Chapter VI: Part 6

Mutiny of Russian troops at the coronation of Nicholas I put down after much bloodshed. First steam voyage from England to India, by the Cape of Good Hope route, eighty-five days out. Augustine Fresnel, French scientist; Jacques Louis David, French historical painter; and Jean Paul Richter, German author, died.

=RULERS--The same as in the previous year, except that Nicholas I succeeded Alexander I as Czar of Russia, and John Quincy Adams succeeded James Monroe as President of the United States.=

1826

Insurrection in Portugal against the infant queen, Maria da Gloria. Insurgents defeated and fled to Spain; aid sent to Portugal by England. The Russian Czar Nicholas began his reign by hanging or exiling to Siberia those who stood for a liberal government and for popular education. The Russians pushed forward in the direction of Persia, defeating the Persian troops and annexing disputed territory. Nicholas demanded from Turkey the autonomy of Servia, Moldavia, and Wallachia; Turkey, still occupied with its Grecian troubles, yielded. In Greece, the Turks captured Missolonghi and Athens, though the Acropolis of the latter city still held out.

Financial and industrial depression prevailed in England; machine-smashing continued; friction matches perfected by John Walker; lime-light discovered by Thomas Drummond; English state lotteries prohibited.

On July 4, while the people of the United States were celebrating the semi-centennial of the Declaration of Independence, two signers of that immortal document, both ex-Presidents, died--Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. A violent anti-Masonic movement further disturbed the American political situation. Bellevue Hospital founded in New York.

Froebel published "The Education of Man." Famous men dying in 1826 were Lindley Murray, grammarian; John Flaxman, sculptor; Reginald Heber, Bishop of Calcutta and hymn-writer; and Prince Rostopchin, by whose orders Moscow was burned in 1812.

=RULERS--The same as in the previous year.=

1827

The revolt in Portugal finally suppressed, with the assistance of a British army corps. The Acropolis at Athens captured by the Turks. Many foreign volunteers joined the Greek forces, and England, Russia, and France demanded that Turkey should agree to an armistice. As the Turks refused, and continued their atrocities upon the helpless Greeks, Admiral Codrington, commanding twenty-nine English, Russian, and French vessels, attacked the Turkish and Egyptian fleets at Navarino--consisting of seventy warships, forty transports, and four fire-ships--and utterly destroyed them. The Sultan, however, remained obdurate, refusing all demands, and insisting on an indemnity for his ships.

Popular discontent and anti-clerical riots in France; Charles X disbanded the National Guard, and made ineffectual attempts to gag the press.

Joseph Smith, at Palmyra, New York, began to have visions that later developed into Mormonism. Woehler, German chemist, discovered the metal aluminum; Ohm made important discoveries concerning electric currents. Famous men dying in this year were George Canning, English statesman; Laplace, French astronomer; Ludwig van Beethoven, German musician; William Blake, English poet and artist; and Alessandro Volta, Italian physicist.

=RULERS--The same as in the previous year.=

1828

Russia concluded peace with Persia, exacting an indemnity of twenty million rubles and annexing two provinces. She now moved against Turkey, where the Sultan Mahmoud had incited his people to a holy war. The Russians won some early successes, but were hampered by poor commissariat and transportation service, and could not pass the Turkish fortresses at Silistria, Varna, and Shumla. Meanwhile a French force landed in Greece; the Morea was evacuated by the Turks, and Greece became independent, with Count Joannes Capo d'Istria, a Greek who had been foreign minister at St. Petersburg, as president.

In the United States, Congress passed a bill establishing a protective tariff. The North, formerly agricultural and in favor of free trade, had turned to manufacturing, and, led by Webster, strenuously upheld protection against the Southern leaders, once its advocates, now its enemies. States rights discussions grew stronger. The first American steam railroad constructed at Baltimore. Webster's Dictionary published.

Internal wars in Latin America. The Emperor of China sought to restrain the English from carrying on the opium trade. Daniel O'Connell elected to Parliament, but not permitted to sit, being a Roman Catholic. As a result, however, a general sentiment in favor of Catholic emancipation developed in England. British troops withdrawn from Portugal. Dom Miguel proclaimed King of Portugal; absolutism supreme.

Famous people dying in 1828 were Franz Schubert, Viennese musician; Lady Caroline Lamb, English author; Dugald Stewart, Scottish philosopher; and Thomas Bewick, engraver.

=RULERS--The same as in the previous year.=

1829

In the Balkans, the Russian forces renewed the campaign against Turkey, severely defeated the Turks at Kulevtcha, and captured Silistria and Adrianople. Other European powers demanded peace, and on April 14 a treaty was signed giving Russia a protectorate over the newly liberated Danubian principalities, Turkey surrendering all fortified points on the left bank of the Danube.

In the United States, President Jackson began his term by declaring that "to the victors belong the spoils," and instantly removing one hundred and sixty-seven appointees made by John Quincy Adams. Adams absented himself from the inaugural ceremonies. Georgia and South Carolina, in the course of their opposition to the tariff, maintained the right of the States to nullify acts of Congress. Jackson involved in quarrels with his Cabinet. Baltimore and Ohio Railroad opened.

The popular opposition to King Charles of France increased in intensity. The Catholic Emancipation Act passed by the British Parliament. Capital punishment for burglary abolished in England. The burning alive of widows forbidden in India. Sir Charles Gurney invented a steam-driven omnibus, the forerunner of the automobile. Sir John Ross, the British explorer, made the first Arctic voyage in a steamship. Jean Baptiste de Lamarck, French scientist; Karl von Schlegel, German scholar; and Thomas Young and Sir Humphry Davy, English scientists, died.

