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OUR UNPROTECTED STAGE.

THE members of the Actors Order of Friendship, a list of whom was published in THE THEATRE last week have gone to work very diligently and with more zeal than discretion, more ardor than judgment, to protect themselves by law from the invasion of English actors. It does not make any difference to them what the people of the United States wish to see or enjoy, nor do they think anything about the limitations of art. They have hired Mr. Robert Ingersoll to help them and this he will do with all his mortal soul. Meanwhile it is interesting to note what is thought about the movement in different quarters of intelligence. The following is an editorial from the New York Evening Post:

OUR POOR UNPROTECTED STAGE.

The infantile cry for protection raised by some of our native actors amounts to nothing less than an acknowledgement of hopeless inferiority, and no other interpretation will be put upon it by the general public. All pretences of a patriotic or philanthropic motive are too shallow to deceive any intelligent or unprejudiced person for a moment; and it is to be hoped that the few eminent performers who have permitted their names to be associated with this extraordinary exhibition of pusillanimity may be able to appreciate this fact, and reconsider their course before further damage is done to their artistic reputations. It is useless to try to befog the point at issue. The restrictions asked for must operate, and are doubtless intended to operate, not only against "leading men, as they are called in theatrical jargon, and companies imported for the support of foreign stars themselves. There is not a manager in the country who does not understand this fully, and the managers who support the movement do so because the

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only possible result of it must be the exclusion of all first-class foreign dramatic performances from these shores.

Their policy is based upon an argument as simple as it is selfish and despicable. Put into plain words, it would be something like this: "Mr. Irving comes here, and takes away money which ought to go into our pockets. His success is due largely to his splendidly trained company. To legislate against him personally would be too barefaced an outrage; let us rather shut his company out, and then offer him a hearty fraternal welcome." They know, of course, that Mr. Irving or any other player of his rank, would scout the idea of collecting a new cast out of the theatrical odds and ends floating about in Union Square, and that, even if he could be willing to descend to an expedient so unworthy of his high aims, he could not afford the time for organization and rehearsal. They know too, none better, that this unhappy public has suffered too greatly from the domestic combinations of stars and sticks to hunger after foreign mixtures of a similar kind. The rule which they propose would apply equally to all nationalities, and they would be well pleased, doubtless, if they could compel M. Coquelin, Herr Possart, and others to draw their support from the waiters in the restaurants or the beer-saloons.

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The complaint that "leading men" are imported from England in large numbers, to the exclusion of native "talent," would be justified if there was any evidence of favoritism in the matter. But there is nothing of the sort, the fact being that the supply of the American article falls far short of the demand. Nor is the reason far to seek. There is no natural quality in an Englishman to make him peculiarly fit to impersonate the heroes of old or modern comedy. The American is as fair to look upon, is as well equipped in respect of lungs and limbs, and is certainly not inferior in respect of average intelligence. How, then, does it come about that young Englishmen succeed in securing so many of the best positions in a business conducted by men notoriously devoid of sentiment? The only possible answer is that they are more competent than their American

brethren; and it is equally clear that their superiority must be due, in most cases, not to natural gifts, but to their training.

It has been suggested that the English actor carries with him a certain air of social distinction, traceable to his familiarity with the more formal manners of an older civilization; but in this there is a large element of humbug. The fiction that the stage-player is the idol of the British court or camp has no surer foundation than the fancy of the press-agent. Some of them have been educated in the public schools, a few in the universities, one or two at Sandhurst; but, speaking generally, the English actor has no social opportunities beyond the reach of the American actor. There is no monopoly of good manners nowadays on either side of the Atlantic, and the main difference between a London and a New York drawing-room is geographical. The vital point, moreover, is not whether an actor is a gentleman in his behavior in his private capacity, but whether he can deport himself as a gentleman upon the stage, where his conduct is not natural, except in appearance, but artificial. The veriest Chesterfield in a ballroom might be mistaken for a boor before the footlights. What is wanted here is not so much a school for actors as a school for managers. There are plenty of apt pupils, but there is a most woful dearth of teachers.

