THE COURIER.
cans iiiid the complete triumph of the
civil service rules would put a man
Into an ollloc for life. Tho next stop
is the adoption of the peusionaire rule.
This means taxation of one half the
people to support the other half . It
is one of the most disagreeable charac
teristics of paternalism. It is un
ainerlcan and will surely weaken tho
A nglo Saxon extract which has made
us self reliant and independant. Pa
tcrnaliem reduces the strength and
courage of the strong and tempts the
weak to less and less exertion. When
the hureaueracy is increased by the
government ownership and operation
of the railroad, lighting and telegraph
companies, American supremacy, will
he, at least, threatened.
Illchard C'roker's reply to the Mazet
committee that of course he was loyal
to his "friends" and rewarded them,
after election, with olllees, calls to
mind the meaning of "friend" in poli
tics. Ofeouiso, a political friend does
not mean anyone who is congenial
and enjoyable, somebody who takes an
interest, tiuseltlsh and unrewardful,
in his friends' wellfare. Richard
Croker's idea of friends are men with
no ideas or principles of their own,
who will do his will, whatever that
involves, on election day and before it,
witli the ui.derstauding that if the
Tammany candidates are elected the
friends are to be rewarded with an
olllec, involving some service to the
people and for which the people pay.
Tho friend's litness to perform the
duties has nothing to do with the
question. Mr. Croker's position and
-definition of it is simple enough, and
lie frankly admits that he is the Tam
many leader, and when Tammany is
successful at the polls he devides the
olllees as he sees fit among his friends
and the people have nothing to say
about it. And yet Mr. Bryan quotes
the Declaration of Independence and
the oratorical sentence about the con
sent of the governed, as though that
had anything to do with us and must
be applied to theFilippinos.
Sir Henry living's success in Robes
pierre is gratifying to all lovers of the
drama who realize what Sir Henry
has done for the stage in England and
America, illness and large financial
losses were not able to weaken his
courage, and the London people
greeted him with such a warm dem
onstration of airection, it must have
compensated him for the cruel blows
which fate has been dealing him. The
critics said: "That the play itself
was impressive and powerful, but it
was the actor, not the piece, that
made the occasion one of the most
memorable in the history of the drama
in London. '1 hat night, if never be
fore, living's talent blazed Into genius,
and there were few in the splendid
audience who were not ready to con
cede to him the laurel as the greatest
actor of his generation. Nothing in
the long list of characters can com
pare with his Robespierre. There was
vigor, power, and inspiration which
lie had never shown before. Every
one marvelled that a man who was no
longer young, had just recovered from
a prostrating illness and had been
almost overwhelmed recently by finan
cial misfortune, could suddenly renew
his youth and courage and with a tri
umph unparalleled In these latter days
of English drama."
The embalmed beef enquiries arc
tame, commonplace affairs when com
pared with the Mazet committee now
investigating Tammany, Richard
Croker and his rapid acquirement of
wealth and stocks in the many com
panies doing business with the city of
Now York. Mr. Croker is the ward
politician developed to his highest
capacity. In keenness, knowledge of
sordid human nature, In bull dog
courage and tenacity, In a comprehen
sion of the means necessary to secure
results, in city politics, Mr. Croker Is
a typo American, which in every city
in this country is a dominant influ
ence In politics and city government
Conditions have developed liim and
will continue to until the public final
ly comprehends thao their cities are
dirty and unhealthy, the streets are
tin paved and taxes ruinously high be
cause citizens vote according to a na
tional division and without reference
to those things, which make all the
dlirerence between comfortable or un
comfortable dally living. Of course
it is not certain that all the people
will ever get together and oust tho
parasites who have lived on the sale
of the city s patronage, but until they
do, democracy Is an experiment in
America not worth quoting.
Nothing that woman has worn in
many years, and she has worn hoop
skirts, chignons, tight sleeves, balloon
sleeves, dotted veils, scoop bonnets
and shoes made on the model of a
toothpick and not of a foot,is so ugly
as ihe drum tight skirt. Our models
come from Franco or England, tho
countries of cheap cabs, and they were
never intended to walk in. Our habits,
our fortunes, our climate, and last of
all, our ligures, make the adoption of
the drum skirt, flaring at the knees,
an absurdity. It is constructed to
drag over carpets and polished lloors.