=RULERS--The same as in the previous year, except that Andrew Jackson became President of the United States, and Pope Leo XII died, February 10. Cardinal Castiglione, his successor, took the name of Pius VIII.=

1830

France seized Algiers, despite English protests, thus laying the foundation of her vast colonial empire in Africa. The liberals gained a majority in the French chamber, and on an appeal to the people the government was overwhelmingly defeated. On July 24 Charles X dissolved the legislature and made Marshal Marmont commandant of Paris. Next day barricades were thrown up in the streets, merchants, working men, students, and soldiers joining in opposition to the government. Paris was declared in a state of siege, but the Louvre and the Tuileries were captured by the revolutionists. After vainly endeavoring to quiet the country by concessions, Charles abdicated and fled to England. His cousin, Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans, son of the so-called Philippe Egalite, was crowned king.

Rebellion began in Brussels, and Holland and Belgium, which had been united as one state since the downfall of Napoleon, formed separate governments. Uprising in Spain against Ferdinand VII, because he had abolished the Salic law, being without male issue and wishing his wife to succeed him. Poland also rose against Russian domination, and set up a provisional government. The Sultan of Turkey formally recognized the independence of Greece.

In the United States Congress, nullification continued to be the absorbing topic; Webster, speaking on it, made his famous oration in reply to Hayne, of South Carolina (January 26, 27). Mormon Church organized at Manchester, New York. First American-built locomotive operated at Baltimore. A portion of Texas was claimed as United States territory by settlers living on the Texan border; Congress refused to take action in the matter.

In England, the Duke of Wellington's ministry resigned, and was succeeded by Earl Grey's. In the British colony of Van Diemen's Land--since renamed Tasmania--the white inhabitants began a war of extermination upon the natives. A cordon was drawn across the island, but failed to accomplish the work. There was further political unrest in Germany; Duke Charles Frederick of Brunswick was expelled from his dominions by a popular uprising, and the people of Saxony forced their king, Antony, to promise them a constitution.

Barthelemy Thimonnier, French tailor, introduced a practical chain-stitch sewing-machine. Joseph Lister contributed greatly to the utility of the microscope. Simon Bolivar, liberator of South America, and Sir Thomas Lawrence, English painter, died.

=RULERS--United States, Andrew Jackson; Great Britain, George IV, died June 26, succeeded by William IV; France, Charles X, deposed, succeeded by Louis Philippe; Spain, Ferdinand VII; Prussia, Frederick William III; Russia, Nicholas I; Austria, Francis I; Pope, Pius VIII, died March 31. The Papacy remained vacant until the following year.=

FROM THE COUNTRY PRESS.

Crumbs of Wit, Wisdom, and History That Have Been Dropped by Rural
Scribes in Whose Hands Pens Are Mightier Than Swords.

A CANADIAN VIEW OF PUNCH.

A copy of _Punch's_ Almanac has been received at this office. It is England's leading exponent of humor. A member of this great journal's staff read it through carefully and studied every drawing. Then he went outside and kicked at a strange dog. The English brand of humor is sedate and stately. It is not intended to be laughed at. Laughter--that is, loud laughter--is excessively rude, don't you know. _Punch's_ Almanac for 1906 is sixpen'orth of humor profundo. The man who would laugh at _Punch_ would go into hysterics at a funeral. _Punch's_ notion of humor is altogether too sublime for any place outside of an English drawing-room.--_Bobcaygeon (Ontario) Independent._

CONCERNING MRS. TAYLOR.

Mrs. Herbert Taylor, who is a pleasant and estimable woman, and who can bake the finest cake ever made, having sent us some, and, therefore, making us a judge, and who has a family of nice, clean, polite children, and who plays the piano beautifully, and gives lessons to a few fortunate pupils in our little city, had a tooth pulled Friday.--_Waitesburg (Missouri) Record._

A SUGGESTIVE FAREWELL.

An editor of a country paper thus humorously bids farewell to his readers: "The sheriff is waiting for us in the next room, so we have no opportunity to be pathetic. Major Nabbem says we are wanted and must go. Delinquent subscribers, you have much to answer for. Heaven may forgive you, but we never can."--_Western Exchange._

A QUIET NIGHT IN PLUSH.

A very pleasant surprise party was given at the 7T Ranch about a week ago, at which every one had a very enjoyable time. Jeff Parish took all honors for the best dancer. Another party was given at Plush last Friday night; a large crowd attended and had a good time, without any fights. One or two bluffs were stirred about, but no hard blows were cast.--_Plush correspondence Lakeview Examiner._

FASHION NOTES IN ARIZONA.

Every symptom points to a tendency to spread of style in Tombstone. Among other instances in this direction, the boys bought a pair of beautiful barber-pole suspenders and presented them to the amiable dispenser who shoves the amber extract of cheerfulness over the mahogany of the Parlor Saloon. He promptly donned the innovation, but claimed that he felt like he had a fence-rail on each shoulder. Then, when they became overburdensome, he would unbutton them and permit them to dangle in front, but he finally got them down fine enough to go to church in. Several old-timers, conspicuously court attendants from the other end of the county, have fallen into the habit of wearing boiled shirts, and it looks as if sky-blue overalls might be discarded as a full-dress costume. Getting "powerful tony" in town nowadays.--_Tombstone (Arizona) Prospector._

MULE PAWNED FOR LICENSE.