The force of this remark will scarcely be appreciated except by those readers who chance to have some personal knowledge of the intellectual and moral character of the men who now control the destinies of the American stage. There are not, in the whole country, more than half-a-dozen managers, three of whom are in this city, who are in the least degree entitled to that name in its proper sense. as it would be applied, for instance, to Phelps, Irving, Charles Kean, or Macready. The rest are speculators pure and simple, who know nothing and care nothing about the art by which they make their living; whose sole idea is to make money, "honesty if they can, but by all means to make money"; and who "run" their theatres as the Bowery man "runs" his museum-by sheer force of advertising. Of literature, of his

tory, of archaeology, of architecture, of painting, of costume, or of acting, they are as ignorant as Macaulay's fourth-form schoolboy, and they would laugh at anybody who hinted to them that education of any kind was an essential to their profession. All they care about is a sensation which will "draw." There is not one of them who would know what to do with a stock company, if he had one, or who could presume to select a play or give a direction at rehearsal. If a piece has been successful in Paris, Berlin, or London, they contract for its production in one or more of their circuit theatres, and are interested in nothing but the scene plan, which, as a matter of carpentry, they can comprehend. With the play they get their company; or if by any chance they have to cast the piece themselves, they select one or two prominent performers, and fill up the remainder of the lit almost at hap-hazard from such actors as may happen to be disengaged. If the play, on account of a tank, a horse-race, horse-play, dirt, or what not, chances to make a hit, it is sent the rounds of the country, until the receipts fall off, when it is shelved for something else. In the whole experiment there is no thought of art, either with respect to the play or the manner of its representation. At the end of the season, be it long or short, the actors are scattered to pick up their next employment where they can.

Thus it comes to pass that the American actor, except in a few theatres where the stock system still prevails, is never subject for any length of time to intelligent supervision and direction, but is left to his own resources. If he betrays special aptitude for one line of work, he follows that line exclusively, and either becomes a "star" in the narrowest of orbits-before he has learned the rudiments of real acting, whose aim is general impersonationor drifts into the abysses of general inutility. If he is lucky, he makes a small fortune in a year or two, and becomes too conceited to play second fiddle to anybody. If he is unlucky, he disappears in inglorious and laborious oblivion. From this latter class comes the despairing wail for protection.

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The speculative "manager" is at work in England too, but there he is yet in the minority. In that old theatrical centre there is some virtue in the spirit of conservatism. This it is what keeps alive the memories of tradition and forbids the total abandoment of the stock-company system. The actors who come here to be "leading men are not in the front ranks at home, but they have served some apprenticeship in schools not altogether dead to the influences of the past. They have learned to read moderately well, to assume an air of repose, and to control the rawest impulses of the beginner; they have enjoyed, in short, in some degree, the advantages which are denied to the beginners here. Some of them, perhaps, although this is not so certain, have been benefited by a more liberal general education. In natural ability, however, they are in no way superior to the American raw material. Many of them do not even speak their own language as well as their American rivals; but they are more expert in detail, are more at home in a dress-coat or in ruffles, and are able to mimic, often very feebly, the comedy style handed down from generation to generation. But there is no tradition in London which does not exist here, and there is not the least reason why America should not lead the way in the theatre as in other paths of civilization. After more than a century of acting, with some of the most glorious names on the roll of theatrical fame, to whimper for protection is more than cowardly-it is disgraceful.

'HE Chicago Daily Herald of Dec. 24, THE contained the following editorial:

PROTECTION FOR HAMFATTERS.

