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About The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903 | View Entire Issue (May 31, 1902)
, HE COURIER -i: -$ - r 5 - J. B. DINSMORE. Among the prominent candidates for the republican nomination for governor Is J. B. Dlnsmore of Clay county, serving for his twenty-sixth consecutive year on the state fair board. Mr. Dinsmore is, a native of New York, having been born at Ripley in 183S. After serving in the union army three years during the rebellion, having entered s a private and retired as a lieutenant, he engaged in the mercantile business in the Empire state for six years. Then he re moved to CJay county, Nebraska, and ever' since his rdvent has been a prominent figure in the development, not only of his community, but also of the entire state. On arriving In Nebraska, Mr. Dinsmore first took a homestead, liv ing there five years. -Then he removed to Sutton, retaining his farm how-, ever, and engaged in the banking business. He became president of the Sutton National bank, which position he has held continuously ever since. On numerous occasions his fellow citizens have honored him with a Selection to represent them In various capacities. In 1S73, he was ap pointed one of the commissioners of the ccinty. Tint same fall he was elected sheriff and two years iater county clerk. In 1880 he was elected a member of the upper house of the legislature and was president of that body, participating in the memorable Paddock-Van Wyck senatorial fight. He has never been nominated for a state office, has always voted the republican ticket, is a successful man in everything he undertakes, popular with all who know him. His nomination would be highly satisfactory to a Iaige proportion of the re publicans of central Nebraska, where he is extensively known, and to many in the state at large. terest. There is not In the little book a, sentence, that recalls the detestabla Melsterschaft where the student of French or German or Italian is asked, to translate sentences like this: "My cousin's stepmother has gone to her aunt's grandfather to borrow a pair of gloves." To repeat such a sentence in one's native tongue Is difficult enough. To keep it in mind while en deavoring to recall the tenses of the verbs and the declensions of the nouns is impossible. And Mr. Melsterschaft. if he were a man and not a system, advertised to teach everyone, but born idiots. French, German, Italian or Spanish in a month; to teach it so thor oughly that the traveler who had had no other advantages of culture than those he had obtained by studying the system, could pass through Spain or . Italy or Germany or France and com municate easily and gracefully with the natives on the subjects of the tick et office, baggage, gloves or your cous in's or your aunt's grandfather. D. C. Heath and Co. are the publish ers of this very interesting and well adapted handbook of the Italian into English. a- i:- The Claimant When Columbus was trying to dis cover a northwest passage to India, when Galileo said the world was round and moved around the sun and that he could prove It, the world laughed at them. The abbot of the monastery or La Rablda. where Columbus, a tired wanderer, was entertained, finally con vinced Queen Isabella that Columbus had the Qualifications and temperament of a great explorer and discoverer. Se aided him to fit out ships for the most momentous expedition that ever 'sailed. Galileo convinced members or the reigning family of the di Medici that he had discovered natural laws. He constructed a clock founded on the principle of the equality of oscillation which he had Inferred from watching a swinging lamp hung in the cathedral of Pisa. His new conclusions In re gard to the rotundity of the earth and of its movement around the sun in volved the contradiction of the theory that the er the center of the sys tem, and M the believers in medieval astronomy, which was the same thing as religion, denounced "him as an atheist. But he had convinced one of the powers that were that he waj a great discoverer and philosopher and the days of his humiliation wer past. " "When Richard Mansfield first played Cyrano de Bergerac In New York, Mr. Samuel Enerly Gross, a real estate dealer of Chicago, attended the pro duction. He had written a play him self several years before around a hero with a very large nose. He called his play "The Merchant Prince of Corn ville." The name Is atrocious; Cyrano de Bergerac Is graceful and foreign. The foreigner's play was accepted by Mr. Mansfield after a French manager had put it on and Coquelin had p'ayed the hero's part. Mr. Gross's play is commonplace and uninspired except as to situation and incident. Notwith standing this, 'M. Edmond Rostand's play is plainly a plagiarism, and Judge C. C. Kohlsaat In the United States district court held at Chicago recently, so declared and granted a perpetual In junction against the production of Ros tand's play In the United State. M. Rostand's play should be called an "ar rangement" of "The Merchant Prince of Cornvllle," just