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About Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922 | View Entire Issue (March 29, 1914)
1 - . he Omaha Sunday Bee Magazine Page 1 i! CfiorGirl AHeart To Lore ? "For Second Partial Defense: HAT prior to and all timet mentioned In the plaintiff's complaint. V. l.ltl una .till ! m J ..... .-J I. I . 1 " p- -- mu TT,g nnu ib nnown to at, engaged In the theatrical profession aa a dancer and alnger In choruses. In that variety known aa muilcal comedy, being what la -commonly known aa chorus girl." SIDNEY HENLEIN, a middle aged bachelor, thus makes de 'fense to a breach of promise suit brought by a young woman pf twenty-two. quite plainly he Inti mates that her affections cannot be lacerated, nor her heart broken, be cause oho Is a chorus girl. The Im plication Is plain that a chorus girl cannot really lore has no heart to love. Miss Lavlnla Mason, the niece and namesake of the well-known actress, Miss Lavlnla Shannon, nlso of Miss Winona Shannon and of Olios Shine, takes quite a different view. Indeed, there Is a hundred thousand dollars' worth of difference In their points of view. Miss Mason says in legal lan guage urn her words recorded: "That by reason of such promtset, made to her by the defendant, tho defendant has Inflicted upon har groat bodily pain and suffering and mental anguish and distress. "That by reason of tho defendant's falluro to carry out his said promise tho plaintiff has become and now is, and will remain for the balance of her life, In a weakened condition of health, for by 'reason of the, de fendant's refusal as aforesaid the plaintiff's nervous system has been severely shocked, and permanently Injured, and she has become and how Is and always will remain, ner vous and hysterical. "That by reason of the facta and matters recited the plaintiff has been damaged In the sum of one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000)." Because of this wide difference of opinion the courts of New York havo boon called upon to detormlne whether a chorus girl can lovo. The lawyers will not claim and the Jury will not be asked. to believe that the girls who trip tho measures of mu sical comedy and who sing "Tr& la la" in stated periods in the progress of the play, in com nines much de colleto above and abbreviated below, have no physical hearts. The bright ness of their eyes and the rising and fading color in their cheeks, without the aid of rogue, proclaim their pos session of tho pumping station that oends blood to all quarters of the body. But whether their hearts are attuned to love, can respond to it, can be 'broken by its loss, Is what the New York courts must decide. Is thero anything in tho atrnos phoro of tho stage that prevents a heart fulfilling its function of love? Does tho abbreviated skirt chill the heart as well as other parts of' the body? Do stage dtaugbts chill tho affections? Does the chorus girl dance so continuously about a paint ed and bewlgged hero, in knicker bockers and laces, that a mere busi ness man in all-concealing tweeds acorns to her a poor, plain creature unworthy of love? Can a chorus grl lovo or can she not? And, it she cannot, why not? Broadway, the great highway of the merry-merries, unable to deter mine the question, -will he glad to bear the answer of the courts. Upon tho answer will depend the solution of many personal problems in which the hectic street has greatly con cerned itself. If the courts ask precedents, Broad way will bo able to furnish interest ing ones on both sides. Can a chorus girl love? Of course, she can. Broadway -will answer and cite the case of Mae Murray, Miss Murray was in the chorus of the Follies atop tha New York Theatre when William Schwenker, Jr.. wooed and won her. Troubles followed. They were many and sordid, and all caused by Papa Schwenker s delay in giving the nuptial blessing. There was a period of furnished room life on Park avenue, with the bride dancing around a gas stove Instead of a handsome stage hero. The young man was sued for a weddlnfe break fast at Hector's that cost 1691 and for -which obdurate papa refused to, and which the young man couldn't, Jar- "My wife is very economical," boasted the young man, describing their furnished-room housekeeping.. Who would not be hajTpy with such a wife? And whp could deny, despite that matutinal gas stove exercise, that chorus girls can lore? "And where Is a loyalty to corn Tare with that of Florence Huber?" Broadway will query. Thomas Manville, Jr., son of the asbestos 'king, met, fell in love with and married Florence Huber In two days. He married her in two States to make the marriage doubly bind ing. 