The Arkansaw traveler., 1888-03-10
ro-DAY.s HUMAN NATURE.

dOWarO, the IamOus cOrrespOnuenC, writing from New York to the Bos- ton Globe, says:
 There is a great deal of human na- ture in people.
 Some writers are inclined to think that there is more of it to-day than in earlier years, but my judgment is that all growths are more apparent than real. It is customary for clergymen to inveigh against the times in which we live because there is "so much more crime than there used to be-" It is said that eloping is more frequent, that defaulters are more numerous, that accidents attributable to careless ness are more common. Well, now, in the first place, the population of the globe has increased very largely, so that there would naturally be more defaulters, more accidents, more elopements, but is there a greater proportion, that is the question, to- day than in other times? When there were four persons in the garden of Eden, there was one murder, and, judged from 8 strictly scriptural point of view, when there were two persons there was one naughty girl, and it would be pretty tough if in these days every fourth individual was a murderer, and tougher yet if half the population were given to practices that could not be tolerated, forgiven or condoned. A fair expla- nation of the apparent growth, the apparent increase, is found, therefore, first, in the vastly greater number of people living, and second in the gos- sipy tendency of the press, whose rise, progress and present status are some- thing phenomenal from whatever point of view you regard them to spread abroad evil tidings.
 What is it?
 Is it. because men and women love to read stories of misdeeds? Do they like to think themselves holier than others? Is there some subtitle charm about wickedness? Is it & fact that women court the attentions of bad men, and men pay homage at the shrine of fallen women?
 What Is it that best draws crowds to our theatres?
 Long years ago melodrama and tragedy shared popular favor with farce and low comedy. Ten years ago what was styled the adulterous drama, the French school of comedy, divided popular approval with un- draped burlesque. To-day comic op- eras of the "Erminie" type,and farcical operettas of the "Adonis" class, and silly frivolities like the "Tin Soldier" and "Bunch of Keys" contest with society dramas such as "Jim, the Pen- man" and "Henrietta" for supremacy.
 It is impossible to discuss the ques- tion of Shakespearean revivals, because there is no such thing.
 Booth and Barrett draw crowded houses to see them in Hamlet" and "Julius Cesar" but so they would draw an equal crowd, and I don't know but greater one, to see them in any other type of play. The peo- pie go to see Booth they don't go to see Hamlet. The crowds go to see Booth and Barrett, they don't go to see Julius Cesar and if they did go to see them they would not find them, because Booth and Barrett give neither one nor the other. We have the charming spectacle in New York of the best tarce- playing in the world. MT. Daly's, put without the faintest regard to mental, physical or profess sional excellence into a cast of the most significant proportions, drawn from the fertile brain of the great master, and people crowd the theatre, not to see Shakespeare, but to see Daly's admirable company of artists miscast, vainly struggling against their own sense of what is fit and proper, but putting money into the coffers all the same.
 The crowds seem to enjoy plays in which foibles of human nature are exploited.
 Hence newspaper reports.
 It was my good fortune few nights since to be guest at public dinner where some three or four hundred men of affairs were gathered, and in alluding to the nonsense, the fiippan- cies, the indelicacies and the extraor- dinary social announcements in the daily press, took occasion to attrib- ute the subserviency of newspapers to the itch which people in society have for seeing themselves and their affairs made conspicuous and public and mo- torious. There can be no doubt about it; the fountain can never go higher than it's source, and ii public taste is depraved, if the body polite itches in certain point, the scratch will be furnished. The duke of Argyle un- derstood his business. When in Scot land, where everybody breakfasted, dined and supped on oatmeal, until universal itch spread throughout the kingdom, he erected here and there scratching posts, against which the