Morning journal and courier., 1884-11-08

American Politics ssGallopho- bes.ss
 PARIS, Oct. 3. To the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER.
 Dear me, am really shocked. I suppose
 ought to pack my gripsack right away, and hurry back to some cline where the moral atmosphere is less noxious An innocent little creature who wants to escape Q blight that will be fatal to his innocency has no place in the gay French capital Seriously,
 I supposed there was at least thin vineer-
 ing of responsibility in Paris. I had fancied that the stories of Parisian fast life had been put forth, perhaps a little exaggerated, by those who voluntarily yielded to the magnet ism of fast living, and hunted out those things which are to be uncovered in any city You know we usually find what VIC look for in this world. But no; the truth has been understated. A sensitive person almost feels guilty when he has looked into the shop
 windows, gazed at the questionable pictures, and conned the audacious titles of the books Nowhere is this low ebb of morality more patent than in the shop-windows along the Rue de Rivoh facing the Tuileries-the Eng ! fish quarter, where one seeks English signs almost exclusively. Although the stores are kept by Frenchmen, French inscriptions are \ in the minority. I am sure there are & good [ many American husbands who would insist | that their wives forfeit vision of all the 1 glorious fabrics and Parisian souvenirs there 1 exposed for sale, rather than permit them to ' gaze and read indiscriminately.
 Oh art, how many improprieties are perpe- 2 tad | for the covering of multitude of sins!
 The utter death of reverence is illustrated | by one little example. Many of the stores l now have on sale pictures of Christ with | closed eyes, with legends underneath setting | forth that you have only to look at the tace l steadily for few moments in order to see ! Christ wink Perhaps you can think of some I excuse for taking the divine face in order tc \ illustrate optical il1usion-I can't.
 I Crime seems to assume such colossal pro I portions here. You know they gave mon ster fete two Sundays ago in the Tuileries ir ! the interest of the cholera sufferers. The | payers naively observed the next morning | that the financial success of the fete was I slightly impaired owing to the fact that 8 I few over 112, 900 counterfeit tickets were taken in at the gate And that will be the ! end of it, no doubt Gay and brilliant as is Paris by gaslght, one can hardly go any where without encounteTing open solicita- tions to enter all manner of low and gilded dens. But particulars on that subject waive to the province of the ''Guides for the Night Prowlers" which are to be had so plentiful ! ly in English at the most elegant bookstores and not on the back shelves either
 l suppose Sarah Bernhardt is fair type of the ripest French civilization. went to see her act Lady Macbeth the other night Of ! course you have read plenty of learned dis ! quisitions touching her success as estimated 1 by the fraternity of infallible critics, and l shall attempt nothing of the sort My long exile from the pale of English and American reviews has kept me from learning what the general impression is. But there are not a few matters of interest to us of the great common herd which the critics never say ! anything about, but to which I wish to refer | In the first place had no idea that Sarah's \ ostraeism from the national theaters since l the day when she decided to become 6 his \ trionic tramp had driven her to such inferior quarters here. She is acting now-or was \ last week in her final performances of Lady Macbeth-at the Theater de la Porte Saint | Martin. This house of amusement cannot possibly be construed a first-class theater.
 It is old and dingy in appearance, poorly ar | ranged, meagrely equipped, and perfect death trap. Next door to it is the Renais- 1 sanee, another only tolerably good theater, thus making the danger from fire exhilarat- ! ing. Indeed, both theaters have been burned ! within decade and half The Porte St. Martin provides 800 seats, however and is therefore capable of containing a good deal I of money. During the day in question I had ! come to the box-of6ce, but the crowd of I ticket speculators kept me at bay. In the evening I wandered over to the theater, ! secured ticket after long waiting at the | tail end of half-a-blockIong procession and entered the third, balcony. It argues the continued power of the notorious Sarah as a theatrical magnet here in her own city, when one has to put up with the upper part of the | house in order to see her, and then fight his way to his seat I found the parte1re and ! four galleries crowded, although it was still I so early: It was not such an audience as the | most ambitious actress ought to desire, though | that was not Sarah's fault perhaps. The \ trouble was with the top galley, which was | fringed with a set of theater fends such as ] ] have rarely encountered elsewhere. They whistled for the curtain to rise ruined every ! fine passage by noisy cheering and were odi- ously generous with their applause every time the tragic divinity came upon the stage. Then too, the abominable vendors of fresh water and lemonade created indescribable pandemonium during the entire acts.
 ! Of course the bulk of the audience was fashionable and reserved, and could the house have been decapitated all would have been well on this score. There were other draw backs, however. It was warm eve ming, and the myriad gas jets created an at mosphere in which we fairly boiled and par boiled. The curtains were frowsy, and the scenery tawdry in the extreme. This was to be expected, inasmuch as the Porte St. Mar tin is a theater dedicated regularly to vau- deville and fairy extravaganza. The be- tween acts curtain was daubed with adver- tisements from top to bottom, so that while waiting for the representation of the immor- tai bards inspired drama we could learn where were the best places to buy furniture corsets, hair dyes, blood-purifers and American candles. Altogether, could not help thinking that the management must be economizing in eve " possible way so as to make these mort gagged performances pay.
 The stage manager thumped on the fool with sledge-hammer, according to the dis agreeable French custom, and the curtain rose on the first witch scene. The transla- tion was by Jean Richepin and materially altered the nature of the play. There was 6 \ melodramatic flavor about it that gave inf nite satisfaction to the fourth gallery. The ! their scenes, making their passages farcical | instead of weild. Their disappearance I through the floor, together with the boiling | caldron about which they had been dancing | was neatly executed, and scarcely before they | were invisible Macbeth stood on the spot ! whence they had vanished Otherwise tht company was good one, the Macbeth M ! Marais) proving himself sterling actor I The banquet scene was very telling, and be ! ing much longer than the sleep-walkins
 scene aroused the most enthusiasm. A req
 Banquo, blood-bespattered and ghastly, ros
 through the seat of the vacant chair, illu
 mined with corona from calcium ligh
 above. The effect was electrical upon tn
 audience and Monsieur Marais seized the op
 portunity to do some most powerful acting
 But course curiosity centered in the les
 conspicuous role of Lady Macbeth, as as
 sumed by the fragile Sarah.
 l Of course Mme. Bernhardt labored agains
 great physical odds when she, so petite
 creature, sought to personate such positiv
 and aggressive character. She had also
 forget all about the totally foreign method
 of French emotional acting, and merge hel
 self into the stateliness of English tragedy
 It would have been against nature for her
 have attained pre-eminence in this new iel
 in the face of such obstacles; but no on
 could have failed to see in her performance
 the clements of histrionic greatness. Whil
 she struggled almost too violently to dom
 nate in her domestic relations with the her
 pecked Macbeth (and she was made to abus
 him without stint by M. Richepin,) she prt
 sided at the banquet with supreme grace, an
 l writhed and shrieked and shuddered marve ously well in the somnambulistic scene