James Richardson, of Roger Mills County, tendered a mule to-day as a chattel to a Cheyenne money-lender in order to get funds with which to get a marriage license and pay the preacher. He had ridden the mule in--eighteen miles--and expected to walk back home in time for the wedding.--_Guthrie (Oklahoma) Gazette._.

THE REASON.

Our fat friend, Henry Bowles, fell off his front porch Sunday, but was not injured. He landed on his stomach.--_Leedsville (Colorado) Light._

IT WONT HAPPEN AGAIN.

Miss Mills, the school-teacher, asked for her salary last Friday night. Of course it created much surprise, but as it was her first offense, the board have decided to give her another trial.--_Grafton (North Dakota) Record._

GATHER YE ROSEBUDS.

A Famous English Lyric of the Seventeenth Century.

BY ROBERT HERRICK.

Robert Herrick (1591-1674) has long been known to fame as a writer of some of the most graceful lyrics in the English language. "Merrie England" has had many a laughter-loving parson who, peeping over his Book of Common Prayer, has been unable to resist the temptation to flirt with muses who have been rather more at home in ballrooms, studios, and old-world taverns than in the atmosphere of a country parsonage, but that black-garbed company never sent forth a singer with a lilt so free or a heart so light as Robert Herrick's.

Of Herrick's life comparatively little is known. He took his degree at Cambridge in 1620, and in 1629 Charles I made him vicar of Dean Prior, in Devonshire. From this position he was ousted about the beginning of the Cromwell regime. He went to London then and published "Hesperides," a book of verses. There, it is supposed, he lived a bohemian sort of existence until he was returned to his Dean Prior living by Charles II. He continued there until he died at the age of eighty-four.

This old-time Devonshire vicar was a great worshiper at the shrine of feminine beauty, and was a fond lover of his garden and ale-tankard as well. Like Omar Khayyam, he believed in making hay while the sun shone, and it is this spirit that pervades the exquisite verses which are published herewith.

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles to-day,
To-morrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he's a-getting.
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.

That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer:
But being spent the worse and worst
Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may go marry;
For having lost but once your prime,
You may forever tarry.

The Beginnings of Stage Careers.

BY MATTHEW WHITE, JR

A Series of Papers That Will Be Continued from Month to Month
and Will Include All Players of Note.

LACKAYE NEARLY A PRIEST.

On the Way to Rome to Prepare Himself
for Holy Orders He Was Stricken
with Stage Fever.

It is an interesting coincidence that Eben Plympton, now playing a bishop in "The Duel," should have been the unconscious means of keeping a young man out of the priesthood. It was away back in the early days of the Madison Square Theater, when "Esmeralda" was having its big run at that little playhouse and Plympton, as the hero, was a matinee favorite.

In the audience one day was a youth with big gray eyes, which were riveted in charmed attention on Plympton's every movement. The young man was with his father, and was on his way from his home in Washington to Rome, to attend there the school for acolytes, which was to pave the way for him to become a priest. His tomblike cell had already been selected for his occupancy, and, meantime, until the steamer sailed for Havre, the boy was going to the theater every night in New York with his father. He went in the afternoons, too, whenever there was a matinee.

"I wish the theaters were open in the morning," he said one day to his father, who began to wonder whether his son had not mistaken his vocation.

After this they went to see "Esmeralda," and then the sixteen-year-old youth issued his proclamation in these words:

"I have a vocation, but it is for the stage."

"Your vocation is the padded cell," replied his father tersely.

Trip to Rome Abandoned.

But they did not sail for Rome via Havre or any other way, but returned to Washington, and here Wilton Lackaye--for it was he--by way of compromise, began to study law. He gratified his theatrical cravings by joining an amateur dramatic club, of which he was speedily elected president, and which was known as the Lawrence Barrett Society.

Barrett himself was once induced to attend one of the performances, and he asked the young president if he wanted to go on the stage. This was like fire to gunpowder, and Mr. Barrett engaged him for utility work at twenty dollars a week.

The season ran for thirty weeks, so that he received for this period six hundred dollars. As he was obliged to buy his own costumes, and as they cost him seven hundred and twenty dollars in all, he discovered that the only way he could make money out of that company was to be discharged from it. However, his mother helped him. His father hadn't spoken to his son since he went on the stage.

After leaving the Barrett troupe, he went to New York to get another job. As an excuse to visit the agents' offices several times a day he used to write letters to himself in their care. As he was walking out with the letters, he would stop when near the door, and inquire over his shoulder, as though by an afterthought:

"Oh, by the way, have you anything for me to-day?"

He kept this up until the usual "Nothing," in the way of reply, was one day changed to:

"I think there is."

This "find" took him to a stock company in Dayton, Ohio, and after that he went from one company to another until he began to find solid footing at last with Fanny Davenport as _Claudio_ in "Much Ado About Nothing." His first big success was in the title role of "Paul Kauvar" with Rose Coghlan.

Compliment for Brady.

His first part with Lawrence Barrett was one of _Paolo's_ friends in "Francesca da Rimini," done at the Star Theater, New York--now pulled down--in 1883. He was born in Virginia.

When he comes to play in "Les Miserables" this spring, and has so much to do with the priest in the story, I wonder if he will think many times of what might have been his career had he not gone to the theater so often while waiting for that ship to sail, back there in his 'teens!

Apropos of the production of "Les Miserables," Lackaye was asked some years ago if he had yet found a manager to bring it out for him.

