The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-03-12
MISS MARRYATs Low CoRsAGE.
The Lady Ill and Her Contract Broken Be-
cause She Didn't Wear Enough Clothes.

Ah0 Lazy Ill ana Her Contract Broken BE-
cause She Didn't Wear Enough Clothes.
New York Special
Miss Florence Marryat, the English novelist,
Is Ill In town with acute bronchitis She got the
disease while on tour through this country.
The melting cold was the result, so her manager
says of wearing low-necked dress; and that
same article of apparel was the cause OF q
breakage of contract between the two parties
In her country, Miss Marryat gives entertain
mentS of a literary and musical character. She
engaged with the Redpath Lecture Bureau to do
the same thing in the United States. The terms
OF the agreement were that George IL. Hatha-
way, the manager of the Redpath agency, should
hire her to travel for twelve weeks over a route
to be made out by him, and to include not less
than fifty deliveries of her monologue.F She be-
gan about the middle of November. She says
that some of her experienced friends, including
DOyley Carte, Howard Paul and Oscar Wilde,
all of whom had made money as amusers in
America, advised her to bring fine ward
robe as she could afford; and, therefore, she in
vested in an exceptionally beautiful and costly
dress. It was an evening gown" as she ex-
presses it, and suitable for call or reception
toilet-that is to say, the bodice was as low as
fashion permits for such occasions She admits
that she counted on exciting admiration for her
raiment, whatever the audience might think OF
her entertainment But when Hathaway took
her to Portland, Me-, for her Yankee debut, he
at once predicted that she would be disliked in
such garb by the kind of audiences before
whom She was to perform during her tour.
Portland may stand it, he said to her, for
that is pretty big city, but when you come to
present yourself before rural lyceums in deeol-
cite costume. there will be shock and displeas-
ure. Your audience will be composed mainly
of people who never went into theater in their
lives, who never saw gathering of ladies in
evening dress of the sort, and who will regard
the sight as extremely wicked"
Miss Marryat had worn similar dresses In
England, and she could see no possible impro-
priety in them on the platform. She would
neither abolish her gown nor modify its style in
the least. When reminded that she ought to do
as others did who lecture in this country as to
dress, she replied: III am not of the same blood
as the majority. / have been reared as a gentle
woman and l shall be treated as one, never
fear" She now admits that she was mistaken
as to that, though she and Hathaway differ in
their accounts of her experience She declares
that he sent her to amuse uneultured hordes, in
stead of managing to present her to the larger
cities On the other side, it is asserted that
she was sadly ridiculed by the astonished as
semblages, whenever their staid character
permitted them to do anything demonstrative
of their disapproval There are stories of in
suits by calculating fellows and gigging girls in
some of the Pennsylvania towns in which she
wore the unsuitable dress; of similar reeep-
tons through Ohio, and of the cruel refusals of
janitors to heat the halls sufficiently to keep her
from getting chilled Hathaway demonstrated,
but the lady was obdurate. He refused to con-
as to almost entirely lose her voice, and the tour
included only thirty seven of the proposed en-
tertainments. The trouble, which is likely to
be adjusted in court, is over the question wheth-
er she sought to be paid for the stipulated num-
Der. She has SO much advantage as lies in the
possession of the money, for she was empowered
to collect the payments from the Lyceum com
| mittees as she went, and those fully cover the
amount which would have been due her under
fulfllment of the whole contract. Hathaway
retained
headquarters being in BOSTON, His claim will
be that in refusing to clothe herself in accord
ance with the usage of woman lecturers in this
country, she failed to do her best to give salts
faction, and thereby also needlessly incapacitat-
| ed herself by exposure in cold halls Miss
Marryat shows the dress in proof that it is no
| lower In corsage than is common at balls, din
rers and the opera in this city. 1t has been be-
| draggled somewhat by contact with the unclean-
| ly floors and walls of country stages and dress
| ingrooms, but in shape and style certainly does
accord with what New York society" women
| wear in public.