'Instead of admiring his son's Lochlnvar methods. His Majesty of BST The Interesting Question Raised by Charming Miss Mason s (of the Chorus) $100,000 Suit and the Evidence For and Against "Why I Know a Chorus Girl Has a Heart' By CLARA MORRIS. I Sjssifsf Before the Suit, Miss Mason and Mr. Henlein in an At titude That Seems to indi cate Existence of a Heart. - - 99 N tne third act of the "Critic" there is a line that used to cause much lauehter at rehearsals: "Why, an oyster may be crossed In love " Now if, shut up between the hard shells and burled in tho mud, an oyster still can love, why not a chorus girl? They really have much In common. They are both much ruffled. They both run principally to stomachs. Both are wild over pearls one 'to get rid of, the other to obtain, them. One chorus girl, whom I liked greatly, loved devotedly. "He" abandoned her. She grlered frantically. She neither ate nor slept. The third day she made a desperate attempt upon her own life. The. doctor calculated that time for her was about fifty seconds from eternity. It was very dreadful, but twelre day later I saw her holding hands, under thu tableoloth, with a weatherworn Western mining man. A wasted little face with shadowed eyes that turned tenderly toward the gold nuggets banging rom his cable watch chalnl Lore? Of course chorus girls ove lots and lots of times. And who can tell anything about any woman's heart? Some hearts break permanently; they stay cracked until death comes. Others break and stay cracked five years, two years, one year, a month. And still others break but fly back to their, places again like a, rubber band. And yet the. pain of the breaking is the same In all. ' '' But Mr. Hemleln'e defense implies that' chorus girls have no hearts to breakl Why? I should say that the chorus girl has tho biggest heart of all to break. Con sider. The chorus Is created to charm the eye, to soothe the souls of the gen tlemen, who gaze upon It. They do not need brains, although more than you think havo them. All they need Is looks, from little toes up to tip of head. Pretty looks, charming looks, alluring and en tirely feminine looks. The heart means emotions. The pret tier one Is and the more one depends upon prettiness to win bread and place, the more emotions one has. If a girl subordinates prettiness to law or art or ' business as a breadwinner, her emotions'" rapidly become less. Intellect .ruler, brain grows, heart shrinks. The chorus gtrl cannot subordinate prettiness and so the heart keeps growing , and grow ing. It becomes more impressionable, , big ger, more capacious. And so, even though her heart gets broken, and broken again and again, she still retains alwayu a suffering heart to break. Now naturally, being on show, when, a chorus girl has moi powder in her dia mond monogram vanity box than her tip tilted nose requires, she does not hesl' tate to throw the remaining white dust into the stranger's goggling eyes and the result? , ... But this Is so of all walks In life. It doesn't prove that the chorus girl haBn't a heart. Chorus glrUK'are. after all, Just like any other girls in all essentials. And there Is another phase of such matters outside the broken heart part of it. The defendants In all such esses cer tainly liked to pursue, with a young and pretty girl, the fierce and wary lobster to his lair; liked to be pointed out as the reckless giver of flowers, slightly faded, being procured late, at a bargain. These things expand their vanity, but' flatten their pocketbooks. Usually they take fright, and, well "Dear maid, 'Us time for us to part," quoth they. But no "tears come Bteallng down their cheeks, another in their eyes," as per the old ballad. Instead, lawyers come stealing to tho i office with" papers in a suit for 'breach., And the gist', of the whole matter Is that the chorus girl Is .treated ,as though she has and is conceded Ho have a, heart up to the time she sues. As soon as'She does that cruel thing, It argues, the 'men say, that she has no heart. I think the, chorus girl has all the best of the argument.. At the' worst' she' cam; point tothe place n her -breast 'where the heart UBed tobo and sing:- ' "You made tne -what I am 'to-day. hope," etc. - , Miss; Mason, 'of -the ; Chorus Whose Heart Is in Question. Mrs. Thomas Manville, Jr., Formerly Miss Florence Huber Whose .Husband Was Disinherited for Marrying tier. Mrs. Manville la Making More of a Man Out of Her Husband Than His Family Ever Did. Abestos disinherited his son. Ap parently Cupid's wings wero singed, If not broken. The young man agreed to leave his fascinating bride. The brldo went back upon the stage. The King of. Asbestos was so de lighted that he wrote a ten-thousand-dollar cheek for his son for pin money. He settled upon him an al lowance, tho condition being that Son Tommy should not marry should the suit the bride had started for' separation be successful. He was gratified at the young man's alacrity in making the promise. "The boy's getting sense," said Father Manville. Certainly he was, learning econ omy. He saved most of his allow ance to thp end bis father thought of going Into business. And so It was. the business of life as Thpmas Manville. Jr.. sees.lt. For when the elder Mauvll(e sont his , unwelcome daughtcr-ln-law n check for f50,000 for starting tho' separation suit, tho young Oouplo met. compared bunk accounts and fled to' Pittsburgh, where tho, ypung rriau hns. gone to work. ... That, Broadway points out, Is the climax of-a 'lote affair that began with, a-meeting in air all-night cafo and that for three years withstood the opposition -of a relentless father-in-law. "Can chorus. 