Southern standard. (McMinnville, Tenn.) 1879-current, 1889-02-23
The Entertainment (?) So Called, at
the @. r. College, Last Saturday
Night.

PIOCceu W pluck lOCk OF DdlT lTOlH
the scalp of one Of the most arrant
and arrogant frauds that ever victim
lied civilized and cultured COM
munity. Unless the press will come
to the rescue and protect the people,
we have no safeguard, and every
community populous enough to
tempt their cupidity and shameless
effrontery is at the mercy of all such
swindlerS and false pretenders as the
pusillanimous and peripatetic hum
bug who abused the confidence and
the patience of the people of McMinn-
vile, at the c, F. College last Satur-
day night. The culprit in the pres
ent instance, we hardly need say,was
one bearing the name and the ltoplof-
tical title of Professor G.. w. NJ.
Simms, Musical Artist and Elocu-
ZIONIST, and more polite, refined
and.appreciative audience never sat
in the presence OF a more egotistical
igHoramus and blatant blatherskite
than met together on the melancholy
occasion referred to; and now, Mr..
Editor, it does seem to us, the people,
to be the legitimate function, the un.
avoidable duty of the press to cruelty
him mercilessly, and without bene'
fit of clergy, to the end that our peck,
cts may not be rifled without redress
that the sacred name of literature and
art may not be desecrated to unholy
uses, and that crying nuisance, and
one that smells to Heaven, may bt
summarily abated.
30 that you might put into the hands o
every honest man whip,
To lash the rascals naked around tn,
world"
Certainly we have no purpose t
scrutiuize and criticise this perform
ance specifically, and in detail, be
cause the game would not be wortl
the candle, and the whole miserable
affair was absolutely beneath the dig
nifty of literary and artistic criticism
1t was indeed enough to make man
kind ashamed of his species. TIL
only thing about it that could be con
sidered in the least degree artist
was the complete harmony an,
equipoise of all its details in con
summate badness. Every compo
nent part and parcel of,it was eaui
sitely and equally bad and common
place, as compared with every othe
part of it, and it would hardly do
justice to compare it with anythin
except itself.
If any item of the medley program
should be thought worthy of specis
and superlative condemnation, pei
haps his recitation of 1.-THE Raven
might be elevated to that eminenct
Assuredly no man of his diminutiv
caliber could have any more conceE
ton of the pathetic beauty of thu
exquisite little poem than a pig Ia
about the science of navigation, br
if such an impossibility were think
able, then indeed his shrill, pipin
and unmusical voice, with the aid {
his puerile and ridiculous antics an
grimaces meant for expression, an
gestures, would disfigure it beyon
[ the possibility of recognition. If til
honored and lamented poet does M
rest uneasily in his bones while sue
dastardly travesties are perpetrate
on the immortal creations of h
weird fancy, surely our faith in h
final resurrection is greatly shaker
Some very competent critics, HOY
ever, declare 1t to be their opinio
that the "Stereopticon" exhibition
: entitled to the palm as having bee
9 the very worst of the whole perform
, ance, if indeed thing is entitled
: be called "Stereopticon," eve
by stretch lof courtesy, whic
: was, in fact, nothing more than II
D reflection from a tallow candle on
} dirty sheet--a sheet on which a t,
A phoid fever patient might have die
: after three weeks of illness. But "
decline to settle the presidency {
|, worthlessness between the differel
, acts of performance in which not
t ing would have been worthy the a
, tention of an audience of idiots.
We solemnly protest that we hay
: not condescended to criticize,as sucl
so worthless a performance, but OIL
only purpose has been to impale for
moment, on the point of our pen, TIL
graceless offender against the publ
taste, solely for the edification ar
/ warning Of other unsuspecting cor
r munities, who are equally liable
visitations of pestilential humbugs.