was the reply.
" And what kind of land is it ?” Watts asked.
" All pasture,” was the reply, "and a thousand
cattle can feed over it.”
Watts thought over the matter, and finally re
solved to marry Maggie.
" Make out the deed of gift of the Logie Farm to
Andrew,” he said to Ramsay.
Immediately after the marriage the deed was
handed to Andrew, and the party had a merry time.
When Andrew came to examine his newly-acquired
property, to the great wrath of himself and father,
the Logie Farm was discovered to be a cattle walk,
extending from the hill of Balgay to Logie spring,
half a mile long and five or six feet wide, except
about half way, where on oue side was a piece of
land seventy-five feet by fifty, for a cattle pen.
BAD BLOOD AND VENGEANCE.
There was a scene between Andrew and Ramsay
and bad blood was stirred. Three months later the
house and farm buildings at Balgay were burned
down and suspicion rested upon Andrew. His step
mother, who had, of course, taken her father’s part
gave proof that Andrew had used threats only the
day before and had openly declared that he would
have vengeance before long. Footmarks and the
marks of corduroys, where a person had crawled
through a hedge near to the buildings, were found.
Andrew’s boots fitted the formerand a clay patch on
the left knee of his breeches corresponded with the
latter. But the testimony which was most dam
aging to him was the discovery near to the hedge,of
a tinder-box, identified as one missing from his
father’s kitchen. Andrew was convicted of arson
and sent across the seas for life.
Though his father pretended to be turned against
him, yet secretly he aided him. Feigning a deep
sense of disgrace on account of his son s crime, he
proposed that his property should bo sold and he
and his wife remove into a new neighborhood. The
farm was disposed of at a good price and they went
to Cupar in Fyfe. Watts’ father had purchased his
son, soon after his birth, shares in a tontine scheme,
and this was now yielding Colin an income for life
of over £175 a year. This fact was unknown to his
wife, and when Andrew was accused of arson, his
father secretly employed over £BOO which he had
saved from this income in defending him. The
money which he received for the farm he gave in
trust to a Mr. Soutar, a writer to the Signet in Dun
dee, to be invested for a certain purpose, with in}
structions that the lawyer should inquire every
year after the welfare of the exiled Andrew.
Three years after the removal to Eyfe Mrs. Watts
died. Watts soon afterward went to live in the
Carse of Gowrie among his old friends, and there he
resided up to his death in 1820.
THE CONVICT’S RETURN.
In 1828 Andrew Watts, who had served over
twenty years as a convict, was pardoned and re
turned to Scotland. Mr. Soutar had communicated
regularly with him, and had used influence to se
cure his release. Andrew found on visiting Mr.
Soutar a loving letter from his father, dictated the
day before he died, and the sum of £6,000 sterling
in the lawyer’s possession for him. Andrew was
now a quiet, subdued man, nearly forty-five years
of age. The first thing he did was to erect a stone
to his father’s memory in the little churchyard of
Gowrie. Then he wont to work, and, on the site of
the cattle pen on the strip of land, deeded to him
as the Logie Farm, he built a small substantial
dwelling, and furnished it with much taste. When
this was completed, he married a Miss Shafto,
whose father and be had been schoolmates. Though
twenty years hia wife’s senior, they were a happy
couple, and prospered. Andrew was popularly
known as the Laird o’ Logie, and did not object to
the name. A child was born, which was called
Janet after the father’s mother. It grew up strong
and lovely, and was the idol of its parents.
A DREADFUL FATE.
When Janet was about five years old, Andrew one
day took his ax to cut some fire wood up the path,
near the hill of Balgay. After the burning of the
house of Balgay, Ramsay and his family had re
moved to Dundee, but on his death his widow for
he had married again—rebuilt the place, and went
to reside there with her son and two daughters.