"Bring it out?" he repeated. "I have yet to find one who can pronounce it."

Which, now, in the sequel, is an implied compliment for William A. Brady.

At one stage of his career, Lackaye's chief claim to distinction was his refusal, while a member of Daly's company, to accept a part to which Mr. Daly had assigned him. The part was _Oliver_ in "As You Like It," given to him after he had made a hit as _O'Donnell Don_ in "The Great Unknown."

It was the joking remark made at the time, that for the _Oliver_ Mr. Daly offered him, Lackaye handed him a _Roland_ in the shape of his resignation.

ROYLE TOOK MANY BUFFETS.

Author of "The Squaw Man" Has a Run
of Ill-Luck to Thank for His
Success as a Playwright.

Edwin Milton Royle, author of "The Squaw Man," is another of that countless army brought up to the law and who sidetracked themselves to the stage. He spent his youth in a place that seems to breed actors so freely--Salt Lake City--where he attended the same Presbyterian school as Maude Adams. He is now on the sunny side of fifty, having graduated from Princeton in 1883.

Amateur theatricals at college are responsible for the lure that drew him to the professional footlights. After Princeton he went to continue his studies in Edinburgh, and there he took prominent part in a great performance of the students that had among its spectators some of the most prominent men in Great Britain.

On his return to America he set about studying law in New York, but he did not really settle down to it. The inclination toward the stage had by this time become too strong to be resisted. He began to make a tour of the manager's offices in search of an opening.

In this he had no better luck than usually falls to the lot of the unknown. Men in power along the Rialto did not know what he could do, and it was not to be expected that many of them would take the time to let him prove his abilities. At last, however, he secured, through Eugene W. Presbrey, an interview with the late A.M. Palmer, who gave him the small part of the boy in "Young Mrs. Winthrop," at the Madison Square Theater. From that he drifted to other small parts in the company of Edwin Booth, while the latter was at the Fifth Avenue Theater, and the next season he was with Booth and Barrett during their engagement at the Broadway.

Short on Words.

"You can imagine the nature of my roles," said Mr. Royle, in relating to me this portion of his career, "by the following incident: At the end of the season it was decided to bring out a souvenir of the engagement, with signatures by all the people in the company. Each signature was to be accompanied by a line from his or her part. When it came my turn to write, my part was so short that all I had to say in the piece went down as my contribution, in the shape of--

"'Oh, Caesar! No, by no means!'"

And here began the apparent strokes of ill luck which in the end have proved blessings in disguise. The first one was the failure of Mrs. Potter to come to this country for a tour on one occasion when Royle had been engaged in her support. He did not know that he was free until September, when it was too late to seek other positions.

Thrown out of a job, he turned his attention to playwriting, having at one time thought seriously of taking up literature as a profession. He wrote "Friends," and brought it out in New York the next summer, with a capital furnished by a Western uncle.

The play made a hit after a rather slow start, and he played it on the road for some seasons, following it with another, "Captain Impudence," and later by a farce, "My Wife's Husbands." The latter made a decided hit, but Mr. Royle was unable to obtain road bookings for it owing to a glut of attractions kept out of New York by the unfinished condition of two theaters which should have been ready for them. Shows booked for them, with companies all engaged, had to be placed somewhere pending the completion of the Lyceum and the Hudson, so that the dates were all filled by the time it was known that "My Wife's Husbands" had caught on. In this crisis, Nat Goodwin, who had just come a cropper with a new offering of his own, rose up and bought the rights to the play, but failed to make good in the part himself and shelved it after two weeks' trial.

Meanwhile, one night when he couldn't sleep, Royle got to thinking about the Indians he used to see when a boy at the Indian reservation not far from Salt Lake. And then there formed in his mind the germ idea of "The Squaw Man"--the Englishman tied to the Indian wife when the way was clear for him otherwise to go back home.

The next morning he told his wife--Selena Fetter--of the scheme, adding that he thought of making a play out of it.

"Oh, don't," she begged him. "Can't you think of something pleasanter? You know 'Friends' gained all its success out of the comedy there was in it."

So he did nothing in the matter then, but later, when he was asked to write a skit for the Lambs' Gambol, he used this idea for a short piece, which went so well that it was used afterward at the annual public gambol, where it repeated its hit.

Royle was now in vaudeville, having cut down "Captain Impudence" to the required time limits. He decided to follow this with "The Squaw Man," and here is where once more his good luck in the guise of bad stepped upon the scene.

A Fortunate Rejection.

The vaudeville managers refused positively to consider a sketch containing more than four people; Royle could not cut "The Squaw Man" to fewer than ten. Had either he or they given way, the four-act play that has proved one of the big New York hits of the season might have remained a sketch and spent its life on the road, instead of tarrying for six months on Broadway.

In this deadlock it occurred to Royle that he would expand the play and try it in a new field, but even after this was done he failed to find a purchaser. Nat Goodwin, to whom he sent it first, turned it down, and Charles Frohman could not read it within the time limit set.

But Royle had active agents in his brother actors, who had seen the thing in its Lambs' Club performance, and who were all anxious to play the leading part. Whenever they got the chance they spoke of the piece to their respective managers, and in this way Royle finally got four of these gentlemen to consent to listen to a reading of the play. The result was the purchase of the rights by Mr. Tyler, of the Liebler Company, on terms which have netted Mr. Royle royalties amounting close to a thousand dollars a week.

HOPPER WAS AN "ANGEL."

The Tall Comedian Exchanged His Inheritance
for a Bowl of Thespian Pottage,
but Doesn't Regret It.

