Arkansas true Democrat., 1860-02-22
THE OCTOROON. A Disgrace to the North, Libel on the
 Sonth

It is significant fact, that at one end of the La Farge House few gentlemen were discussing the propriety of getting up meeting in this cityto prove that the North was not entirely aboltionized, and the other end of the same building was occupied by the rehearsal of i've act play, the effect Of which is to misrepresent and villify the South; and it is also significant fact, that while the object discussed by the "conser- vatives" has been treated by the public with singular indifference, gross libel up- on the social relations of the South has been hailed, by part of the press, and a gaping multitude, with an unparalleled enthusiasm"
 1.-The Winter Garden "a very appro- priate name for this dreary theatre, for there has never been really green spot in its history-has been struggling, under the management of Dion Bourcicauit, all the season to sustain itself by the representa- tion of Cocknsy plays. The legitimate at- fractions of the house, 1t seems, finally proved abortive and as last resource Bourcicault has taken advantage of the ex- isting anti-southern excitement, for 1t is no longer aimed at the slave, but at the citizens of the South, to bring out play, which, for all practical purposes, IS more pernicious than anything which has here tofore been conceived in the spirit of sec tional hate. "Uncle Tom $ Cabin aspired to no higher aim than to represent that plausible thing, hearenly old negro ! and an impossibly bad white man. The hero of the play, however. was ca darkie," the legitimate representative of the American slave; but Bourcicault is not content with this, his Exeter Hall training has carried him further with white slaves in his own country, so he dares to represent them in this. As false as the incidents of the play are in fact and in sentiment as literary composition it is wretchedly bad, judged even by the low standard applied to all the modern trash of the Bourcicault school, the materials that were worth attending to being miserably managed, the plot and the dramatic effect implying total want of ingenuity; all the author has evidently relied upon being the excitement and infam- naotory effect that its representations would produce, rather than any really theatrical merit. The scene, says the elaborate play bill advertised in the daily papers, "is laid
 in the Delta of the Mississippi on the plantation of Terrebonne: the name of the planter is " Peyton," the place itself is Sunnyside' All Louisiana names cer- tainly, which would naturally be made familiar with Bourcicault while acting as New Orleans theatrical manager, the re- cipient of southern hospitality and wit ness of southern life, but with the names, all correctness and truthful localization ceases The natural representations are always false, and the characters are, with one exception, libellous. In the first scene, an alluvial plantation, which is as free from pebbles even as a cup-custord, is faced in the foreground with huge piles of rocks that would be formidable even in New England, while a tall palm waved over them, which is as unknown in Louisiana as in Labrador.
 To give our readers a slight idea of the gross exaggeration, we will notice that the play opens with Jacob McCloskey, "half owner of the Terrebonne estate," say worth . hundred thousand dollars; with Salem Scuder, the overseer of Terrebone estate; and George Peyton, a southern young man, "educated in Europe, and just returned home," all in love with Zoe, the octoroon, and all severally making love to her, and ofering Meir hand in morriage! In rude language, in the first act, three white men, two of independent fortune, and one with character enough to be an overseer on large estate, seriously propose to "marry a nigger.'' This is Bourcicault's idea of southern institutions, and this idea is the English and the Wendall Phillips idea, to endeavor, by false sympathy, to break down caste, and elevate the negro to the same level with the whites.
 To accomplish this object, Miss Agnes Robertson, who Is pretty Scotch woman of singularly pure complexion, dressed in snpwy muslin, and overhowing with sentiment and sensitiveness, is the octoroon. To render the thing still more offensive, har parAntaae is freely discussed hv the