But over the spit-spattered walks of
Lincoln, young and old women trail
these ugly skirts and yetwc claim in
telligence enough to vote and period
ically request the privelege.
Booker Washington advises the col
ored race to take their salvation in
their own hands and hundreds of his
brothers have accepted his counsel.
If some very popular and sensible
woman like Mrs. Cleveland were to
offer advice and set the example her
self of rebellion to continental styles,
and conformity in our dress to our
own climate, customs, income, and
manner of living, it would bo a longer
step towards emancipation than any
constitutional right or privilege which
can possibly be bestowed upon us from
the outside.
The candy poisoning case at Hast
ings is one more illustration of the
rapid adoption of a new style of com
mitting murder when it is given pub
licity in the newspapers. A cause
celebre like that of the New York club
man who received a bottle of poisoned
seltzer water oy mall will be followed
by a number of similar attempts. The
Hastings young woman who is sus
pected of having prepared the candy
may have decided to murder Mrs.
Morey anyway and might have chosen
a dagger or a pistol had her attention
not been called to the latest experi
ment in New York. The law of sug
gestion is not given the study it de
serves. A study of It might result in
suppressing the details of crime in the
newspapers which arc contagious and
not innocuous according to tho most
distinguished criminologists. Mr.
Morey 's lame confession that ho
thought the young lady was Infat
uated with himself, his assertion of
sympathy for her family troubles and
of his own spotless reputation, is ab
surd. All such newspaper pleas have
a tendency to Increase tho suspicion
against the one who makes the plea.
There Is positively nothing a man can
do in the very uncomfortable position
In which Mr. Morey is placed, but to
keep still. The old plea that the
woman did it li:is hoon wnninnn.1 i...
so many court trials in which the tes
timony indicated that the man was
accessory that tho plea in Itself Is a
suspicious circumstance
ooooa Modoosoocoooomooo
: THE passing show:
LW I LLA GATHER f
QBVO'PPPPPVpS PPPVPQ OPPPPPPwPPPw PPH9
Then back to ancient France again.
When Anjou's banner was unfurled.
When life was epic still, and men
Lived all the love songs of the world.
The Seine divides Old Paris still,
And half is yours and half is mine;
There, whip in hand, at every inn,
Spurred chevaliers still quaff their wine.
The old chateau from ruins rise,
And queens tonight are born anew,
Brought radiant back from shadow land,
To smile tonight for me and you.
And gallants gay, with powdered hair,
Shall lead them in the stately dance,
And all those hearts shall beat again,
Those sad, glad hearts of Olden France!
Lift high the cup of Old Romance,
And let us drain it to the lees;
Forgotten be the lies of life,
For these are its realities! W. C.
Mr. Richard Mansfield's interpreta
tion of the chief and, indeed, the only
character of the play, "Cyrnno de
Bergerac," is entirely worthy of the
foremost American actor of his time.
It is by no means one of his most bril
liant eirorts, for Mr. Mansfield Is a
charactor actor, not a romantic actor.
It is such a complete departure from
anything that he has ever done, or
that any other living American actor
ever attempted, that ho Is entitled
not only to oil admiration, but to our
gratitude for having addressed him
self to so serious an .intellectual elfort
and enriched us by so unique and ex
otic an experiment. It has cost him
much money and study and has been
a continual provocation to his unfor
tunately irascible temper.
The character Is one which gives
Mr. Mansfield little opportunity to
display his most prominent merits;
his .subtle underplay, his inimitable
linesse, his penetrating analysis of
personal motives and mental attrib
utes. On the other hand, It attacks
him from the side on which all Amer
icans are weakest, that of the Aca
demic requisites; physical repose,
grace of carriage and rythm of mo
tion, sonorous and ricli and varied
elocution. The French think more
of those technical beauties than wo
do, it is a part of their partiality for
elegant form. The demands which
the role makes upon the actor's physi
cal strength and technical skill of ex
ecution are enormous. The part Is
one of the longest ever written, and
memorizing is exceedingly diflicult for
Mansfield, no often stumbles in Ills
lines after he has played a part for
years. There are a dozen or more
long, involved speeches, crowded witli
fantastic imagery and bristling with
abrupt transitions and violent con
trasts, perfect rille volleys of words,
that require a richer and broader and
more versatile elocution than any
other modern play demands. For In
stance, the famous speech about tho
nose in the tirst act:
You might have said at least a hundred
things
By varying the tone. . . . like this, suppose,
Aggressive: "Sir, if I had such a nose
I'd: amputate it!" Friendly: "When you
sup
It must annoy you dipping in your cup:
You need a drinking bowl of special shape!"
