Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-04-07
AN IMMORAL. STAGE.
Three Noted Divines Talk on the In
fuence Of the Theater.
TALMAGE SCORES THE SHOW BILLS
DR.. Cuyler Thinks the Dramas Fascina-
tiOn is UnWhOlesome.
HOWARD CROSBY ATTACKS THE BALLET
WRITTEN FOR THE p1sPArcH.I

WRITTEN FOR THE pISPATCH.1
You ask me about theaters. Ihave been
many times in theaters during the last ten
years, but only to preach and lecture. 1
never was more than three times in thea
ter to witness a play, and that was when
about19 years of age. I am told the thea
ter is nightly improved, and that now it is
very useful institution. will not in this
article make wholesale attack upon TRACE
dians and comedians. There are 100
questions in regard to the theater that
might be asked, which shall not answer
now, the most Of them having been an
swered at some other time. You say that
Henry Irving and Edwin Booth and Joseph
Jefferson are great actors and honorable
men. believe it.
The question that want to discuss is:
care the theaters advancing in high moral
toner" There are three or four reasons for
answering this question in the negative.
And the first is the combined and universal
testimony of all the secular newspapers of
the land that are worth anything. There is
not any secular newspaper of any power in
the United States which has not within the
past few years, both in the editorial and
reportorial column, reprehended the styles
of spectacular most frequent. 1t is con-
qrary to the financial interests of the secular
newspapers to criticise the playhouse, be-
cause from it comes the largest patronage,
larger than that from, any other source,
thousands and tens of thousands of dollars
a year. When, therefore, the secular news
papers of the land, contrary to their fnan-
cial interests, severely criticise the play
house for imbecile and impure drama, their
testimony is to me conclusive.
IN THE NEGATIVE.
On the negative side of this question I
roll up all the respectable printing presses
this question in the negative is the de-
PRAYED advertisements on the board fences
and in the show windows from ocean to
ocean. I take it tor granted that those ad-
vertisements are honest, and that night by
night are depicted scenes there advertised.
Are those the scenes to which parents take
their sons and daughters, and young men
their afianced? Would you allow in your
parlor such brazen indecency enacted as is
produced every night in some of the thea
tiers of America unless their advertisements
are a libel? If the pictures are genuine the
scenes are damnable. That which is wrong
in a parlor is wrong on stage. 1t
ought to require just as much completeness
of apparel to be honorable in one place as to
be honorable in another. If fathers and
mothers accustom their sons and daughters
to such lack of robe, and then in after time
the plow-share of libertinism and profigacy
should go through their own household,
they will get what they deserve. 1t seems
as il, having obtained q surplus of sanctitY
during the Lenten services right after
Easter, all through the United States, the
streets become picture gallery which
rivals the museums of Pompeii, which are
kept under lock and key. Where are the
mayors of the cities and the judges of the
courts and the police, that they allow such
things?
declare what every man and woman
knows to be true. When our cities are
blotched with these depraved advertise
ments, is there not some reason why we
should think that the thesters of this coun-
try are not very rapidly advancing toward
millennial excellence?
T. DEWITT TALMAGE,