De Wolf Hopper's father was a Philadelphia lawyer, and it was intended that Will (his real name) should follow in the paternal footsteps so far as his career was concerned. And, by the way, more men have turned away from the sheepskin to the footlights than from any other one vocation. Reckon them up and you would have a sufficiency of leading men to outfit plays for every theater in New York, oversupplied as that city is with them.

But to return to Hopper.

At the crucial period, the elder Hopper died and the son inherited some money. As there were no automobiles in those days for him to blow it in on, he invested in a much more foolish and infinitely more hazardous luxury--a dramatic company of his own. He had the itch to act, and, being unable to get on the stages controlled by others, he decided that now was his chance to manage a stage of his own.

And what do you suppose he sent himself out in? Nothing less than Robertson's "Caste," with "little Willie" as _Eccles_! Of course the troupe went to smash, but young Hopper had tasted of the life, and there was no staying him now, not even the Quaker blood in his veins. As a matter of fact, the gulf that was dug between himself and his family in those days has never been bridged, a rare exception nowadays, when even the most austere stand ready to forgive theatrical connection--provided the prodigal has sown success along with his wild oats.

The boy--he was scarcely out of his 'teens--contrived to obtain a job as _Pittacus Green_ in "Hazel Kirke," and a song he sang off stage inspired Annie Louise Cary with the belief that he might do well in opera. He actually studied for some time with the Metropolitan in view, and then compromised by taking the barytone part with McCaull in the Sousa opera, "Desiree." Mark Smith fell ill at a critical moment, and, as it is easier to replace a singer than a comedian, Hopper was put in his place, and has worked his legs and his antics in excess of his singing voice ever since.

He began his career as a star in "Castles in the Air," not much of a success, but followed it with "Wang," which set him on his feet good and hard.

"Wang" lasted him two seasons, and he followed it with "Panjandrums," to my mind a far more entertaining hodge-podge of music and nonsense. In that view the public did not agree with me, for Hopper lost several thousand dollars in pushing the thing to a long run in New York. After that he became _Dr. Syntax_ in a musical version of "Cinderella at School," which he soon exchanged for the biggest hit in his career--"El Capitan."

MISS ALLEN BEGAN AT TOP.

Essayed Role of Leading Woman at Sixteen
in a Play in Which Her Real
and Stage Father Were One.

In one sense of the term, Viola Allen never began at all. She plunged right into the midst of her career. To put it differently, she has been a leading woman from the first time she set foot upon the stage.

Her father and mother were both in the profession. Her father, C. Leslie Allen, is acting yet, being with his daughter in "The Toast of the Town." He was doing the father--a specialty of his--in "Esmeralda" at the Madison Square Theater, when Annie Russell, the leading woman, fell ill.

Viola Allen was at that time barely sixteen--just the age of the character. She had been about the theater a good deal with her father, and in the sudden emergency it was suggested that she should play the part.

"They came to me with the proposition," said Miss Allen, in describing the incident, "and I was so absorbed in the story that I began with all eagerness to study the part, without seeming to realize all that it meant to play it. I shall never forget my sensations on that first night when I walked out on the stage in response to the cue, which, as it happens, was given to me by my own father.

"At rehearsals, of course, the auditorium had been dark and empty. Now it was a glow of light and a sea of faces. This is what I should have expected, but somehow I had failed to do so, and now, being confronted with the thing, my wits seemed to fail me.

"My lines went from my memory, but luckily I did not have to speak them until I was close to my father. He, realizing that I must have stage fright, whispered the words to me, and as soon as I heard them I was all right again. I plunged back into my absorption in the story I was helping to depict, and went through to the end without any further trouble."

With "Joe" Jefferson.

After her term in "Esmeralda," Miss Allen played Shakespeare leads with John McCullough and the elder Salvini, and then became first assistant to Joseph Jefferson in "The Rivals" and "The Heir at Law." From this she passed under the management of Charles Frohman, and helped lay the foundations of his fortunes, along with Henry Miller, in "Shenandoah," and from its second season and for many years thereafter these two were closely identified with the conspicuous position won for the stock company at the Empire, where Miss Allen's _Rosamund_ in "Sowing the Wind" took the town by storm.

In this connection, it is an odd circumstance that the part Miss Allen most enjoyed playing in the whole Empire list was that of _Audrie Lisden_ in Henry Arthus Jones's "Michael and his Lost Angel," a play that ran for only twelve nights in New York, and had been no more successful in London.

Miss Allen handed in her resignation from the company after the production of "The Conquerors," a play of which she wholly disapproved, and she was then starred by the Lieblers in "The Christian," the dramatizing of which was her own suggestion, and from which several people reaped fortunes. When, three years ago, she deliberately cut loose from the Hall Caine type of drama in order to follow her own personal inclinations and take up Shakespeare, she was looked upon almost as a martyr to the cause of art.

Monotony the Bane of the Footlights.

And yet the outcome would seem to prove that she was only a shrewd woman of good common sense, after all. Her managers followed "The Eternal City" with Hall Caine's "Prodigal Son," and lost mighty sums upon it.

It is interesting to recall that before Miss Allen finally decided on "The Christian" with which to inaugurate her stellar career she was minded to use a version of Longfellow's "Courtship of Miles Standish". She is very bookishly inclined, and has said that there are two things she prefers to acting--to be an author or to serve as a trained nurse.