as minor musicians and occasionally great ones, "ar range" a composition by Mozart or Beethoven. Besides the injunction and the estab lishment of Mr. Gross's commercial rights to the play. Mi Gross feels as Columbus and Galileo did when their claims to ffcelr own were recognize 1 by a man whose decision and patron age meant the establishment of his claim by his neighbors, friends and fellow citizens at large. Heretofore, for editors, dramatic critics and other people whose business It Is to amuse the people, Mr. Gross has served as a neverfalllng joke. To be relieved of a universal suspicion of attempting to claim as his own the product of some other man's brains Is what has dis turbed Mr. Gross and encouraged him to continue what has seemed a hopeless attempt to secure the ownership of what Is practically his play, arranged and Improved by M. Edmond Rostand. The author says he wrote "The Mer chant Prince of Cornvllle" as a lit erary diversion. In 1879 he gave a copy of the play to Mr. A. M. Palmer, Mr. Mansfield's manager. Mr. Palmer ke'pt the play for three or four years and then returned it to the author with a note suggesting several changes to which Mr. Gross would not consent. Parallel passages in the two plays are so numerous that It is evident the author of the play that was written first. Is the author of both. There was no contention in regard to the date when Mr. Gross's play was completed. It follows that Edmond Rostand "ar ranged" the American's play without acknowledgement. He undoubtedly improved It and gave It a literary flavor, but honesty is- a-good-policy In literature as in life. Mr. Mansfield was Interviewed In re gard to Judge Kohlsaat's decision. He said: "The decision can have no effect upon the presentation of Cyrano de Bergerac beyond the fact that Mr. Gross will receive royalties In the fu ture instead of M. Rostand. "What effect it will have in France Is an en tirely different matter, but It may probably result In the Theatre Francals and the great American and European artists overwhelming Mr. Gross with orders for plays, and Chicago may in the future be the centre of another new Industry." This from Mr. Mansfield sounds like sarcasm and a desperate clinging to the hypothesis that Mr. Gross's claim Is a preposterous Joke. The transference of the dramatic cen tre from Paris to Chicago Is not out side of the bounds of possibility. Cyrano de Bergerac Is the dramatic success of at least half a century. It Is aston ishing that It should have been writ ten by a Chicago real estate man. All subsequent changes are less surprising and Mr. Mansfield's sarcastic comment may be fulfilled. "Lady Ro' Daughter" Mrs. Humphrey Ward's new serial is dealing with the Becky Sharp type of intriguante In a way that Thackeray could not. Who ever heard of a reader of Vanity Fair falling In love with Becky Sharp? Yet we should feel for her the same emotion, modified by the author's tips, concerning her true char acter that the characters of the book feel. She must have been winsome, fascinating, beautiful. She was a poor girl, of almost nameless parentage, just as Mrs. Ward's heroine Is; she oc cupied a dependent position. Just as Lndy Rose's daughter does, yet Becky enslaved her teachers at whose school she was being supported by charity, she conquered the sweet, Billy Amelia Sedley, she enslaved Lord Crawley, Miss Crawley and Jos. Sedley. Treasonably she deprived Amelia of her husband's love, which was never of much depth. In short, all the male characters of the book were In love with Becky excepting Amelia's lover "Old Dobbin," and he was exempt for the sake of literary contrast. Vet none of us falls In love with Becky, and for that very reason Thackeray falls to make out his case. All sorts and types of men and women fall In love with Becky in the book, and she Is detest able to everyone outside of the book. We, too, have our rights, and it Is the author's business to make us fall In love with a character that all his characters surrender to. They are flesh and blood even as we are. And if he is not telling a fairy story, if he Is telling a story of this world, he must make his situations and fascinat ing characters appeal to and fasci nate us. Mrs. "Ward has accomplished what Thackeray could or did not. Lady Rose's daughter Is an Intriguante. Mrs. Ward does not deceive us as to her character. She Is that most Ignoble of vulgarities, an ungrateful woman. Lady Henry has Invited her to her house, supplied her with beautiful gou ns, lent her the prestige of her own name and placed her as hostess in charge of the most distinguished salon in London. The Intriguante sets the servants against their Infirm, aged mistiehs, she poses as a martyr be fore Lady Henry's old friends, she lies to and deceives Lady Henry. She takes all and gives not even loyalty and truth. She Is probably as bad a female as Becky Sharp, and yet she Is charming, and if we do not yield r Dr. Shoemaker's Private Hospital. Special attention given to Diseases of Women and all Surgical Cases. 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