Andrew had kept aloof from them, and was careful
not to encroach or trespass on their land. By some
means bisax slipped and went over the fence into
the wood. Andrew gathered up his sticks and re
turned home, telling his wife that rather than step
on the land of Balgay he would lose his ax.
Next morning Andrew was arrested by a posse of
constables, charged with having broken into the
barn of the Ramsays and slaughtered their finest
milch cow. All his denials and protestations of in
nocence were vain. An ax identified as his, bearing
his name cut in the handle, and admitted by him
to be his, was found in the barn, and it was the
weapon with which the outrage had been perpe
trated. He was an ex-convict, the circumstantial
evidence was against him, and he was convicted
and once more sent across the sea. The anguish of
the parting with his wife and little one no pen can
touch.
A CONFESSION.
Three years after this sad event, a man named
Fergus was convicted of highway robbery and mur
der, and sentenced to be hanged. After his convic
tion he confessed that he. was the perpetrator of the
outrage on Ramsay’s cow. He had been employed
as a laborer by Mrs. Ramsay, who was old and very
passionate, and for some offense had beaten him
with a pitchfork and discharged him. Full of an
ger. he quitted the place, and wandering through
the wood of Balgay, ha came upon the m hcZongisg
antr
to Andrew Watts. The idea seized him of avenging
himself on Mrs. Ramsay, and when night came on
he went to the barn and slaughtered the old wo
man’s favorite cow.
On these facte being presented to the government,
Andrew was once more pardoned and returned
home. His.daughter had been dead a year, and his
wife was dying of a broken heart. Witlrin a month
of his return she was In her grave.
" KING OF THE BEGGARS/*
In half a year Andrew was never seen ontslde his
dwelling in the day time. One day, at the end. of
the period named, Andrew suddenly appeared on
the streets of Dundee, arrayed in a fantastic garb.
In his Scotch bonnet he wore a number of old fea
thers which had belonged to his dead wife. Around
him was a cloak made out of pieces of the dresses
of his wife and daughter. He was harmless and
molested none, and so he was unmolested. For two
years he could be seen on the streets In his strange
garb, and came to be known as " The King of the
Beggars.”
In 1840, the writer’s grandfather, a venerable
clergyman of the Church of Scotland, was sum
moned to the death-bed of the Laird of Logie. He
had been found lying helpless on the road which
led to his house, and tenderly taken to his home by
kindly neighbors. The doctor who was summoned
said the old man’s system was broken up, and his
time was come. When he awoke from a stupor
into which he had fallen, his intellect was as bright
and clear as ever.
GOING HOME.
Doctor,” he said, " I’m going home, and I want
to see my auld frien’, Dr. M , before I gang, just
to say gude bye.”
The minister was sent for and found the man to
whom he bad been a friend in times of need, with
a clear intellect and a memory unclouded.
"I confess my sin,” said the laird, "and hae the
pardon o’ the Lord, and now I’m ganging awa’
hame to rest.”
After the communion had been administered, the
laird lay back with his eyes closed and hie hands
folded on his breast. After half an hour had thus
passed in solemn silence, he opened his eyes and
looking straightforward said:
"There’s my kind faither and my ain mithsr,
standin’,hand in hand,and my wee bairnaie and her
mither on either side. My bairnaie, my wife, faith
er, mither, I’ll be wi ye the noo.”
And as he tried to grasp the minister’s hand, his
fingers relaxed, the light faded from hia eyes and
the Laird o’ Logie and King of the Beggars was
dead.
w, muabm
PRIUTEJMiSES.
How They Are Made to Serve
as Prisons.
THE •MODERN LETTRE DE CACHET.
Obnoxious Relatives Kidnapped,
and Consigned to Liv
ing Death.
THE MAD DOCTOR’S PREY.
