Omaha daily bee., 1888-03-26

and not very wide. The one gallery Is
lined all around. from one side of the
stage to the other, with what are called
private boxes, maybe thirty or forty of
them. These boxes all front flush with
the face OF the gallery, and the effect is
at first a little curious. On the stage
they give the general run of variety
performances, and engage people who
make circuits. The seats on the floor
OF the house we're all full of men, drink
ing, smoking and listening TO the per-
formance. Some Of the jokes we're very
broad, but il didn't seem to me that
they were liked any better on that ac-
count. The proprietor of another large
variety theatre told me that he had
never permitted an improper word to
be spoken on his stage, and he had just
as many people in his place as there
we're in the other. Women move about
and take orders for drinks, and perhaps
chat with the drinker and drink with
him. Some OF the girls are pretty and
some are not, just like the waiter girls
we have seen in auy similar place. l
should say that the run OF the women
enjoy their work just about as the ordi-
nary run OF men and women enjoy
whatever they may respectively have to
do, but their lives must be shorter. You
may sit in n private box, il you wish,
and be waited on there, and pay three
or four times the regular price, and
think that you are seeing life.
In the theatre that is run on the great
North American plan of propriety in the
spoken word the proprietor is q tall,
eagle-faced, courteous man, who looks
abundantly able to enforce any
rule he might see fit to make. The
same long horseshoe line of private
boxes, the same crowd in the seats on
the floor, mattresses, with now and then
one in the costume of a courtier or some-
thing like, but nowhere anything to
beat the waiter girl business as it was
carried on in New YoalS some years
ago. The stage company here
was q small troupe of bur-
lesquers, by no means phenomenal
as actresses, but all pretty. After the
part some of them trooped along the
corridors back of the long rows of pri-
vate boxes. We encountered at the
head of the stairs leading from the up
stairs barroom to the one below a very
| round and pretty woman, in full tropi-
cal costume, chatting with an old man
| of seventy, who was tanning his spark
of life. The old mans vitality was not
overpowering, but his nerves were
| good. The young woman was blithe and
| merry, but seemingly born, and cer-
tainly existing now, without the slight
est sense of moral responsibility-just
| pecking what she could, anywhere,
from the dust heap of life. And that is
about the size of it with all those who
come to the town to make money out OF
the weaknesses of human nature, except
that of those who delve in
the dust heap, some go at
it deliberately with pick and
shovel, and don't care whose arms or
legs they cut off. The men in the dust
heap knew that they must keep out of
reach of the picks, or take the chances.
1t is much the same everywhere, | sup
| pose, for business is business the world
over, but in place like this business is
more conspicuous by reason of its pub
liclty. But, with all this, life and prop
erty are safe in Leadville. The more
orderly people of the community will
| have it so, and among the others the
transfer of money is speedy, certain,
and continuous enough to suit every
body. OF course the drunken man
would be expected to look out for him.
self here as everywhere else but should
infer. from a reading of three days is
sues of the HeraldDemocrat, the enter
prising journal of the town, that crimes
| of great violence are not more numerous
here than in other western cities of the
same size.