The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-12-01
THEA TRICAL TABLE-TALK.

popular actor once complained that the
Theatrical Fund dinners scarcely received
the recognition due to them, considering the
interesting events that had now and again
taken place at these sociable and cheerful
gatherings of the friends and followers of
the drama. He might have added that many
good stories had bsen told at the same
memories of the hearers, or to be
buried in the columns of newspapers uu-
familiar to the bulk of the reading public
1t was at Theatrical Fund dinner that
Charles Mathews spoke of the gentleman
who, upon being asked by a friend for the
loan of a guinea, briskly replied: with
pleasure;" but added Immediately, to his i'm
pecunious friends disgust -'Dear me, how
unfortunate I've only one lending sove-
reign, and it's out !" and Mr. Blackstone re-
counted how, playing once to a well-flled
house at Dumfries, he was astonished at the
loudly y-expressed appreciation of the occu-
pants of the dress circle, who we're absolut ly
uproarious in their laughter, and outdid the
gods themselves in applauding taking every
point instantaneously, and welcoming it
with noisy acclamations. Gratifed De-
yond IN easure, the comedian could not re
frain from congratulating the Dumfrie-
manager upon having such an excellent audi
ence, particularly in the boxes. Eyes, said
the manager, ''they did enjoy themselves
amazingly. They are all mad folks. 1t is the
system of the asylum doctor here to amuse
his patients in every conceivable manner, and
he took pretty nearly all the seats in the
dress circle tonight" The same gentleman
is responsible for q story of a clergyman
taking peep behind the scenes of the Hay
market, and af ter a very short survey at the
surroundings eXclaiming in O tone of aston
ished disappointment, 81 shall go now; l
don't see anything wrong going on; fancied
there was q sort of Saturnalia here every
night" 1t was across Theatrical Fund
dinner table, too, that perhaps the best
story-teler in England told tale of a cold
water love-test and what came of it. An
American Captain had as passenger on
board his ship a very beautiful young
lady, with whom, in the course of
very short voyage, five young
! gentlemen, also passengers, fell desperately
in love. She, liking all the young gentle
men, and liking them all equally well, felt
| herself placed in a position of some diff
Guilty, and in the emergency applied to the
| captain for advice. He, being q man Of an
original turn of mind, suggested that she
should jump overheard (he taking care to
have we'll manned boat alongside to pre-
vent the possibility of the farce tnrniug into
tragedy, and that she should accept the
man who jumped into the sea after her. The
| lady liked the notion, and one fine morning,
| when her i've admirers were all upon deck,
went over the side head foremost. Four of
the five Immediately followed her lead. Then
said the pGzzled damsel to the captain: -
"What ana to do now? See how wet they
all are" "Do?" replied the captain; "why
take the dry one!" Which she did; and, it
is to be hoped, lived happy ever afterward.
The relator of this story of the deep has had
the rare fortune to obtain popularity in other
lands beside his own, to which Lord Mayor
bore the following testimony: Il recollect
being in Hamburg some thirty years ago,
upon q commercial errand, when, meeting
with gentleman with whom bad some very
large transactions, he invited me to breakfast
with him. l went. We passed pleasant
hour, and then he proposed a walk. We
walked; he seemed strangely restless, and
found | could get him TO do anything but
attend to business. At last he said My dear
friend, you must excuse me; this is the day
on which the fifth number of work by your
countrymen Boz comes to Hamburg, and
until get 1t and read it 1 can neither talk of
business nor anything else. >"
1t was at Theatrical Fund dinner held at
Edinburgh that SirWalter Scott made clean
breast of it, and confessed himself the author
of "Waverley"-a circumstance still remem.
bered with pride by those connected with the
stage; and which might have gratified even
that hater of the 'Waverley Novels" tbs
author of "Crotchet Castle, since he must
have owned that the time and place were well
fitted for the disclosure of the authorship OF
what he called the 'pantomime of literature.
Chambers Journal.