News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1884-05-29
MORALITY OF THE STAGE.
ARE TFiR THEATRES OF AMERICA M
PROVING IN HIGH MORAL TONES
DIR. Talmage Says that They are Degener-
atinR-Recent Foreign ImpOrtatiOns and
SodOmic Lack of Apparel.

DIR. TaImage Says that They are Degener-
| atinE-Recent Foreign ImpOrtatiOns and
| SodOs,ic Lack of Apparel.
| DIR. Talmage's most sensational SER
mon of recent years was preached Sun
day morning in the Brooklyn Taber-
nacle on the question, ''Are the Thea
tres Improving in High Moral Tone ?"
His reply was decided negative. His
reasons were based on the increased
rage for nudity on the stage, which he
delicately characterized as 'Sodomic
lack of apparel, as pictured by the dis
played advertisements of nearly naked
female figures, and on the increased
salaciousness of foreign plays imported
for American theatres. He also made
pointed illusions to a French actress
who recently appeared in this country,
"whose infamy was not shame, but
| boast" and to "delectable specimens"
from England commended by foreign
princes not as good as their mother"
The text of the sermon was, "Watch-
man, what of the night?'
| As near as I can TELL said DIR. Tai
mage, it is about half-past four in the
morning. There are signs of dawn.
The world is advancing. Since the armies
of civilization and Christianity began to
march they have never fallen back one
inch. But are the entertainments and
recreations of the world keeping abreast
with the grand march of the ages E?
Have the theatres of our time arrived at
a higher moral tone? j reply this morn
ing to this question in discussing some
of the absorbing topics of the day. 1
am not to discuss whether the theatre is
right or wrong, but whether it is i'm
proving in moral tone. There are three
or four reasons for answering this ques-
ton in the negative, and the first is the
combined and universal testimony of all
the secular newspapers in the land that
are worth anything. 1t is contrary to
| the financial interests of the secular
newspaper severely to criticise the play
house, because from it comes the largest
| advertising patronage. When, there
| fore, the secular newspapers of the land
severely criticise the playhouse for i'm
beetle and impure spectacular dramas
their testimony is to me conclusive. 1
roll up on the negative side of this ques-
ton all the respectable printing presses
of the Continent.
Another reason for answering this
question in the negative is the de-
PRAYED advertisements on the bulletin
boards and board fences and in the show
windows from ocean to ocean. take it
for granted that these advertisements are
honest and night by night occur the
scenes advertised. Are these the scenes
to which parents take their daughters
and young men their affianced? Would
you allow in your parlor such indecency
enacted as is dramatized every night in
some of the theatres of America unless
the advertisement be libel? If the pic
lures be genuine the scenes are damna-
BILE. That which is wrong in the parlor
is wrong on the stage. 1t ought to re-
quire just as much completeness of ap-
pareI to be honorable in one place as to
be honorable in another.
If you, fathers and mothers, take
your sons and daughters to see Sodomic
lack of robe, and then in aftertime the
plowshare of hbertinism and profiga-
cy should go through your own house
hold, you will get what you deserve 1t
seems as if, having obtained surplus of
sancity during the Lenten services,
right after Easter, all through the
United States, the streets become a pic
ture gallery, which rivals the museums
of Pompeii that are kept under lock and
key. Where are the mayors of the cities,
and the judges of the courts, and the
police, that they allow such things?
declare what every man and woman in
this house knows to be true-wheD our
cities are blotched with these depraved
advertisements, is it not some reason
why we should think that the theatres
of this country are not very rapidly
advancing toward millennial excellence?
Another reason for answering this
question in the negative is the large i'm
portation of bad morals from foreign
countries to the American stage. France
sent one of her queens of the stage to
ei4is-eeuntry.-Hef- infamy,- instead OF
shame, was a boast. Never a more
popular actress on the American stage,
and never one more dissolute. Thou
sands and tens of thousands of professed
Christian men and women went and
burned incense before that goddess of
debauchery. England, too, has sent
her delectable specimens of ineffable
sweetness commended by foreign princes
not as good as their mother. When
take into consideration this large impor-
tation of bad morals from foreign ports
/ come to the conclusion that the Amer
lean theatres are not, as general thing,
advancing in moral tone.
Another reason is that the vast ma.
jority of the plays of the day are de-
generative. Their names are sugges-
tive of perfdy. If 1 mention any they
must be those that are are little past,
but which may come back again when
the American taste wants O change of
carrion. Take the plays of the last
fifteen years. will admit that one tenth
are unobjectionable, but nine-tenths are
unfit to be looked at by the families in
America. Put side by side the plays of
the time of Macready and the elder
Booth and modern plays, and you will
find there has been an awful decadence.
have not seen these plays, but have
taken the testimony of authentic wit
nesses, and have skillful analyses by
critics, among them such men as DR..
Buckley, of New York. Subtract from
these improper plays the libertinism and
the domestic intrigue and the innuendoes
and the vulgarities and the marital
scoundrelism, and you would leave them
powerless in the dramatic market.
If you who took your families to see
EAST Lynne" will now, in your cooler
moments read the manuscript of that |
play and go through the fetid and NAL
odorous chapters in which dishonest |
womanhood is chased from iniquity to |
iniquity, you will be able to judge for
yourself whether that is an improved |
drama. You might as well go into the |
grog-shop of a village hotel and sit down
among the village loafers, expecting to |
get any moral elevation from a play like |
"Ticket-of-Leave Man" full of villanous
portraits and low slang. The play en-
titled "a New Way to Pay Old Debts"
is practical eulogy on deception if it is
practiced on the bad, and men and wo-
men never come out from seeing that |
play as pure as when they went in. |
"She Stops to Conquer" is as full of |
moral miasma as the Roman Campagna |
is of typhus fever. You can write
"Oliver Goldsmith" beneath 1t, but you
can't cover up the profane and the sala-
cious.
"The School for Scandal is rotten
clear through with righteousness. If |
man should come into your house and
take that play from under his arm and
read it to your family, all the bones that |
were left in his body unbroken would |
not be worth mentioning. But who
could go through the "Don Caesars"
and the "Peg Wofingtons." and the
poltroons and the scapegraces, and the
people minus all excellencies, plus all
denominations, who gather men, women,
boys and girls by tens of thousands
every night in the lazaretto of the aver
age American theatre? 1t is estimated
haf tt,1p-p II