It is not easy to see why such notable actors as Booth, Jefferson and Barrett have lent themselves to the "hamfatter" scheme of extending the contract labor law to foreign actors. They are actors of acknowledged ability and established reputation, and are entirely secure of a wide. and profitable field for the exercise of

their talents against any possible foreign competition. The Coquelin engagement has had no effect whatever upon their business of the present season, and where Irving and a half dozen other foreign attractions in the country they might still rely upon a liberal patronage. Because Americans may occasionally see Irving, Salvini, Coquelin and Bernhardt they are none the less likely to see Booth, Jefferson and Mary Anderson. Mr. Booth, indeed, has played a successful engagement at one Chicago theatre while Mr. Irving was the attraction at another. The hamfatters say, to be sure, that this scheme is not directed against foreign "stars," but the latter are only to be admitted upon condition that they surround themselves with a picked-up company culled from among the starveling and seedy men of genius who haunt the bar-rooms of Union Square. This would exclude some of the foreign stars most popular with American theatre-goers, and whose art has exerted a most beneficial influence upon the American stage. Think of that conscientious artist, Henry Irving, playing with a company made up of the players who are howling for protection against actors to whom they are hopelessly inferior!

Messrs. Booth, Barrett, Jefferson and the other prominent actors who have joined this movement are, in short, supporting a scheme from which they can derive no advantage, and which is in the interest solely of the class of crude, ignorant and untrained actors who lack the ability and ambition to rival in stage art the foreigners whom they fear.

There is no pretense, of course, that the exclusion of foreign actors would advance our dramatic art. The "tart" actors who demand "protection" want it merely for the purpose of obtaining places on the stage that might otherwise be filled by better trained men. They ask the law to give them what their own abilities cannot secure, and demand the exclusion of actors whom they should welcome as examples to emulate. Their scheme is a shameful confession of inferiority and an aversion for the methods of training and study by which foreign actors excel. As well might we exclude foreign pictures because for

eign artists paint better than ours; as well exclude foreign books because they are better books than our own. It is the reductio ad absurdum of protection when it is applied to the exclusion from the country of instructive, stimulating and refining products of learning and art, and it is hoped that the ridicule with which the movement has been received will bring the prominent actors who have identified themselves with it to this point of view.

JOSE

OSEPH HOWARD writes thus to the point in the New York Press:

The vain struggle for work made by the actors' committee in Washington, produced a very unfavorable effect on Rip Van Winkle Acres. He repudiates the entire movement. In other words, he declined to plead the baby act. Joseph Wilke, one of the best character artists I ever enjoyed, tells me there are 500 unemployed actors in New York to-day. This is awful and suggestive. If there were 500 tailors unemployed, the public would say, "but are they really tailors?" The old woman who sold cold corn at Fulton Ferry yelled, "Hot corn" at the top of her voice, because "that's the name of the stuff," but that didn't make it hot corn, did it? If it be a fact that there are 400 actors unemployed, in this city alone, clearly the market is overstocked. The supply would. seem to discount the demand. Why, then, should foreign actors come to a place already overstocked? Is it because they have a superior article to sell? Let us ponder these things, brethren.

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aged negress who, seeing the daughter of a New York millionaire driving down the Broadway with a little nigger in "buttons" perched in the dickey behind the vehicle, fell down on her knees on the pavement and muttered her thanksgiving: "Bress der Lord that I have lived to see dis day. Pretty white lady coachman to young coloured gembleman." The aged tenant of an Ohio cabin holding would probably be equally astonished could he but see the most exalted male in this realm, throwing aside those troubles which the inhabitants of the Greater Republic are pleased to consider the cares of State, and giving a boudoir performance on the banjo before the Princess and their daughters. I am, indeed informed by those who ought to know, that the Prince of Wales, like his relative the Czar of Russia, is no mean performer on the banjo, and as he has an excellent musical memory, without pretending to too much technical knowledge, that he can, after returning from the opera or opera-bouffe, pick out the tunes on the banjo with astonishing facility. In this he distinctly has the advantage over his brother of Edinburgh, whose method of art is more laborious, and who, besides, suffers under the disadvantage of not being able to do himself full justice on the violin unless his fiddle has previously been tuned for him.