The lettre de cachet was one of the institutions of
Bourbon tyranny which aided in bringing about the
French revolution. Thanks to a slip of paper to
which the king’s name was attached any man, no
matter how innocent of crime, could be snatched
from friends and family and consigned to a hopeless
dungeon in one of the prisons of the State. There
was no appeal for him and no redress. He was ar
rested at the pleasure of the king, and could only
be released at his pleasure. Men who had been
guilty of no wrong were thus made the victims of
spite and enmity, or of self-interest, and no man’s
liberty was safe.
In his " Tale of Two Cities,” Charles Dickens
shows the operations of this infamous, tyranny,
and Barriere made it the backbone of his once fa
mous play, "The Dead Heart.” By Carlyle, the let
tre de cachet was truthfully described as a slungshot
in the hands of a footpad who never showed his
face.
THE ENGLISH MAD DOCTORS.
The French revolution swept the lettre de cachet
out of existence in the last empire of the Bourbens.
Some years later all England was horrified to find
that the very practice it had condemned with such
detestation while it was in use across the chan
nel was in active existence in the right, tight
Itttle island itself, only iu England it was not the
king who signed the Zeffre de cachet, but the doctors.
At the will of any unprincipled physician, ready to
sell himself for money or position, a sane man
could be declared a madman, and condemned to a
living death in a private lunatic asylum.
The law worked very simply. If the relatives of a
rich man coveted his estate, or if anyone had a rela
tive whose existence or freedom was obnoxious,
they had only to swear that he was mad, obtain the
attestations of a couple of doctors to his eccen
tricity, and he could be carried off and locked up,
to remain so long as the annual cost of his main
tenance was paid by those interested in keeping
him confined.
Incredible as it may seem in a country governed
with such rigorous respect for the law, this detest
able outrage upon the commonest rights of man
was continued for many years, and only terminated
by the most terrific battles in the courts. In
Charles Reade’s " Hard Cash,” and in Warren’s
" Ten Thousand a Year,” it was shown with all the
graphic power of the novelist how easy it was for a
man to lose his liberty in free England, and how
difficult to regain it.
AMERICA’S PRIVATE MADHOUSES.
The infamy of the private madhouses seems to
have been traslerred from England to America. If
recent revelations in our courts go for anything, it
is quite as easy for the mad doctor to do his fell
work here now as it used to be for him in England
thirty years ago. The boasted laud of liberty en
joys the lettre de cachet as completely as the favorites
of the king used to enjoy it in the happy days when
Madame Dubarry ruled France with the crooking of
her little finger, and the lilting of her painted eye
brow.
"There are in this country,”said a prominent
physician to a Dispatch reporter. " over a hundred
private asylums for the care of the insane. These
asylums are run upon the plan of prisons, and are
nothing more. They have organized and drilled
armies of keepers, who go armed and ready for
the fray. They have barred windows and iron
doors, their lodging rooms are cells, and they are
surrounded by grounds with high walls, watched
over by savage dogs, and little less savage warders
armed to the teeth. Over this community the resi
dent physician presides like the governor of a
prison—an autocrat against whose law there is no
appeal.
"Once incarcerated in one of these shameful in
stitutions, the victim is lost to the world. Nomi
nally they might write to their relatives, but really
they could not, for the mad doctor had control of
the mails and read every letter that was sent out
or in, destroying or delivering them at his discre
tion. Nominally they could receive visitors, but
in fact they could receive only those the mad doc
tor chose to admit. They were, in short, as abso
lutely jailed as any murderer condemned for life to
" THE GLOOMY CELLS OF CLINTON PRISON.
" To these places of torment and despair any man
or woman in the land may be consigned. All that
is required is the testimony of a couple of medical
experts and the endorsement of a judge. Now let
us look at the details of the process, You are a rich
man, we will assume, and have a wild son. He is a
burden and an expense to you, and you wish to be
rid of him. All you need prove is that he is crazy,
and to do so you get medical testimony to his ec
centricity and yeur work is done. Any judge will
sign the commitment, and he is carted off to an
asylum, where you pay for his maintenance till he
dies. In the same way the children of a rich father
may get rid of their parent and grasp his coveted
fertw. you consider how coamoo ween-
tricity is among us, you will understand how easy
it is to make a man out a lunatic according to law.
