Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1889-07-06
NEW YORK DESERTED.
At Least 5000 Of its People are
Away Summering.

4
| PLENTY LEFT WHO ENJOY THEMsRLvEs-PAR-
VENUES IN THE PARKs-wAoNERrsM IN A CHI
NEsE THEArER-soMKTHISa ABOUT THE oRIES-
TAI THEsPIANs AND TWO WASHINGTON ACTORS.
Correspondence Of THE EVENING STAR.
| New York, July s.
| Eighty thousand New Workers. have left the
metropolis to spend the summer somewhere
else. These figures are the estimate OF the
| superintendent of the elevated railroads, who
keeps such good track of the changes in popu-
latlon in New York that he is perhaps the most
reliable census man in town. 1t is easy to see
that the swell portion Of New York's popula-
ton has vanished however, if one will take
the trouble to visit Central park and the drives
| that are in the suburbs to the north of the
park. Here at this season the well-to-do pie
beian takes his family out for an airing. The
| drives are crowded with hired vehicles every
| where. Rusty hveries and rustier plug hats
| distinguish the drivers. while the delighted
| and self-conscious passengers loll upon the
cushioned seats endeavoring to assume an air OF
ease and to impress the visitor from the
country with the assumption that he is gazing
upon the creme de la creme of Gotham society;
and the bride paths of the big park give a still
better show of the parvenues and their ways
Such Rosinantes in the way of saddle horses as
are utilized by the summer riders are wonder
full to behold. Some OF them have evidently
| done service part of the day attached to ex-
press wagons or vendors CARTS and the rest are
from livery stables way down town where the
call for saddle horses is seldom heard Once in
| while you run across German riding master
out with his dozen of faxen-haired pupils and
you notice that the horses have a gait peculiar
to the German riders-a kind of lope that would
run the value OF an American saddle horse
down to zero. This appearance of hired
horses, hired vehicles, and riding schools in
the park is peculiar to the summer season.
Just as long as the regular swells are in town
and are occupying the drives and paths in the
park the proportion of hired turnouts is as to
100, and the German riders are never seen. But
just as soon as the four hundred have betaken
themselves to seaside or mountains or Europe
out come the neither four thousand, and out
they stay until Jack Frost forces return of
heavy-swelldom.
Had heavy-swelldom been in town for the
past fortnight it certainly couldn't have helped
being pleased with the Chinese theatricals
which have been given by Chinese company
OF players for the past two weeks at the Wind
sor theater. If ever Simon-pure Magnetism
was exhibited in New York it was this week
and last at these performances. If were to
close my eyes / could swear was sitting in the
|
the great Wagner's music-dramas. And even
with my eyes wide open the illusion was
scarcely dispelled when saw the orchestra at
the back OF the stage-just like Wagner; when
l heard the very peculiar, tuneless music, all
kettledrums and tomtoms and blare-just like
wagner; when this music kept playing with
out moments pause through the entire per-
lormance-Wagner again; when l couldn't
understand word the players said-just like
the Wagner musicdramas; and when couldn't
hot nGn1
all the world just like the way they do it at the
Metropolitan. Why, it's Wagner all over again.
and really don't suppose Herr Seidl, who is
leading an orchestra through alleged "airs'
from Goetterdaemmerung" down at Coney
Island, has so much as put his nose in at the
windsor theater. l could even distinguish
evidences that each character had a lett motif
Just as they do in Wagner's music dramas YOU
know, and 1 am sure if handsome young Walter
Damrosch would take up these Chinese
"agnerltes and lecture about their
musics lett motifs, the hidden meanings in
some OF the crashings and smashings of TOM
toms, &c, just as he has lectured upon the
same features Of Magnetism for two years be-
fore our prominent fashionable ladies' that by
1891 we would have new Metropolitan opera
house with grand list of rich men for stock
holders and hackers, and that while the low
necked but hlgh-bred ladies were chattering in
the boxes these Chinese fellows would be
careenlng around the stage instead of the heavy
anu heavier IrauS VINO now QlSpOrt them
selves In persplrlng vigor during the German
opera season. Some of the most severe cases
OF Wagnermania among our leading aristocrats
have gone to Beyreuth to hear Wagner played
in its home. And just to think that they might
have saved their money and might have heard
the same thing, or something they couldn't
tell apart from it, right at their homes
| Whether Beyreuth or the bowery it is Wagner
or else the author of the Nibelungen trilogy is
base imposter who has stolen his lett motif
business from China
Through a well-known Chinese INTERPRETER.
who writes for the newspapers, had talk
with the leading actors of the Chinese theatre
cal company. 1t is genuine Chinese concern,
and plays at the Theater Tang wik, in Pekin.
| when IT is at home. 1t is now ION tour" as we
| say in this country, and has played before COM
| ing here in San Francisco. Portagd (Oregon),
| and Denver. Its tour will close here, and il
will rest for time while visits of pleasure are
paid to various parts of America. There are
no females In the troupe. female roles being
| assumed by male actors who are especially
trained for the purpose from their very child
hood. Tak-a-Wing, who plays leading female
parts and female Juveniles. is young man
| twenty years old, of remarkably graceful
| figure and really handsome face. He was
! chosen when only six years old to become a
| female lmpersonatOr on the Chinese STAGE and
was at once put under a course of training by
| which he learned to walk, talk, and gesticulate
| like a genuine Oriental lady. His feet were
| confined in small Shoes SO that they are now
| but little larger than those of the Chinese wo-
men have seen, and he has cultivated fall
setto voice with such success that his natural
voice is almost entirely lost. Tak-a-Wing is
the star OF the company, and draws 800 every
Saturday night. He says that he gets ''mash''
letters from New York laundrymen Just the
same genuine ''lady artists do in other
| countries, but he regrets that opportunities for
advertising enjoyed by American female stars
gauzy gowns are wholly denied to him. The
only other high-salaried member OF the COM
pany is the leading man, Moo-Sun-Gee, hand
some and gaudily- dressed young fellow, who is
probably the Kyrle Bellew or the Herbert
! Kelley Of Pekin, and who draws SIS a week
| The other actors receive from $40 to SIS a
week, and some of them have to do double
| duty-as musicians and Wallets for the big guns
| of the cast. One of them has to cook for the
whole company at the cid Joss house in Chat
| ham square, which they have made their head
| quarters, and the general utility man upon the
| stage is the chambermaid at the lodgings while
| there are comedians who fill in time as walters
! tragedians and heavy gentlemen who barber
| the rest OF the company. and old men and juve-
| niles who hustle around Mott street for the
| kind OF grub peculiarly grateful to the Chinese
palate. There was rather loud smell of opium
| in the company's apartments at the old loss
house when l called, and suspect that a large
portion of the time of the Oriental thespians is
spent In the pleasant pastme of hitting the pipe.
| -