Litchfield enquirer., 1872-02-29
THE EXCURSION.

At five o'clock on Friday afternoon the largest crowd of passengers ever seen at theShepaug stationin this village squeezed into single passenger car and the few seats provided in the baggage car Abont an hundred persons, occupied s5 seats, the remainder standing up in the passage ways. The difficulty was not through any fault of the company, their sole remaining passenger car having been disabled by @ sbrokenztruck onaits wsyup that afternoon. Just as the train started, one of our medical men came up, trife too late On reach. ing Bantam dozen or more passengers were added to the already overfowing ex- eursion. Slowly and carefully we logged on by '.Morris, {" "Romeford" and 'sNew Preston" Chat is to be), arriving at Wash ingtonl about an hour and half after leaving Litchfeld. Here we found teams enough to tranepott us up to the Hall where the demand for reserved seats of course largely exceeded the supply, no one having expected over sixty or seventy excursionists. Nevertheless we all found seats, and were not little gratifed and amused with the appearance, just at the last moment, of our lost doctor who had driven down in abundant time for the per formance.
 A criticism of the dramatic part of the programme, by one fully competent to criticise, will be found in another column To our st,scritical taste the first play seem ed most admirably performed. There was none of the over-acting which disgusts us so much with professionals, but all was natural, quiet. yet very effective. The small size of the hall, compared with city theatres, probably enables the actor to avoid much of the overstrain of voice mo- ticable there. Miss Mary Gum was de- cidedly the star of the performance, al- though others did extremely well, partic- ularly the child in the first play who play ed his little part in so natural and touch ing way as to add greatly to the effect of some of the best scenes.
 The opening piano duet was good, very effectively executed but rather long In that, as in the neatness and delicacy of her accompaniments, Miss Brinsmade ex- celled as usual; the beauty of her touch recalling that enchanting duet for two pianos we once heard performed in that Hall by herself and the late Miss Atwater The Quartette was hardly up to the usual mark. The performers were so badly out of tune at one time that we thought {" all was lost, but Washington musicians are apt to be ''cool under fire" and they soon got into line again. The vocal duet was pretty and prettily executed.
 The Dancing Sylphs"- were encored and generally popular. Here again our judgments are SO very uncritical that we refrain from expressing them.
 The excursionists were duly transport ed back to the Station by the public spir- ited Judeans, where they were duly pack ed into the train, after the manner of figs in a drum and meandered home, arriving here at a little after midnight. By the way, anti-woman suffragists have impressed us with the fact that gentlemen of a conservative turn invariably give up their seats in crowded cars and other pub lie conveyances to ladies whereas the male radical sits stock-still on principle. If such is really the case our observation of the manners of our excursionists leads us to believe that woman suffrage has ta-
 notwithstanding tHo WanJ or surzo1o4rs car room, all seemed delighted with their trip, and particularly with their enter tainment. The thanks of the excursion ists are specially due to Mir. J. s. Titus and others, who transported the unex- pectedly large crowd to and from the station, free of charge, and without any of the delays we had feared. S..t