Nine years ago, when she was at the height of her success at the Empire, she was asked by a certain paper to state what in her opinion was the one drawback to the full enjoyment of life on the stage, and her prompt answer was "Monotony, the deadly routine engendered by the long run."

WILSON CAME WITH CLOGS.

Comedian Might Have Gone in for Tragedy
Had the Wind Not Blown His
Credentials Into a River.

According to a story current some years since, which may or may not be a press-agent yarn, the only reason Francis Wilson is not a tragedian is because a gust of wind blew into the Schuylkill his letter of introduction to the late E.L. Davenport. Like Hopper, Wilson is a native of Philadelphia, where he was born in 1854. The nimbleness of his legs sent him to the stage, where he began as a clog-dancer with a minstrel troupe in the farce, "The Virginia Mummy."

It was during this engagement that he conceived the ambition for the legitimate and obtained from his manager the letter to Davenport, which blew out of his hand as he was reading it on a bridge in Fairmount Park. He claims he hadn't the courage to ask for another one, but struck out for better things later on in a different direction. But this was after he had formed a partnership with James Mackin, with whom he toured the country as one of a song-and-dance team. The two played a long engagement in New York with the San Francisco Minstrels at their "opera house," now the Princess Theater.

Instructor in Fencing.

Around the Centennial year he returned to Philadelphia and set about realizing his aspirations by obtaining an engagement in very small parts at Mrs. John Drew's Arch Street Theater. This brought him in only ten dollars a week against the fifty he had been getting for clog work. But he made himself popular with the members of the company, and eked out his pay by giving them lessons in fencing and boxing, arts in which he was specially proficient. Indeed, he had just won in a contest, at what is now Madison Square Garden, the title of amateur champion swordsman of America.

These friends in the Drew company aided him in obtaining better parts, and the next year he was engaged as utility man at the Chestnut Street Theater, which then had a stock company. A year with Annie Pixley and another as the _Baron_ in "Our Goblins" brought him up to his engagement as comedian by McCaull for the Casino troupe, where he made his notable hit as _Cadeaux_, one of the two thieves in "Erminie."

It was but natural that his prodigious success should suggest the idea to Wilson of striking out for himself. He had saved a great deal of money, and the year after Hopper became a star Wilson launched out at the same theater--the Broadway--in "The Oolah."

Snatched Victory from Defeat.

The curtain fell on what even the actors were forced to admit to themselves and one another was a failure. Gloom thick as night pervaded the region behind. For a while Wilson sat there with his head in his hands; then his indomitable courage asserted itself, and he sprang up with the exclamation:

"We have got to make this go. Let's get to work at it."

His company stood nobly by him. His leading woman, Marie Jansen, and the other principals, begged him not to consider them in the alterations, but to give the public more of himself. With much cutting and slashing of the book and innumerable rehearsals, the thing was whipped into shape, and turned out one of the successes of the season. It was followed the next year by "The Merry Monarch," which placed Wilson securely on the throne he continued to occupy until last year, when he decided to step down--or rather up, as no doubt he would prefer to put it, from musical to straight comedy.

Apropos of Wilson's beginnings, a well-known writer on dramatic topics was "reminiscing" some time since, and recalled the wigging he had received in his early days--along in '72 or '73--when he was a very young city editor of the Buffalo _Evening Post_. He had gone to Dan Shelby's Terrace Theater, and devoted considerable space the next day to praising the work of two men who took part in the variety show there current, and it was for this eulogy he had been called down by his chief. One of the men was Denman Thompson, who was using "Uncle Josh" in its crude, one-act form; the other was Francis Wilson, who was doubling song and dance with Jimmie Mackin.

TWO IMMORTAL HYMNS.

Interesting Stories of the Origin of World-famous Sacred Lyrics Which Have Been Sung in Every Country on the Globe.

The two favorite hymns, "Lead, Kindly Light," and "Abide With Me," were each written in circumstances which lend them peculiar significance. In 1833 John Henry Newman, afterward Cardinal Newman, left England in extreme ill-health. "My servant thought I was dying," he relates, "and begged for my last directions. I gave them as he wished; but I said: 'I shall not die, for I have not sinned against light, I have not sinned against light!' I never have been able to make out at all what I meant." This was just before he started upon his journey. He was still in a very feeble state, suffering from bodily weakness and mental depression, when one June evening he was becalmed in an orange-boat on the Mediterranean, in sight of Garibaldi's home on the island of Caprera. As he lay there he composed the beautiful hymn "Lead, Kindly Light."

Did the language of his fevered mind flash back upon him as he saw the shore lights on Caprera? The lights led the boat safely to harbor, and he returned to England. The mental darkness with which he had been struggling also cleared for him, for it was just after his return that the Oxford Movement began. He was a leader in that movement until he went over to the Church of Rome in 1845.

Henry Francis Lyte, curate of Brixham, in Devonshire, England, from 1823 until his death, in 1847, wrote many "hymns for his little ones, and hymns for his hardy fishermen, and hymns for sufferers like himself." His health declined as the years passed, and it was seen that the climate of the Devon coast was too harsh for his frail constitution. But he was loath to leave his parishioners, and, lingering at his post, could not be persuaded to go to Italy until it was too late for the change to save him.

He held a last communion service and delivered his solemn, pathetic parting words. Then, dragging himself wearily to his room, he wrote the hymn "Abide With Me," a most affecting expression of the faith of a dying man. Not long afterward he died at Nice, France. Of all his hymns, "Abide With Me" is best remembered. Like "Lead, Kindly Light," it is a hymn of comfort and help. Always the most helpful words have come from those who have themselves most felt the need of help.

