Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1886-03-11


time ago committee of ladies of the
Congregational church society engaged
the Meigs Undcrnill combination,
through their manager, Mr.. Chas. f.
Underhill, to give an entertainment at
the Congregational church in this city,
on Friday evening, March 5. Mr.. I'm
derhill had also made engagements at
Galena, Platteville, and other places in
this section. About week before the
commencement of this series of enter
tainments, two of the sisters were affiic-
ted-One with throat trouble, and the
other with Iretis. 1t was thought that
their illness was temporary, and would
Tot conflict with the fulfillment of their
engagements, and in this belief Mr..
Underhill waited until the day before it
was necessary to start from New York
for the West. He was then informed
that the sisters would be unable to
accompany him. Now what was to be
done? He could telegraph and cancel
all his engagements; but he had had a
large amount of printing done for all
these places, their paper" was out in
every town, and in most of the places
considerable local advertising had been
done, and tickets had been sold. In
case he Cancelled, all parties
were considerably out of pocket, to
say nothing of the trouble and incon-
yenience of refunding the money for
tickets already sold After taking
counsel with men who had had large
experience as managers, he decided
that it would be proper, as he occupied
| fully one-half of the program himself,
to substitute some other quartette,
equally as good as the Meigs sisters,
/ for the other half-that il would be
preferable to breaking all the engage
ments. The Schubert Male Quartette,
of Chicago, was thought of, but as it
seemed that n ladies quartette was
what was wanted, the Courtney Ladies'
/ Quartette was engaged Now, Mr.
Underhill might have telegraphed to the
various places and asked if they would
accept the substitute; but he could not
/ explain the situation satisfactorily in q
/ telegram; there was scarcely time for
the various committees to decide and
get answers to him; some might accept
and others reject his proposition, and
the company could not afford to make
the trip at all unless they filed all the
/ engagements. He decided to 90 on
and explain the matter after he reached
the towns, letting it be known to as few
as possible until it was announced from
the stage that the Meigs sisters were
unable to be present and that the
/ Courtney Quartette would supply their
/ places, and trusting that all would be
satisfied with the substitution when
they heard them. That explains the
course pursued by Mr.. Underhill
/ Whether this was, under the circum-
stances, the proper thing to do, we will
not undertake to decide, but can easily
believe that he did what he thought
was best. He has too much at stake
while managing and at the same time
taking so prominent part in one of
the most successful entertainments in
the country, to willingly place himself
in wrong light before the public. His
situation was somewhat peculiar, and
when looked at from ''P 1T yourself in
his place standpoint. the question of
what was the proper thing to do is not
so easy to decide. Whether his action
can or can not be justified on moral or
business principles is of less personal
interest to anyone else than himself.
All we care to know is that he brought
most excellent quartette, gave us a
good entertainment, and the ladies
came ont $3.50 ahead.