" These victims of an outrageous law have no de
fense. It Is impossible for them to escape the asy
lum, because they may be committed and kidnap
ped without their knowledge. Once in, they may
get out if they can. In order to do so they must
communicate with the outer world; but to do this
is almost impossible. Occasionally they contrive
it. But for every one who does so, scores remain,
abandoned to hopelessness and despair. The vigi
lance of their keepers is well paid and unrelaxing.
To bribe them is impossible—to escape their keen
supervision almost equally so. There are in our
private asylums to-day hundreds of prisoners who
should not be imprisoned at all. Yet they are there
and likely to remain there, unless a change in the
law era revolution delivers them.’*
A lawyer who has been instrumental in securing
the release of several of the
MAD-HOUSE VICTIMS,
made these commenie:
•'I have never had a case in which the managers
of the asylum did not offer every obstacle to the
course of justice. They are dead to all considera
tions of humanity, and work simply for the money
which comes from a full asylum. The chief trouble
is, that the law imposes no restrictions on them.
Countless violences and even murders occur in
these institutions which the public hears nothing
of, because the authorities of the asylums do not
permit ihcxn to bo reported. They rule their pri
vate jails without interference, and will continue to.
till the law takes them in hand, as it should have
done long ago/*
MARIE MAKIVf lURQUIS.
And How he Assisted in Ad
vertising Her.
A FRENCH ACTRESS ABROAD.
The American Tour as Viewed by
Gallic Eyes.
NIAGARA FALLS AS A BILLBOARD.
The average Frenchman’s ideas of American life
and manners have been frequently alluded to in the
columns of the Dispatch. The following story,
which is now making the rounds of the French
press, is another illustration in point. The iden
tity <sf the heroine is vailed under an alias, of
course, but it is conveyed in a suggestive way that
she is none other than the great and only Sarah
herself, with
CERTAIN ROMANTIC VARIATIONS.
Marie Marin was the bright particular star of the
Parisian stage. She had all the first-nighters and
green-room butterflies at her feet. She owed more
money than a Russian prince, and was guilty of ec
centricities which would have doomed any one but
herself to incarceration as a madwoman. Her career
was more brilliant than the gems which her adorers
festooned her with when she suddenly announced
her intention of making a trip to America.
Her worshipers plead in vain. Her mind was
made up and her contract signed. She sailed after
the usual flourish of trumpets, and on the day after
her arrival in the United States all the newspapers
in the country published the following paragraph:
THE TRIUMPH OF ADVERTISING.
It is reported from Buffalo that three employees
of the Erie Railroad have won the palm for hardi
hood by a feat of epic recklessness—nothing less
than posting an advertisement on a rock in the
middle of Niagara Falls. No one knows how they
got out there or returned, but it is certain that they
succeeded in affixing a thirty-three-sheet poster to
the faco of thero-ck, on which was inscribed;
Marie Marin.
Marik Marin.
MARIE MARIN.
And now every one is asking who Marie Marin
is, and the great French actress who has just ar
rived among us for a season under the management
of Manager Crampson, is already famous.
It will be perceived from this that while the
genius of the American manager is capable of con
ceiving the most dazzling novelties in advertising,
he can always find brave men to execute his
schemes. Happy manager ! Happy artist 1 Happy
country where art and enterprise are thus seconded
and worshiped.
When Marie Marin arrived in New York and pre
pared to disembark from the steamer, the first ob
ject her eyes sought out on the wharf was her bag
gage.
HER THIRTY-SIX TRUNKS
were there, safe, and, next to this mountain of
sumptuary magnificence, which is to aid our own
great artist in dazzling the American public, was
another mountain which seemed to possess equal
interest for Marie Marin, for on perceiving it she
gave utterance to a sharp cry of surprise.
