The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1879-01-09
LETTER FROM NEW YORK.

Z 4 I ~
To THE EDITOR or THE NEW NORTHWEST:
Conkling has been here all this week,
like a lion couchant, playing with the
bones Of dry case ia one Of the courts.
I saw him shaking his name on Sunday
morning in Madison Square, just where
the statue of ofSeward-which some one, by
the way, has discovered to be blot upon
the face of Manhattan-sits serenely
beneath the shadow Of the hands and
torch OF Liberty tightening the world"
Roscoe is getting gray, and his hyacin-
thine locks are grizzled so that the white
outvies the sandy, and he looks
such giant that one ceases to wonder
that he is sometimes invested with i'm
aginary attributes. Just now he has his
hands full, the custom-house question
being possibly uppermost. So has But
Ter, for the matter of that. When he is
not plugging away at the plantation
suit against General Phil. Sheridan, he
is deep in papers and intrigues like the
Fifth Avenue Hotel, and woe to the re-
porter who disturbs him. The General
beguiles the time by looking at the
time. Very approachable, indeed, before
the Massachusetts election, the defeated
candidate is now wrapped in reticence
and dwells among the clouds, save when
be wandered to the dairy fair aud told
the assembled producers and farmers
what they already knew about butter
milk.
John Mccullough, the tragediau, WAS
telling me yesterday some OF the secrets
Of his craft. He says there are but
three tragic actors IN the United States,
Booth, Lawrence Barrett, and himself
One or two others spasmodically come
out in tragedy. Mccullough says that
the taste has not declined for this
kind of acting, but the new actors are
too indolent and hasty for money TO
study the solid Shakespearian parts. The
multiplication Of theaters aud the friv-
olity Of audiences have tempted the
novitiates 10 crowd into the social drama
aud cease to give their time to the study
Of classical parts Mccullough has been
paid one thousand dollars week guar
anteed, to play his star engagement in
Brooklyn. lie told me that in st.
Louis he made twenty-nine hundred
dollars week taking halfprofits. Ed
win Booth, Mccullough says, has made
more money than any human being who
ever played Shakespeare. At present
he is not making so much, say about
fifty thousand dollars during lS7S, but
when Mccullough managed the Cali
fornia Theater he engaged 10 pay Booth
half the gross receipts for eight weeks,
and they amounted to about thirty
thousand dollars. He says that Mr.
Booth is an excellent actor, but like all
men who get TO the top round Of the
profession, he receives more criticism
than he now deserves. "This business Of
criticism" /" said be, sis peculiar. There
are men now writing me up with sin
sere enthusiasm, who will in a few
years hence, if have better luck, make
up their minds that they had better be-
gin to pull me down. That is the only
trouble with Edwin Booth. He has bad
the largest following and the best class
ofsupport Of any person on the stage, in
England or America. It began 10 his
youth and in his following were schol-
afs' editors, scientific men, all of the
very best. He has Improved, but Of
course there will be pauses and reactions
10 every career.r
Orime Ia this city does resll,, son, q,
run In epidemics. First ips ono 80,
iu''e' cor mitted, one after the o,be-
Win appalling rap.aity, aud tben -;
another. just uowitis wifa.nn-,l.-,',
beating, stamping, pounding ,na 80
ing the unfortunate vi,,io, T.. -,
This crime is chiefly conf,
ment dwellers, poverty aud v,.,,'..-
ing together, and drink holdi,..
carnival with blood One poor ,r,..-.
was lately so kicked and bruised h..
drunken husband that when d.
mercifully relieved her from her suffer-
ing she resembled mass Of jelly more
than human thing.
One thing the dwellers in tenements
have reduced TO a science, the minding
Of their own business. No matter what
groans, blows, screams and kickings are
heard by neighbors, nobody notices
nobody ventures on interference or
rescuei so that it is easy for drunken
savage to do a woman to death in a