The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-11-02

or the Jam, every button on coat, vest, ana
overcoat was torn of, my shirt was
wrecked, and felt as though l had been
through threshing machine. Those that
got into the hall first simply grabbed up
the first chairs they came to and carried
them where they pleased. Everybody else
did the same, and in five minutes all the
seats were disarranged, and the ushers were
helpless. Several hundred reserved seats
had been sold, and of course when the
owners dropped in, along toward O'Clock,
the seats were not to be found, aud there
was scarcely even standing room. They
ragged and swore, and the crowd got madden
and mora disorderly all the time, and
bigger, too, for they kept pouring in until
O'Clock. AT that time there were more
people in the place than have ever been
present when an admission fee was charged
before or since, except an audience that
Patti had there once. l was helping the
ticket sellers out in the box office, and didn't
pay much attention to what was going on
inside. / heard a good deal of noise, and
people were making kicks about their seats
all the time but | supposed it was only the
ordinary confusion of a large crowd, lmpa-
tient for the show to begin. At last a
woman came to the box office and poked in
her ticket at me, saying she couldn't find
the seat | began to smooth it over She
looked at me kind of pitying like and said:
Look here, mister, you're a stranger in
Chicago, amt youm
Il admitted that was.
"'Well now, the best thing you can do
is to get right out of here as quick as you
can. The crowd is mad, and if you don't
skip out they'll kill you. You just take my
advice and skip before they get after YOU
''She was plainly enough in earnest, aud
as the disorder seemed TO be rather on the
increase l took her at her word. We
hustled all the money into a soap box
there was about s., 700-and slipped out of
the side door and got a cab. ] took the
money around to the Palmer house and
locked it up in my room. Then | strolled
back to the hail. but | didn't hang around
there much, although nobody seemed to
recognize me. Miss Fay had had pluck
enough to try to start her entertain
ment, although at least 200 people
had crowded up on the stage and were
gathered all about the cabinet. 1t was no
use, however, trying to fool an audience
with a temper like that one had She gave
it up before long, and, making a little
speech, said that she would retire until the
audience was ready to behave itself like a
collection of ladies and gentlemen, and
then she would 60 on with the performance.
She had no more than left the stage before
the crowd bounced on the cabinet. They
tore it to pieces in less than a minute and
broke up all her other paraphernalia. OF
course they didn't find out anything. Her
apparatus was too cleverly gotten up.
Twenty policemen couldn't keep that crowd
in order, and finally they cleared the hall.
I'VE divided the receipts half and half,
and Miss Fay and her husband and friends
left one way, while l skipped out in the
other direction. Nobody IN Chicago knew
who was the responsible man, and haven't
taken any trouble to enlighten them, al
though there was nothing crooked about it.
10, hod bai-
had been contented to let it 60 on.
Miss Fay's latest mishap, and about
the only one that has ever amounted
to much, was last year at Hudders-
field, England. Business was getting
dull and she had to get up some
new attraction, so she advertised that she
would float in mid-air from the stage to the
gallery, distance of slxty-fve feet, over
the heads of the audience. This brought out
a big house. When all was ready the lights
were turned down, and it was announced
that the floating was to begin. A lot of fell
lows had smuggled long pole with hook
on the end into the hall during the day,
and, at given signal they struck matches
and one of them sawed the pole about in the
air over the heads of the audience. Pretty
soon the hook caught on a wire that ran
from the stage to the gallery and hauled
down white silk bag, inflated to look
little like a woman. Meantime two other
men who had concealed themselves in a
staircase leading from the stage to the gal
lery, and not open to the public, had caught
Miss Fay being carried in the arms of her
husband up to the gallery to be able to APP
pear there when the lights were turned on.
There was a big sensation. Miss Fay went
back to the stage and explained that this
preliminary act with the silk bag was
merely to test the faith of the audience, as
faith was absolutely essential to her own
safety in performing the feat. The audi
ence laughed at her, and the papers for the
next day or two were full of it. Neverthe-
less, the very next night, in town not
sixty miles from Huddersfeld, she had a
big house. She abandoned the floating in
the air trick, however, and has never at
tempted it since.
"There isn't any such thing as spiritual
ism; it's a humbug and fraud from begin
ming to end. One of the most pathetic little
things | ever heard was the story Maggie
Fox told me herself of the way she used to
try to believe In it when she was first being
put up by her elder sister to give the maui
festations. She tells how she went to her
mothers grave alone in the middle of the
night and stayed there for hours trying to
get some sign from the spirit world, but
never then or any other time got a single
rap except those that she made herself with
her big toe."
FORGOT HIS CERTIFICATE.