Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-04-10
MANHATTANISMS.
THE NEW DRAMA OF "How SHE DOES
NOT LOVE Hin"
Custom-House outrages = Ralph Waldo
Emerson and Hell-seth Green
and the Salmon.
New York, April /, 1880.

|
and the Salmon.
New YORK, April l, 1880.
The arrest of Dion Boucicault, the other
day, at the instigation of his wife-known
to the theatrical world as Agnes Robert
son-caused much surmise and comment.
1t was made on the ground that he was
| about to leave the State, and that, if he
| should be allowed to depart without re-
striction, any judgment against him, when
obtained in her forthcoming suit for alb
solute divorce, would be rendered in
effectual. To a great many people, who
never know anything until they read it in
| the newspapers, the publication of the fact
was the first intelligence received that the
Boucicaults were not really happy IN
their union. But to the large class
of persons acquainted with green-room
gossip, the matrimonial disharmonies of
the dramatic pair had long been familiar.
1t was understood that they had separated
by mutual consent that she had agreed to
stay in Europe with her children, and that
he had decided to live here, the breadth OF
the sea preventing any active hostilities
between them. Her sudden appearance on
this side of the Atlantic, legally armed
against him, was not anticipated by any
body. His friends say that his arrest by
so partakes of the nature of persecution
that he will henceforth do everything in
his power to thwart her purposes. Per
sons who know
BOUCICAULT
Are well aware that amiability is not one
of his weaknesses, and that when his tenn
per, compound of all that is worst in
French and Irish nature, has been fully
aroused, he is not a pleasant COM
panion. He has many enemies-he has
talent for making them-and they say that
he is very selfish and INSCRIPTIONS, and that
he has no higher motive or object in
life than the qualification of his
own interest. His friends, on the other
hand, aver that while he is quick tempered
and loves, like most of us, to have his own
way, he is warm hearted and generous to a
fault that there is not drop of mean
blood in his whole body, and that he har-
bors no resentment even against those who
have injured him most 1t has been said
that the noted playwright has made his
wife as liberal an allowance since their sep
aration as his means would permit, and
she represents it as very small, even for
man of very slender fortune. If he should
provide for her in proportion to his income
She would be endowed like a princess.
Probably no author of his time has made
so much by his pen as Dion Boucicault.
He has written, translated and adapted
over two hundred plays, and it is estimated
that he has got from all sources not less
than 81, 500, 000 most of which he has
spent lavishly, even recklessly. Ever since
he produced, at the early age of
Is, the still popular and very clever come
dy, London Assurance" he has had as
playwright series of successes. Not
few of his pieces have failed; bnt fail
ure, now and then, is nothing to an author
of his unbounded resources. He has as
rule been uniformly prosperous; and, de-
spite his unblushing plagiarisms and whole
sale plunderings, he is one of the cleverest
men alive The history of the colleen
Bawn" demonstrates this. On his return
to England from this country in 1860, he
bought one morning at London book-stall
a copy of Gerald Griffin's "Collegians,
which he used as a sort of basis or source
of inspiration, and three days after, pre-
sented his play complete to the Adelphi
Theatre for rehearsal. 1t was almost the
first, if not quite the first, of the pieces
now named sensation dramas. 1t has been
given at nearly every theatre in Britain
and America; it was translated into
French, and brought out at the Ambigu,
Paris. and has yielded Boucicault
| fully $780, 600, which is at the rate of
500, 600 day for the time he was occu-
pied in preparing it. Can you name any
other writer, past or present, who has
earned such splendid wages? The Bouci-
caults have been married twenty-seven
years, but during the last seven or eight
have seen very little of one another. They
have had, 1 believe, eight children, five of
whom are living 1t seems strange that a
couple must needs go apart after so long a
connection. They were mutually very
much in love up to ten or twelve years
ago. Their intercourse was of the tender
est, most sympathetic kind it was so
permeated with
DEAREST AGNES AND DARLING DION
That their intimates often smiled at their
spooneyness. Their early attachment was
intensely romantic, and it was continually
remarked, even after they had reached
middle-age, that they were more like
Youthful lovers than like man and wife.
| The first cause OF their estrangement, it is
said, was their disagreement about. pro-
| fessional life. He wanted her to leave
the stage ten years ago. She did
not wish to but he commanded, and
she, as the story goes, obeyed, though under
protest. But she could not long obey, for
She is woman and an actress. She re-
turned to the theater in opposition to his
vehemently expressed will she imagined
that she could not exist without the foot
lights. This enraged her husband and
wounded his pride-the pride he once had
in her. She was not then fit for the stage
and she should have known it. Twenty
odd years ago she was very attractive,
being pretty, slender, graceful, elegant.
stout and rather coarse she lost every par
ticle of her personal loneliness. 1t was
painful to see her, especially to those who
remembered her in her youth. And yet
SO blinded are we by our vanity-she could
not perceive that she had materially
changed that she was the antipodes of her
former self. How well l recollect their
walking arm-in-arm in Broadway, two de-
cades since, handsome and apparently
very happy pair. They seemed wholly
devoted to one another; their example was
edlfying they were illustrious instances of
a perfectly harmonious welded couple.
And now they are enemies and disjoined
forever
Complaints are many and loud of the
manner in which
CUSTOMS INSPECTORS
Often perform their duty toward private
citizens returning from Europe. These
passengers say that they are put to need