"You !” she said. "You/*
"Yes,” replied this elephantine mass of flesh and
tailoring, agitating itself toward her. "It is I, my
dear.’*
"But, my dear marquis, what brings you here ?”
"Love of you, adorable one, in the first place—
the steerage of the steamer in the second.”
At this evidence of the devotion of her titled ad
mirer, for it was none other than the Marquis de
Six Tournelles, Marie Marin melted to tears. Then
her joyous nature reasserted herself and Rhe cried:
" Well, then, since you are here, hire a truck and
ride up to the hotel to dinner with me.”
A dozen gentlemen who were on the wharf at
tired in full dress, and each carrying a note book,
immediately began writing with great haste.
" They are reporters,” whispered Manager Cramp
son, to bis star, " And will record all the witticisms
you utter while you are here.
"But suppose I do not utter any witticisms?”
" That does not matter,” replied the manager with
disdain, " They are hired to write them if they have
to invent them themselves.”
Then to the reporters:
"Come, gentlemen, let us go up to Harry Hill’s,
and drink a bottle of wine.”
And the divine artiste, escorted by the press, and
followed by her devoted marquis, drank to the
prosperity of the country she had come to subju
gate in Mr. Hill’s choicest vintage.
The tour of Marie Marin was a triumph from the
start. Wherever she went she created a riot, and
wherever she went her faithful marquis followed
her. He traveled even in the cattle car which is at
tached to every railway train in America, in order to
be near the creature he adored, and several times he
slept in the station-houses when the hotels where
his adored one stopped wore full. Buch is
THE FORCE OF TRUE LOVE.
At last they arrived in Tennessee—what town it
was I know not, but it was one celebrated for the
artistic refinement of its inhabitants. Our artiste’s
debut was a veritable furore. The faithful marquis
was on hand as usual, and his unswerving devotion
at last touched his idol's light and frivolous heart.
When the marquis escorted her to her hotel instead
of parting from him at the door she said with her
sweetest smile.
" My dear marquis, will you not come in ?”
The marquis would have gone into a foundry
furnace at su -h an invitation. He followed her in
and she closed the door. Half an hour afterward
the lights in Marie Marin’s sumptuous apartments
were extinguished. The hall boys winked at one
another aud tapped their noses with sarcastic
emphasis.
All at once a terrific uproar broke out in the
street, windows blazed with illuminations, and
electric lights and Roman candles shed a variegated
radiance upon the scene. The streets filled with
people as if by magic, and a riot of voices burst
forth. In the apartments of Marie Marin a voice
exclaimed.
•' Great Heavens J The hotel must be on fire.”
And just as the serenading party halted in front
of the hotel and the band struck up. the Marquis
de Six Tournelles appeared on the balcony in his
night-shirt, and prepared to leap headlong into the
surging throng. A howl of derision greeted his
appearance. The mob which had come to worship
the beauty declined te receive the beast in her
phtce.
OFFICE, NO. 11 FRANKFORT BT.
' PmCEFiyE" CENTS
The marquia retired into the apartment with a
precipitation marvolloue, in consideration of his
avoirdupois, and Marie Marin threw herself into his
arms, crying,
*' You foolish fellow ! You will catch
" YOUR DEATH OF COLD.”
At this moment the door was burst open, and
Manager Crampoon appeared, tearing his hair in
despair,
•'Ob, this horrible scandal!** he shrieked. "I
am ruined. The season Is broken up. We can go
no further.”
••Pooh ! pooh I” returned Marie, gaily, "On the
contrary, our season is made."
••Made !’*ejaculated the stupefied manager. "How
eo, with this scandal in all the papers ?”
"Certainly,” responded hie star, "and if you
think it won’t be, telegraph it yourself. It hi a bet
ter advertisement than Niagara Faile.**
Next day all America knew of the mischance of
the Marquis de Six TourneUe, and though Manager
Orampson doubled hie prices, he had to turn people
from the door everywhere.
