Morris tribune. [volume] (Morris, Minn.) 1880-2000, 1882-09-14
Terms: So 90 per Year In Advance.
OUR NEW YORK LETTER.


SsIdtu.-i ciaDts1' from tie dark side
els ne,c play.-7He BLack6ird.-F First
night ut rarIous IHeutres-1Ne oyster
Season.-Herbet Spenc6r's Aealth.--
Fayhi0na5leS in totoA.-IIhat to teear
in acknowledgement neta hats and
5ennets.-Ihe Full meeting Of Coney
| LSLuMG Jochey CLu6.-1rricM Of tie
British Rtte Team.
New YORK, Sept. ), 1882.
The sensation of tho week was the re
markable disappearance and equally re-
murkable recovery of the little Brook
| lyn girl Lizzie Seldcn. The child was
sitting on the stoop OF its parents one eve.
ming, when young woman came along
| and taking it oy the hand compelled the
| poor little thing to accompany her during
several days of very devious wanderingS {.
| Her name was subsequently ascertained
| to be Maggie keppel. What object she
| could possibly have had in stealing the
child Is past comprehension. According
to her OWN admission She simply" took Il
| fancy to il" and desired to have it with
! her. What might have been the fate of
! little Lizzie had the newspapers not made
Il sensation of the story, God Cnly knows.
| Maggie keppcl is u thoroughly bad
woman. Besides possessing 4 more ex-
tenSive Acquaintance among men than is
usually considered proper for Il female,
! she has been i'll prison for larceny. In
| addition to this, there can scarcely be any
| doubt to- those who have closely watched
! her since her confinement in Jail that her
mind is unsounG. The Child'S future under
! these circumstances would have been any
ting but happy one. 10 draw out its
! possible mGanderingS would form tit
| subject for Il novelist Of the school Of Ga
! bOriau or Btot. Nor must it be believed
| that a case like Lizzie Selden's is of rare
! occurrence il this great city, or that every
| one Of them ends as fortunately. 1t oc-
| CURED Just ut Il time when news in the city
| is duh in the extreme, and the papers,
| having plenty Of space at their disposal
| happened, simultaneously, to think it a
| subject worth "sprcading' on. AS. in
addition, the parents of the child were
wealthy and well connected, the publicity
! thus given spurrcQ the police on to work
and brought forward an important witness,
| young Mclaughlin, who accompanied
! Maggie during the greater portion of her
wanderiugs during the first night she had
possession of the child. A look at the
blotters ut that'dcpartment at Police Head
! quarters, which takes charge of missing
| persons woullreveal :. sad list of children,
us well as grown people, about whom
nothing has ever been heard or seen, and
who in spite of ti}igcnt search, have dis
! appeared as completely us if they had been
wiped off the face of the earth. Parents
in the city cannot be too careful with their
III I'LL L y
particularly little girls are wonderfully
! attractive for criminals Of Il certain class.
Then again many are stolen in the hope
of securing a big reward for their return,
and if that be not forthcoming the Grim
inals will sooner make away with tile
stolen little ones than give them up for
less than their own price. a curiosity il:
this field of crime is the fact that it has
happened very frequently that children
were stolen by abandoned women, simply
to have an object to love. An old de-
tectivc assured me that several such cases
had come under his experience. What
! may seem Strarge, but after all is quite
natural. is that these children were in
variably we'll cared for and provided with
every Kindness, the creatures employing
the best portion of the proceeds of their
wrctched trade to make them happy.
But enough of this leaf from the dark
side of Metropolitan life. The theatrical
world is all activity. In several theatres
the regular season has begun. Those that
are still closed will open their doors with
in the next ten days. Maggie Mitchell
whose name has become a household word
in connection with her impersonation of
Fanchon, took Il new departure and ap'
peared in new play called Eliza" and
! 70 l,,
journalist 1t is an adaptation of Wilhel.
mine Won Hillern's famous novel "Geier.
Wally," which has been translated into
several languages. Bul The adaptation is
not success. The idyllic beauty of the
life, the thoughts, the sorrows and the
pleasures of the Tyrolese Alps has only
too frequently been made to yield in favor
of the conventional and commonplace
The pathoS Of the novel and the German
play has STACEY flavor in Eliza" Miss
Mitchell can hardly be said to have salts
fled the critics. 1t was my fortune last
season to see Frau Elmenreich play the
heroine at the Gcrmanla Theatre. With
the excellence of her portraiture still fresh
| in ones mind it cost one an effort not to
find Miss Mitchell insipid. Her manner
isms which have made her Fanchon the
standard, initiate against her in her new
play. The fact is that, like many other
excellent actors, who have achieved fame
and money by playing same one character
or set of characters, SO much that one
cannot be separated from the other in the
mind of the theatregoer they cannot leave
well enough alone. There is Hrrrigar
and Hart for instance, They made an
immense success of their series of vaude
viIes illustrative of lower Irish, German
and Negro life in the city. In fact it be
came quite the fashion among upper
tendon to drop into the Comique. In
stead, of keeping on working this mine
| which was almost exclusively theirs, they
could not resist the temptation of falling
in with the present craze for melodrama
The Mulligan's, the McSweeny's, tht
Skidmores and all the other heroes o
creation, of whose adventures the public
never got tired have been consigned to oh
livion, and the "Blackbird" substituted.
Such rehash of old and new plays a
this piece is has seldom been seen, and or
the first night the audience amused itsel
by tracing the origin of the various patche
which go to make up this dramatic be-
quilt. The only things which save it RI
the scenery and mechanical effects, which
are charming beyond description, and on
scene representing an Irish wedding whic
introduces the scenes of uproarious flu
which made the Comique such success
This evening Mankind" will be pro