LEAD, KINDLY LIGHT.

BY CARDINAL NEWMAN.

Lead, kindly light, amid the encircling gloom;
Lead thou me on!
The night is dark and I am far from home;
Lead thou me on!
Keep thou my feet! I do not ask to see
The distant scene--one step's enough for me.

I was not ever thus, nor prayed that thou
Shouldst lead me on.
I loved to choose and see my path, but now
Lead thou me on!
I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will. Remember not past years.

So long thy power has blest me, sure it still
Will lead me on
O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till
The night is gone.
And with the morn those angel faces smile
Which I have loved long since and lost awhile.

ABIDE WITH ME.

BY HENRY FRANCIS LYTE.

Abide with me! Fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens: Lord, with me abide!
When other helpers fail, and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me!

Swift to its close ebbs out life's little day;
Earth's joys grow dim, its glories pass away;
Change and decay in all around I see:
O thou, who changest not, abide with me!

Not a brief glance I beg, a passing word,
But as thou dwell'st with thy disciples, Lord,
Familiar, condescending, patient, free--
Come, not to sojourn, but abide, with me!

Come not in terrors, as the King of kings;
But kind and good, with healing in thy wings,
Tears for all woes, a heart for every plea:
Come, Friend of sinners, and thus bide with me!

Thou on my head in early youth didst smile;
And, though rebellious and perverse meanwhile,
Thou hast not left me, oft as I left thee:
On to the close, O Lord, abide with me!

I need thy presence every passing hour.
What but thy grace can foil the Tempter's power?
Who like thyself my guide and stay can be?
Through cloud and sunshine, oh, abide with me!

I fear no foe with thee at hand to bless:
Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness.
Where is death's sting? where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still, if thou abide with me.

Hold thou thy cross before my closing eyes;
Shine through the gloom, and point me to the skies.
Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee:
In life and death, O Lord, abide with me!

FROM THE LIPS OF ANANIAS.

A Collection of Tales for Which Belief is Respectfully Solicited, But
Which Sophisticated Readers are Likely to Cite as Evidence of the Fact
That Truth Has Lost Much of Her Youthful Charm and Many Admirers.

SPEAKING OF FLOODS.

An old soldier, whose cherished name was that of two of our presidents, died here in Washington recently, and his passing reminds me of a story I once heard him tell. Veteran of '61 as he was, he had listened patiently to the very long story a youthful veteran of the Spanish War told. The account of hardships left him unmoved.

"Just after the Johnstown flood, my boy," said he, "there was a man in the next world who went about telling everybody how that Johnstown affair had sent him where he was.

"His listeners hung on his words--all of them, that is, except a quiet looking little man who seemed so little impressed that every time the Johnstown man got through he merely looked bored and said, 'Oh, shucks!'

"The Johnstown man got tired of it after a while. It got on his nerves to have anybody act as if what happened at Johnstown wasn't of any importance. No matter how he told his story, the quiet looking little man merely said, 'Oh, shucks.'

"At last the Johnstown man spoke to a fellow who had been there a long time about it.

"'Say,' said he, 'who is that little man who keeps saying "shucks?"'

"'Who?' said the man who had been there a long time. 'Do you mean the fellow over there? Why his name's Noah.'"--_Washington Post._

STRONG WATER.

Mr. Edison was once asked to send a phonographic cylinder to a fair. He sent this reply:

"You ask me to send you a phonographic cylinder and to say a few words to the audience. I do not think the audience would take any interest in dry scientific subjects, but perhaps they might be interested in a little story that a man sent me on a phonographic cylinder the other day from San Francisco. In the year 1873 a man from Massachusetts came to California with a chronic liver complaint. He searched all over the coast for a mineral spring to cure the disease, and finally he found, down in the San Joaquin valley, a spring the waters of which almost instantly cured him. He therefore started a sanitarium, and people all over the world came and were quickly cured. Last year this man died, and so powerful had been the action of the waters that they had to take his liver out and kill it with a club.--EDISON."--_Woman's Home Companion._

A SILVER-PLATED CAT.

A remarkable freak of lightning occurred some time ago near the small village of New Salem, Vermont. Arent S. Vandyck occupies an old mansion, in the parlor of which hung a collection of Revolutionary swords, one of which was heavily plated with silver. On the night in question a terrific thunderstorm burst, and one particularly heavy crash stunned every one in the house.

Quickly recovering, the family hastened to see what damage had been done. Suddenly the youngest Vandyck pointed to an old-fashioned sofa. There lay what seemed to be a silver cat, curled up as comfortable as could be. Each glittering hair was separate and distinct, and each silvery bristle of the whiskers described as graceful a curve as if in life.

Turning to the sword on the wall just above the sofa, father and son remarked that the plated sword had been stripped of all its silver, the scabbard was a strip of blackened steel and the hilt had gone altogether.

The family cat had been electroplated by lightning. A round hole in the window-pane, about the size of a half-crown, showed where the electric fluid had entered. There was a charred streak showing the path of the lightning as it made its way to the sword, down which it passed to the sofa, carrying with it the fused silver, which it scientifically deposited on that magnetic animal, the cat.

Of course, the cat was instantly killed, and therefore remained in the position in which the lightning found her peacefully sleeping. It is thought the plating of the cat's surface will prevent decay, and that she may be retained permanently among the family curiosities. Local scientists, the Bostonians say, are quite puzzled by the occurrence, and the electroplated cat is being investigated by a member of the Albany Institute.--_Newtowne Calendar._

A SUPERSENSITIVE HEN.