As for Marie Marin, she swears she will not part
from her dear marquis as long as he lives or his
money lasts. She is going to America next year, and
thia time will take him with her in the cabin.
BRansaanaaaaaßSßOßanangEi
THE
Graphic Account of a Scrimmage at
Fleetwood Bridge.
How Murphy Dropped Each
Time Tapped by Hess.
Henry Bchneider. and John P. and Charlee A.
Hess, were charged with assaulting John Murphy,
the well known horse trainer. Mr. Murphy said on
Tuesday evening, driving over Fleetwood bridge,
that spans a small streamlet up in the suburbs, he
was assaulted by seven or more men. The three
prisoners at the bar he identified as of the party.
They threw him out of his wagon and kicked him.
Cross-examined Mr. Murphy was asked If he had not
been coming from acock fight on Sunday evening.
He said no, he had never been at a cock fight in his
life, and was not then under the influence of liquor.
Mr. Raymond, a friend, was with him in his wagon.
The fight occurred on Fleetwood bridge, not on the
hill across it. They got on the bridge at the same time
that defandants did, and they run their pole over his
wagon. He asked if the bridge wasn’t big enough
for them. One of them said, "Who the are
you ?” When the fight started the women screamed
and that his life. Gabe Case oame to his
assistance with a dozen men.
Charles A. Hess said he was driving home with a
party of four men, the balance women and children,
thirteen in all. W’hen they got on the bridge they
met Mr. Murphy who was occupying the bridge
standing still. As they came up Murphv said
" Where the are you driving to, you Dutch son
of a They drove on and got across the bridge.
They had a balky horse, a kicker. This kicker
kicked the lantern out going up the hill after cross
ing the bridge. When she got three hundred yards
over the bridge she came to a dead stop. The ,
moment they stopped, Murphy drove up and
challenged him to fight; he could knock spots out
of him in a jiffy. He jumped down to get hold of
the balky horse’s head, and was backing her when
Murphy came for him, and this is the description
Mr. Hess gives of the scrimmage: " Just as I got
down Mr. Ring came toward me and hit me. I
dropped, and I got up; we clenched and rolled
over. I got on top. Mr. Sandford got off the
wagon, and says ‘ Where are you Charlie ?’ I says
•on top,’ Ring got out and Saunders hit him with
the whip. He ran up the hill yelling * police, police.’
Just then Murphy came up and gave me a whack
under the right ear. I fell back, and kinder pushed
over. He came up and made for my nose. I
countered and he dropped. Then my brother got
out of the coach and stood looking on in a maudl n
state with his hands in his pockets and said,
w-h-a-ts ze matter?’ Mr. Murphy came up again,
and he keeled over the rocks. I then turned to get
on the coach. I hoped X had given him satisfac
tion.”
"What were the women doing ?” asked counsel.
"Yelling at the top of their voices for help.”
" When did it come ?”
" Not till I roared myself hoarse, calling for the
police.”
In the station he tried to make a counter charge
of assault, but was not allowed.
" Can you account for the fracture of Mr. Mur
phy’s jaw ?” asked counsel.
"I don’t know unless he dropped on the stones.”
"Can you account for the breaking of Mr. Mur,
phy’s rib ?” asked counsel.
"I presume he ran against my fist. I didn’t know
he had a rib broken.”
"Did you see any kicking ?”
"The man was the only kicker there. I only
pushed him to go about his business.”
"Was there any one in a maudlin condition but
Saunders ?”
" My brother-in-law ?”
" How about yourself ?”
"I never was drunk in my life.”
