St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1888-06-03
THE CYCLONES REVENGE
And the Lightning Rod Mans
Death---A Sensational Plot,

The drama has not received the atten-
ton from the cultured people of Mime
apOliS that it deserves as branch of lit
erary study, but there are few thinking
minds who have been weaving the web
upon which are strung the situations
that go to make up what is com
monty called plot. u. Paragraph
Weadon has written the purple Cod
spectacular melodrama in which the
leading characters are a fountain of
GlenwoOd water and real locomotive
with the new radical valve gear attach
ment which gives speed of ninety
miles an hour. Otis l.. Colburn, the
managing editor and proof reader of the
News-Gossip, has written play, but is
as yet uncertain whether to call it
comedy or tragedy. 1t has for a hero a
young man who has become insane
and labOrS under the hallucination
that he is humorist, and love affair
with red-headed girl who works in a
Washington avenue laundry furnishes
the groundwork for the story There is
detective who has been employed by
the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty
to Animals to ferret out the identity of
the humorist so he can be suppressed.
The characters of the piece all
met by accident and moonlight
in Riverside park, where the
10 NY llle uGUGC-
tive through a clew he accidentally
gives by stopping street car to ask the
driver when door is not door. The
last act has not yet been written and
the fate OF the humOriSt is uncertain,
but the authors intention is to con-
denim him to write encyclopedia edi-
torials for the Tribune until the paper
changes hands again. The latest in
dication OF the progress of the
drama in Minneapolis, however, is a
literary gem received yesterday by Ed
win Barbour, the actor. The author
signs only the calabalistic letter C.
and no cipher has yet been discovered
that reveals his name, but it is apparent
that he is a dramatic writer by instinct
who needs but the knowledge of the
technique of the stage to enable him to
rival Dion BOucicault as playWriter.
The communication, in which he has
JOtted down for the benefit of the actor
the main points of plot he has in mind,
IS given verbatim.
Edwin Barbour. Dear Sir: Thinking
that you were at leisure and could spare
few moments, l write you few per
haps foolish thoughts that l can't write,
so | thought would give them to you
to work. Here is the plot as | heW it.
CHARACTERS.
Old Farmer.
Pretty Daughter (song).
Mother
Hired Man, in love with Daughter.
Darky Song.
Neighbor.
Neighbours Daughter.
Lightning Rod Agent, villain.
Scene-Farm house, exterior. Enter |
farmer; pigs i'll the cabbage: daughter |
calls hired man to breakfast; neighbor |
comes to borrow monkey wrench: says |
stranger lightning rod MANI at his |
house: broke wagon; says he can't |
afford to have them on his house: the
farmer is afraid of lightning and says
he has some $500 LAID up, and he guesses
he will have some on his house. Light
ming rod man arrives, talks farmer into
it: gets note for $500: makes it $4,000:
gets stuck on the daughter; in time
wants her for wife: tells her that her
father is a bankrupt and going to take
her with him; son enters, ticks light
ming rod man: neighbours daughter
comes over: her pony is lame; wants |
daughter to take her to the depot: thew
go; lightning rod man follows them:
after neighbours daughter leaves light
ming rod man comes; abducts daughter;
gone two days; hired man and darky
follows them: get daughter; lightning
rod man hides in the woods; cyclone
comes; wounds lightning rod man:
makes confession and dies; all happy.
There it is as | have thought it out.
Perhaps it is dam foolish thing to do,
but don't care. So goodbye. Yours,
etc. c..