The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-06-29
n II VIZ o n X I 9 M q.
From Our o,On Correspondent
New YoRK, June 90, 1877
The Earthquake


an authority that highly revere had acquainted
me with The something had relation to the
shock of an earthquake which he informed me
he had experienced. Yesterday morning / read
in one of the papers an emotional account of an
earthquake, but this was not the one to which
my informant referred. His earthquake was
another earthquake, and occurred on Sunday
morning. The earthquake which has got into
the papers, and which no one seems to know
anything about save the reporter who manufac-
tured it, is said to have taken place on Saturday
night at o'clock. On the whole, think my
earthquake is the best of the two. At any rate
my faith in it is not shaken, whatever
else may have been. 1t occurred about
eleven o'clock on Sunday morning, when
good people are in church and homilies are
being inculcated. My informant resides on. .Thir-
ty-second street, near Fifth avenue. Whether
the house is brown stone front is not pertinent
to the inquiry. 1t is enough to say that the
entire neighborhood experienced shocks, as If
all Thirty-second street were mat with the
dust being shaken out, that there was noise
of burning missiles falling, and that few of the
most venture some of those out of doors picked
up singular bits of stone which they quickly
dropped again with burned fingers. At first
sight, this looked to me as though 1t were a
boiler explosion, and the Kissing missiles were
Il
came to the conclusion thatit was an earthquake
1t is so natural to the human mind to believe
in everything that is unlikely.
MIR Brousham's Genius.
This celebrat ed speech-maker has just pro-
duced at Wallack's play so exquisitely idiotic
that feel / must detail the plot to you little
more elaborately than l usually do those of new
plays. 1t is as frisky and refreshing as soda
water with the ''cool and sparkling left out.
Listen! Have patience with me Cor Mr..
Brougham) and attune the tympanum: "Minnie
Rook," street singer, whose real name is
<'Clara Willoughby," has, when an infant, been
stolen from her ma by wretch named "Philip
Wexford" who lives off her earnings when she
has any, and beats her black and blue when she
hasn't. Her distracted ma mourns her loss for
sixteen years, and, in conjunction with a conf
dental lawyer, "Mr. Goodwin" unsuccessfully
eudeavors to discover her whereabouts. In this
she is helped by sensation reporter and inter
viewist, "Horatio Pryor, "who discovers the poor
girl in a slum kept by sentimental bartender,
who sells the deadliest poison in the way of bad
whisky, and talks the sickest cant that ever
emanated from mortal mouth. The sensation
reporter takes Minnie home to live
with him and his wife, and is on the
point of restoring her to herlong-lost ma. 'Min-
ME" is left alone with the sensation-reporter's
wife, when tall party wearing long silk dress
and thick veil is introduced and pretends to be
the ma in question. But Minnie detects some
thing wrong in the party's voice. and the party,
seeing he is on the point of being discovered
tears off bonnet and veil, and reveals himself as
the agent of wexford" who is bound to get
''Minnie" back. The interesting feature of this
point is that the would-be lady wears whiskers,
that she points pistol at the head of ''Mrs.
Of tl,a oln IF tho nt md 1noly
fer all the world like a bearded lady trying to
escape from museum. 'Minnie" is borne
back to "Wexford's" den, and is condemned by
that brute to be strapped TO a bed and
whipped black and blue by an old black
hag named cleopatra" but cleopatra"
discovers just ia time to save "Minnie's" skin,
that she ("CleopatraD is "Minnies" old nurse,
and used to nurse 'Minnie" when that young
lacy was at the lacteal portion of her existence.
She therefore straps her up, and only pretends
to whip her. In this, however, she is discovered
by ''Wexford," who is just about to deal the
blows himself, when the door is burst open and
the sensation-reporter rushes in, liberates
ssMnnie" ties ''Wexford" to the bed, and ad-
ministers the castigation himself assisted by a
bevy of newsboys and bootblacks Minnie" is
then taken and restored to her real ma and, in
the latter's absence, receives as visitor 'Inky
Dick" printers devil, whom she had known
and loved in the slum-singing part of her career.
''Dickie" brings back the banjo of happier days,
and minnie" offers 10 sing one of her old songs
upon it, which takes the audience completely
by SURPRISE they not having been subjected to this
sort of device more than half-a-dozen times in
the previous acts. After the song "Minnie"
plays a regular old-fashioned breakdown. At
this point it appears that the seryants-one
butler, one footman, one page, one cook, two
housemaids, and two chambermaids-have been
listening the stairs, push the drawing-room
doors open, and in they come the whole kit and
crew of them, and have good dance, just as
servants and young ladies of the house do every
day in real life. The last act is given up to a
ball in which all the villains of the piece are
very properly handcuffed and sent to the island,
and Miss Lizzie Price, as "Inky Dick" wears,
as part of an evening dress suit pair of pants
that might have belonged to her little brother,
but then this is the way Miss Price borrows
from real life and remains an artist. Mr.
Brougham makes only one speech at the close
of every act, but he makes up for this by not
haging too much to do in the play itself. Seeing
he will belong to the stock company at Wal
lacks next season, he is evidently feeling his
audiences in advance. The play went off very
well, however; SO did the soda-water bottle
corks. They were popping up in the gallery
all evening just as naturally as they do at
the Bowery. saw the entire five acts out,
from eight until eleven, in order that no one