'girls love? We should Just think they could;" Broad way summarizes. Then arises 'some one. Some, one always arises to contradict, on Broad "way as elsewhere. To-contradict is human. This somo ono tells how, al-. though George II. Mulligan loft home and father and even went tq wprlt for his bride, Besslo Van Ness of tho chorus, Mrs. Mulligan became dls-. satisfied with Mulligan and deserted tho hearth, saying pungently per sonal things to and about Mr. Mulli gan as sho went. Octavlo Oulnlo has been of dif ferent minds at different times- in his acquaintance with tho lovely Senora Gulnle. Whon Senora Oulnlo was Miss Monica Borden she sued htm for five hundred thousand dol lars because ho changed his mind about marrying her. Influenced probably by the halt million consid eration, he changed his mind back again. Meanwhile ho suffered great ly, as temperamental persons, will do lf'they are arrested on the day when they wero to havo been mar ried, an experience which the then Miss Moulcn Borden brought to Snor Gulnle. But slnco he has taken unto him self the wife about whom he hesi tated and for whom ho was nearly lost, Senor Guinlo . smiles and Is ' silent. No one knows how he stands upon the question of whether chorus girls lore. But assuredly hd has learned that in any event it' is cheaper to marry than to 'be debited with a broken chorus heart. Mlsa Clara Morris, the distin guished actress, once herself in the chorus and ballet, writes what she thinks of whether a chorus girl can love. "What a difference! - Up at five o'clock in. the morning! Sending husband off to the steel mills and yet they say a chorus girl can't love!" ' What the Stars Promise for April THE lunation Tor April is very kindly disposed, to both the ruling and the social powers, with -the royal sign Loo in the as cendant, and the luminaries elevated In close proximity to Venus and going to a good aspect of Jupiter and Uranus. These denote initiative in directive .channels, and -an "attitude more confi dent and independent than usual will . characterize the executive functions of government, whether local or na tional. It looks very much bb if the time of "watchful" waiting" will no longer ho deemed an expedient In statecraft. Jupiter, sitting above Uranus in the house of diplomacy and international relationships, be speaks a peripd of accomplishment and an arrangement amicable to all parties, else some especial dictation that will make for the dignity of the United States. The naUon has naught to fear from either enemies or malcontents. Municipally, however, hospitals, pe nal institutions and places of deten tion are afflicted by Mars and Nep tune, with fires and other calamities in evidence; dereliction .and mal feasance on part of officials con nected therewith will come to the surface, and the criminal world itself be In a state of unrest and alertness. This is really the darkest point in tho current lunar chart. There will be not' a few suicides,' and' cases of polBohlng and incendiarism will mark the calendar, The. local dis trict attorneys will make' dew records in prosecutions. One prominent per sonage In New York wlU'be sent to Sing Sing prison. The -month opens with a storm period, rising temperature, barometric depression, and floods may be ex pected along the Mississippi valley; a much warmer wave around the II 12th, heavy rains between 'that wid the leth. cooler around' lWlst,. with the month going out under clearer skies and northwest winds. Some special incidents on or near the following, days; Copyright. 16H, by the Star Company. Great Britain ItirbrU Reaarved. April 1. Some unusual activity in the 'State Department, and a Govern ment complication adjusted between this and the 4th; an invention of world-wide Interest announced In this period. April 6-fi. An advancing market, and money centres benefited; prefer 'ment to an Eastern church dignitary; diplomatic matters pleasantly circuin stariced under a Jupiter regime. April 14-16. Two prominent wed dings, one In the New York "smart set,'" another In the Washington of ficial, family. An assassination that shocks the country occurs here abouts, also some riotous disturb ances among the social agitators. April 16. Tempestuous weather, with Mercury crossing the equator. This Is a very perturbed period in more ways than one, ending in a cold wave near the 21st, with flurries of enow. April 21, The death of a legisla tor, illneis in the Cabinet Secretary Bryan's 'horoscope is much afflicted between now and tae, midsummer: - his tenure of office is very problem atical. April 22. Somo exciting times In the Stock Exchange, and the closing of a prominent bank is very probable. Jupiter this month assures a pleas ant trend to the affairs of people bora4n the second week of February, April, June, October and December of any year; or In the last half of 1854. the Spring of 1855, the Fall of 1858. Summer of 1859, in 1862, 1864, the Winter of 1867, Summer of 1870 and Winter of 1871, Fall of 1874, Win ter of 1879 Summer of 1882. Fall of 1886, 1888, Fall of 1893 and 1898, and Summer of 1902. General affairs arei facilitated, and tpreferment according; to position and effort put forth. An opposite condition of affairs in the nativities of people born in 184S, the; last half of 1854, Spring of 1855, Fall of 1861, Spring of 1862 and 1869. in 1877, Summer of 1884, Spring and Summer of 1891, Summer of 1894, in 1899, or Summer of 1906, or in sec ond week of March, September, oq November of aav year. i