Mr. Schneider said going up the hill, Murphy
came up and said to Hess: " Come down. He went
down to attend to his baulky horse, when Murphy
struck at him and both fell on the ground. He sep
arated thorn and Ring made a crush at him. He
jumped aside and struck Ring with the whip and
Ring ran. Murphy then went for Hess and he let
them have it. Each time Hess would go for Mur
phy, Murphy would drop, and Hess would jump
back. Hoss wanted to get on his wagon, but Mur
phy came for him four times, ana each time Murphy
dropped. Charley was on the wagon. He, witness,
was knocked senseless with a stone, and was driven
to the station house and bled all night—no police
surgeon came to dress his head. Counter-charges
were made, but the charge of Murphy was enter
tained.
Other witnesses of the Hess party proved that Mr.
Murphy was the aggressor. Good characters of the
defendants were also proven.
The Court found Charles P. Hess and Schneider
not guilty, but George H. Hess was found guilty
and fined SSO.
The Court was crowded with interested spectators
from the far upper end of the city,
THE MAN THEY LOVE.
TWO NEGRESSES FIGHT OVER
THE MAN THEY SUPPORT.
Man will often fight for the girl he likes; but it
seldom happens that two girls will fight for the
man they support.
Josephine Norris had for lover a negro, and
Amanda Julius had the same colored duck. Six
months ago Amanda and Josephine had a fight
over this priggish negro. Amanda got the worst of
it, and Josephine was arrested, triedand let off with
ten days.
On Friday Josephine came to Amanda’s rooms on
Bleecker street, sent up her compliments to Aman
da, and said she wanted her lover sent down or
there would be h— to pay. Down came Amanda,
and there was a lively wordy war in the street.
Officer Gilligan came up and seized Josephine by
the arms, which were within the folds of her cloak.
The pistol that was cocked went off, the bullet
lodging at the officer’s feet. ‘
He was asked how he knew she fired it.
He said the smoke came up under his nose.
Josephine said she did not have the pistol, but
took it from Amanda, who attempted to shoot her,
and when the officer came up and grabbed her arm
it went off.
Josephine claimed to have a mortgage on the man
Amanda was harboring, and that was what caused
her to m»ke the call.
Justice Patterson held her to answer.
A STORY THAT NEVER GROWS OLD.
A youth and a maiden low talking.
He eager; she, shrinking and shy;
A blush on her face as she listens,
And yet a soft tear in her eye.
Oh 1 sweet bloomed the red damask roses,
And sweet sang the thrush on the spray,
And bright was the glamor of sunshine
That made the world fair on that day.
But oh ! not so sweet the red roses,
So sweet the bird's song from above,
So bright the gold glamor of sunshine,
A> was the sweet glamor of love.
That fell on that pair in the garden,
As 'mid the fair flowers they strolled;
And there, as twas first told in Eden,
Again was Love’s tender tale told.
ROSEMARY.
BY MARIGOLD.
CHAPTER I.
SHALL ALWAYS BBATEMBEB THIS
“ A broad space of tender and deep desolate-
Bess dropped into repose ont of the midst
tinman labor and life,” was the mental quota,
lion 6f the solitary pedestrian sauntering along
a pretty lane in the village of Enmoor one sul
try July evening when not a breath of air stirred
the foliage of the dusty trees, although the sou
had lost its power and was gradually disappear-!
ing behind the green beyond.
The pedestrian paused and looked around
him as he lifted hie hat and passed hie hand
kerchief across his heated brew.
“ Wonder what that place is ?” he muttered.
•‘Looks like a penitentiary or a Methodist
chapel.”
The erection to which he alluded was a plain
brick structure to his left, which stood on st,
slight surrounded by park-iand. No
trees intervened between the building and the
road. There was a stained-glass window over
the Gothic door, and, noting this, the young
man shook his head.
“ No; it can t bo either the one or the other,”
he decided. “By Jove, there has been a moat
here ; it must be some old manor house 1 The
plot thickens.”
A narrow footpath, to which a swing-gate gave
access, formed the only visible approach to the
house, and the longer the young man looked
the more his curiosity increased.