"Yas," declared a new man on the country court jury, to his companions the other noon, "I maintain that hens has souls jest as does human bein's. Mebbe not all on 'em, but now an' then you strike a bird that has reasonin' faculties an' feelin' an' 'motions jest as you an' me. They has their joys and their sorrers. So, I says, they has souls. Now here's proof.

"I had a fine Plymouth Rock what was a master layer. When th' other hens was takin' a vacation she was 'tendin' ter business an' layin' aigs. Well, one day she come out a-cacklin' an' I went in ter git th' aig.

"It 'pears that while she was tellin' me about it, my boy, Willum, took th' aig an' put a hard-boiled one in its place. Did it fer a joke on me, ye know. I noticed the aig looked kinder queer an' cracked her open. Well, if ever ye see a hen look dumfounded! She thought she'd layed it.

"I thought nothin' 'bout it till I looked down, an' hanged if she wasn't cryin'. Big tears was rollin' down her furrered cheeks an' I tried ter tell her that she was all right, that 'twas some of Willum's horseplay, but she jest sighed kinder human like an' walked slowly off. Th' next day she didn't lay, but moped 'round the' yard sad an' homesick like. Well, it went on fer a week an' still nary an aig.

"Then I noticed she was quittin' th' feed I was givin' her, an' tryin' ter pick up a livin'. She had a conscience, ye see, an' wouldn't eat boughten food 'less she could repay me in the right kind of aigs.

"She knowed she wan't looked to ter lay hard-boiled aigs as she thought she'd done. 'Father,' says Willum one day, 'I guess we're goin' ter lose that hen. She's thinkin' up something desperate. I just caught her 'xamin' a scythe out back of th' barn.'

"Well, we tried our best ter cheer her up, but 'twan't no use. One day I found her in the tool-house, dead. She had dragged her neck across a scythe, cuttin' her throat.

"Over in one corner was a aig jest left ter show me that she intended ter do what's right. But if ever I see'd a clear case of suicide, her death was one. So, I says, some' hens has feelin's jest as does a human bein', an' therefore I 'low they has souls."--_Rochester Post-Express._

PEWTER'S INDUSTRIAL BUGS.

Silas Pewter, of Hendricks township, Chautauqua County, who discovered the adamant bug, is getting rich fast off his discovery. It was in August when he discovered the bugs, and several weeks had passed away before he could get things shaped up to "colonize" them properly.

He now has at least a dozen different "herds" of them. Some are removing the stone from fields for farmers by eating it into sand and letting it go back into the soil when the ground is plowed. Pewter gets two dollars an acre for this.

One herd is working on the road in Harrison township cutting the rock out of the hills. Several herds are at work in the sandpaper factory between Elgin and Hewins.

Mr. Pewter says his sandpaper mill has paid well, but thinks he will close it down during the spring months because so many road overseers want the bugs for spring road-work.

He says he is about to close a contract with the Santa Fe for the mastication of the big boulders along its tracks west of Elgin. This, he says, will give the bugs work all season.--_Kansas City Journal._

A HAIR-RAISING TALE.

"The 'beauty doctor' told a good story about her hair-restorer," said a well-known Akron business man Monday, "but I know a better one. With several other men I was associated, several years ago, in the manufacture of a restorer. We had a fakir selling the remedy, and this was one of his tales:

"'A woman came to me the other day for her eighth bottle. She said she liked the taste of it so well. I was frightened and took her into a private office and told her to show me her tongue. She stuck it out and there was a half-inch of hair on it. To keep from hurting the business we had to feed her camphor balls all that summer to keep the moth out of her stomach.'"--_Akron (Ohio) Times-Democrat._

The Stolen Letter.

BY WILKIE COLLINS.

William Wilkie Collins (1824-1889) was the son of an English
portrait painter. As a young man he engaged in commerce, but
later studied law and was admitted to the bar. His own
tastes, however, inclined him to literature; and even while
in business life he wrote a historical romance, "Antonina."

Becoming acquainted with Dickens, he was encouraged by the
latter to give up his profession and devote himself entirely
to novel writing. Dickens at that time was editor of the
magazine called _Household Words_; and in its pages there
were published the short stories by Collins, afterward
collected into a volume entitled "After Dark," from which
the accompanying selection is taken.

In another magazine, also edited by Dickens--_All the Year
Round_--Collins scored his first great success with the
serial story "The Woman in White," which was read with the
keenest interest by tens of thousands. In it Collins showed
himself to be a great master of construction. The plot was
so intricate as to hold the reader in suspense until the
end; while the mystery and horror of certain parts of it
were masterly in their execution. Collins, in fact, ranks in
English with Gaboriau in French for the ingenuity with which
he elaborates a plot; and this special gift is seen also in
"Armadale," "The Moonstone," and "No Name."

For a long while his stories were almost as widely read as
those of Dickens himself; and in 1873, like Dickens, he
visited the United States, where he gave readings of his own
short stories. The narrative printed here is an excellent
example of the skill with which Collins piques and sustains
one's interest even within the space of a few short pages.

I served my time--never mind in whose office--and I started in business for myself in one of our English country towns, I decline stating which. I hadn't a farthing of capital, and my friends in the neighborhood were poor and useless enough, with one exception. That exception was Mr. Frank Gatliffe, son of Mr. Gatliffe, member for the county, the richest man and the proudest for many a mile round about our parts.