It is not altogether surprising that the banjo is once more becoming popular here. It is essentially a home instrument, and among the negros in the "south" of the United States-that is to say, amongst probably the most domesticity-loving community in the world-the banjo is at once a solace and a joy. It is even more to the humble darkey than the pipe is to the British working man, for not only will it keep him company when he is alone, but it is the national instrument of mirth and festivity. The pretty mulatto will listen for hours to her swain, as he twangs with that ineffable grace, to which not even a Prince of Wales can aspire, the six strings stretched across a drum. The banjo is heard as the cotton-boat floats down the river. The Venetian gondoliers, the rowers on the Neva, and the American niggers all enjoy boating melodies while at their

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work. The Thames bargee alone prefers the sound of his own peculiar vocabulary. There are also banjos of five-strings, which are despised by colored connoisseurs, of seven-strings, which are more difficult, and of nine (three of them thumb-strings), which are rarely heard. Various theories have, of course, been advanced, tracing back the banjo to the Senegambian "Bania" on the one hand, and to the 'Pandore " or mandoline of Mediaeval romance on the other. There are even historians, gifted with a lively imagination, who are willing to swear that David, before Saul, must have played the banjo, on the ground that if he had been encumbered with a harp he could not have found it so easy to escape when the King threw the ancient Hebrew boot-jack (or boot "jab "-so "Jabalina," whence the grotesquely incorrect team "Javelin ") at the innocent head of the Sweet Psalmist of Israel. These nice distinctions I should, however, prefer to leave to the sound judgment of my friend, the Rev. H. R. Haweis, who, I believe, is as learned an authority on Biblical musical instruments as upon the proper management of a farm-yard in the back garden.

But the revival of banjo-playing in London is not confined to the Royal Family. Mr. Gladstone himself is said to favor the instrument, which also solaces the few intervals of leisure in which other brainworkers are able to indulge. Moreover, it has had the incidental effect of reviving a taste for the guitar and the mandoline, which, though akin to it, both differ from the good old banjo of the London drawingroom. Indeed, the mandoline, which is played with a plectrum, is but a tinkling bell compared with the tone of the banjo or guitar. Of the three, I am, however, inclined to think that the guitar has the most promising future. Although it may not possess the masculine majesty of the banjo, it has around it the ineffable halo of romance. Moreover, it well becomes a man, always supposing that he be not of corpulent habit; and as he attitudinises, amid a circle of admiring ladies, the blue ribbon hung lightly over one shoulder and under one arm, he may, if he but possess a figure at all, easily imagine himself a first

class "masher." The guitar has, too, the advantage of possessing a fairly good repertory of music written specially for it, thanks to the labors of Giuliani, Legnani, Kreutzer, Regondi, and Leonard Schultz. The banjo, however, does not deserve the unworthy wit levelled at it by those who have only heard it as performed by the peripatetic musician at the head of Margate Jetty, or by the musical partner of the

Bones" of negro minstrelsy. The instrument-which an Ulster immigrant once described as a drum-head with the bottom knocked out-can discourse sweet music if played by an expert.-London Truth.

REMINISCENCES OF EDWIN ADAMS

Of a nature kindly inclined to all, and disposed to forgive mistakes or errors in others, even though the effects were detrimental to his purpose or wish, Edwin Adams lived quite as much for others as for himself. His conduct towards his fellows was ruled by the desire to find the good that was in them, and endeavor not to see their shortcomings or failings. He never wanted to listen to censure or jealousy amongst his fellows, and always tried to find palliation or excuse for a failure in duty or respect of rules and regulations, provided they were not too selfish or flagrant. Very seldom would he notice a dereliction or inattention, and unless it became a positive wrong or insult, pitied the offender with the excuse that a gentleman must forgive a want of sense and a neglected education, oftener returning good for evil than retaliating with offense. And so his age passed in an effort to have charity for all and ill-will for none.

Inately a gentleman, jealousy or malice held no place in his mind, nor ever controlled his actions. He performed his duties in the theatre-to his audiencewith a conscious regard for their rights and

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