“ A glass of water would bo an excellent ex
cuse, if there were not an inn within a stone’s
throw. But how are they to know that lam not
a teetotaler ? And I really am awfully dry ; so
here goes 1”
. He replaced his hat and, passing through tho
little iron gate, sauntered down the hay-strewn
path, as handsome a specimen of nineteenth
century manhood as one would meet in the
proverbial day’s march.
Should he go round to the back entrance, or
should he knock boldly at tho imposing Gothic
door ? He decided on the latter course ot ac
tion. There was no bell, so he made the heavy
silver head of his walking-stick serve the pur
pose of a knocker. How hollow the place
sounded 1 And how deadly still everything
was 1
He waited a moment or two for an answer to
his summons; but answer there came none,
and he knocked again, rather louder this time.
Still there was no answer, save the echoes
evoked by his peremptory summons. His dark
brows contracted. Evidently patience was not
conspicuous among the young man’s virtues.
But he knocked yet again, and yet more imper
atively.
Ah, here was some one at last! He heard a
heavy bolt slowly withdrawn, and the next in
stant the great door was open. Gideon Mis
tears—for that was the pedestrian’s name—
nearly gave vent to an ejaculation of surprise
and admiration.
The open door revealed a long banqueting
hall, spacious and lofty, and suited to the hos
pitality of former times. The walls were cov
ered with pa’ntings, and facing the door was a
magnificently carved oak chimney-piece. All
this Mistears noted with a cursory glance front
his keen gray eyes; then those critical orbs were
brought to bear upon the fair maiden who had
acted as janitor—a girl that might have stepped
out of one of the tarnished frames embellishing
those old oak walls, so quaint was she of as
pect.
She was slim and straight, with a small, pale,
oval face, set in a frame of burnished auburn
hair, cut straight across her pretty white fore
head and falling on to her wide Vandyke collar;
her eyes were the color ef a fawn's, with lashes
and brows a few shades darker than her pretty
short looks. She wore a faded peacock-blue
gown, short enough to reveal a pair of pretty
little feet in shoes that had seen their beet days.
But, despite her faded gown and shabby shoes,
she carried her brown head with an air of innate
dignity which left no doubt as to her being of
gentle birth.
Mistears raised hie hat.
“I must apologize for troubling you,” was
his courteous preface; “ but could yon tell me
how far 1 am from Kingsbridge ?”
“ About a mile and a quarter; not more.”
Her voice was as pretty as herself.
“Not more?” he repeated. “lam glad of
that; it is a long walk from London on such a
day as this—nearly twenty miles.”
“ Have you walked all the way ?”
“ Yes, every inch. I was in no particular hur
ry to get here, and I like walking. But it has
been awfully hot work. Might I trouble you for
a glass of water ?”
“If you will come in for a moment f will get
you one,” responded the little maid, in her se
date, self-possessed tones.
Mistears needed no second invitation, but fol
lowed the little blue gown into the romantic old
banqueting hall.
“ What a charming old place this is ! May I
inquire the name of it ?”
“Enmoor Great House. It is said to have
been built in the reign of King Henry VIII., and
to have been one of the residen es of Cardinal
Wolsey. Of course it was much larger then. A
considerable part of the house was pulled dowr
about eight years ago -thirty-three rooms alto
gether. They had not been used for many
years, and were very dilapidated.”
“ And the present owner ?” he said interroga
tively.
“It belongs to Sir Richard Franklyn, my
mother’s brother. It has been in the family
since 1661. That is the portrait of the first Sir
Richard’’—pointing with her slim hand to a
pompous-looking gentleman in the court dress
of that period. “Will you take a seat?”—hav
ing imparted as much information at the
deemed necessary. k
He thanked her, and sat down upon one «i
the high-backed oaken chairs ranged against
the wall, hie eyes following the slight graceful
form as the little maid tripped lightly away, th*