Descriptive: " 'Tis a rock? ... a peak! ,
... a cape!
A cape, forsooth! 'Tis a peninsular!"
Curious- ''How serves that oblong capsular?
For scissorsheath? or pot to hold your ink?"
Gracious: "You love the little birds, I
think?
Isee you've managed with a fond research
To find their tiny claws a roomy perch!"
And so on for a hundred lines. This
Is a mere coloratura passage, so to
speak, an exercise which tests tho ro.
sources of tho voice to their utter
most. The same is true of tho intro
duction of the Gascon cadets, begin
ning: "These are the Cadets ol Gascon y,
Of Carbon of Castel-Jaloux!
Brawling and swaggering boastfully,
These are the Cadets of Gascony?"
Which Mr. Mansiiold delivers with
wonderful esprit, but with considera
ble noise. It is in these passages that,
laboring under the disadvantage of an
ingeniously bad translation, the actor
is astonishingly brilliant.
The llrst act, but for the incidents
of the poetic duel and the hissing of
Montllcury, would bo dull. It trans
pires, of course, in the old theatre of
the Hotel do Bourgognc, and a won
derful bit of old Paris that scene was
with its fair ladies and gallants and
parasites and gamesters. Tho curtain
of the mimic theatre is drawn and
Montllcury, the fat actor, a mountain
of quivering flesh, comes out, clad in a
goat skin with a little garland of flowors
porchod above his puffy face, and a tiny
fluto of reeds in his hand and unctuously
recites;
"Happy is ho who far from the thronged
court,
To a voluntary and sweet exile yields
himself."
when "Cyrano" drives hiin from tho
stage because ho is a bad actor and be
cause ho has dared to make eyes at
"Roxano." Not that this incident haB
anything at all to do with the play, but
it is picturesque. Later Cyrano fights
his duel with tho viscount, composing a
ballade as he fences, which ballade Mr.
Mansfield delivers with all the fury of
action, thrusting bis words and his
blade together. But it is at the end of
tho act, when he is alone with his wooden
friend "Le Bret" that Mr. Mansfield
achieves the most poetic moment that
he roaches in the play, that for a mo
ment be ie Ruy Bias indeed:
"At times I'm weak: in evening hours dim
I enter some fair pleasaunce, perfumed
sweet;
With my poor ugly devil of a nose
I scent spring's essence, in the silver rays
I see some knight,- a lady on his arm,
And think, "To saunter thus 'neath the
moonshine
I were fain to have my lady, too, beide!"
Thought soars to ecstasy, : . . O sud
den falll
The shadow of my profile on the wall!"
Nothing could bo more dolicatB, more
naif, more pathetic, more revelatory of
the man's soul than the actor's reading
of thoo lines; his voice grows tender,
tranquil, melodious, and O so young!
In this blustering Gascon there was the
first timid romance of a lad of twonty
which had never had a chance to live.
The moat notable effects tho actor ac
complishes in the second act are in his
introduction of tho cadets and his inter
view with "Roxano." She meets him at
Rugeneau's pastryahop to beseech him
to protect her handsome, witloBS lover
who haB joined his company. For a
moment Cyrano believes that her veiled
references are to himself, and ho forgets
hiB nose.
Roxano:
"On his brow ho bears tho gonius-
Etamp;
He is proud, noble, young, intrepid,
banusomo."
Tho actor's muscles contract, his faco
becomes a stony mat'k. Ho romombora
tho noso then. That word "handsome"
recalls it. Ho promises to win her lovor
for her and to protect him. When
"Roxano" compliments him upon his
bravery in putting a hundred men to
flight last night, ho bows and murmurs,
"I have done better since."
Thoro is, however, ono of tho author's
noat "points" in this act which Mr.
Mansfield quite overlooks. Ah, the rap
ture of finding anything that Mansfield
overlooks! Whoa the hungry poote
whom tho verso-loving pastry cook
"Ragoneau" admireB and pities, como in
and devour his pastry bohind his back,
"Cyrano" calls his attention to it.
r
r---ys iiiii-Nirrag&&ca.-.w.
