Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-10-30
THE TEXAS THEATER.
Amazingly Pretty Girls and Plenty
of Interesting Features.
TIE PLAY LASTS UNTIL MORNING.
Williams Who Are Really Heavy, and Very
Busy PrOmpter.
BIG DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE SEXES

make the statement that there were crowded
into the queer little barn-hke theater, or
teatro, of this town last night more pretty
women than any theater in New York ever
held at one time, writes the San Diego,
Eek, correspondent of the New York Sun
The reason for this was that nearly every
girl IN the town was there, and there are
nineteen pretty girls in this place to every
plain ore. There are cities a-plenty in the
country which boast of their pretty girls
it would be a poor city that didn't-but, to
nv knowledge, none has so good claim to
leadership in this regard as little old San
Diego, on the line of the Mexican National
Railroad. about 80 miles southwest of Cor
pus Christi.
What peculiar climatic or other condition
exists to cause this most charming state OF
things l cannot say; hut certain ii is that
all the girls here are as lovely as they can
be, and all them are-well, just plain,
ordinary. everyday men, with nothing
about them 10 distinguish them from other
Texans. Mexican senoritas with hais as
black as night and dark, beautiful eyes
triuged with tangle of long lashes: with
rich olive compilations, red lips, and gleam-
ing white, even teeth: with delicately
chiseled features and full, shapely throats,
were there by the score And here and
there in the audience which filled the the
ater were Texas girls. born of sturdy Amer
lean parents who had come here when this
frontier was full of danger and excitement,
and who had toiled and fought to establish
and maintain their homes. These girls were
all. without exception, pretty, and to the
.s.f ha
who has lived ALWAYS the free life of the
Texas plains. was added the subtle, deli
cate air Of coquetrv which everywhere dis
lincuishes the women of Spanish descent,
and which the Texas girls had taken on
through constant association with their
Mexican sisters
NOT ENACTLN FASHION PLATES.
To he sure they were not clad in gowns
cut according TO the latesS caprice of Paris
ian modistes, nor would their coifures
have been pronounced correct by Fifth
avenue hair architects bug they wore won
dcriully becoming dresses of simple white,
thin material. and, for the most part, their
hair was brushed smoothly back over their
shapely heads, la Mexicana, with here
and there Texas lily cleaning like star
in their tresses. And-note this, We maids
and matrons of Gotham-not a woman in
came there with fleecy nubias or lace
sarapas arranged gracefully on their heads,
aud these they removed upon their entrance.
SO far as the women were concerned, they
were, without exception, in full opera
toilets On grand nights at the Metropoli-
tan Opera House one will always see many
women wearing bonnets or hats, and to the
aesthetic eye they appear almost as much
out of place as a tweed business suit would
L. IL - L. c..
little rough-boarded theater there was moth
ing of the kind to shock the eye.
In that marvellous collection of pretty
girls there were three or four who stood
out from all the others in the perfection of
their charms as so many iacqueminot roses
in a bouquet of old-fashioned garden flowers.
These three or four girls were more than
prettv-they were all Mexicans-they were
beautiful They had that wonderful, pure,
Madonna-like beauty which Northern eyes
never see save in pictures of the Santa
Maria painted by the old masters. Any
one of the senoritas of whom l am speak
ing would have made a perfect model for
paintings of the idealized Madonna of the
ancient Italian or Spanish schools. Murillo
probably used their great, great, great
grandmothsrs for his creations of the Holy
Mother.
A RADICAL DIFFERENCE
Bah! The pen with which have described
in a poor, weak way the charms bf the sweet
girls who thronged that little teatro last
night splutters the ink and iabs holes in the
paper as 1 turn its use to telling of the men
who escorted them thither. With a few
notable exceptions they were of the hair
slicked-down-on-th n-the-forehead. awkward-in-
store-clothes order of mankind, and most of
them did not have on white shirts They
were rough, good natured, capital fellows,
but they were not of the kind that one cared
10 see as escorts to those beautiful girls. 1t
was like a hod carrier with bunch of wood
violets in his buttonhole. One would have
wished to have the senoritas surrounded by
caballeros of the days of chivalry, by
naughty dons with courtly airs and fierce
mustachios, by slender youths with silken
nose and ribDon-hung mandolins But,
then, probably the senoritas were satisfied
with the store-clothed young men with slick
semi-circles of hair on their foreheads, even
if they were not exactly picturesque.
The teatro. for such the barn-like struc-
ture is generally called in this two-thirds
Mexican town, belongs to Mr.. Solomon
Levy, and he lets it out to travelling COM
panies for SO night, exclusive of lights.
The light is furnished by kerosene lamps
and lanterns hung in various parts of the
teatro. For the footlights six lamps do
duty, ard the fly and wing lights are rail-
road lanterns hung in plain view of the
audience The hall will seat about 500,
with standing room for perhaps 100 more.
On one of the posts which helped to support
the bare roof rafters was hung the sigE,
mo Sc fumar" This was quite a necessary
pTecaution in this cigarette-pufing
community, for the means for ven
tilation in the teatro are by no means ade-
quate The walls were decorated in spots
with American, Mexican and British flags,
although why the latter should have been
chosen no one could tell. The stage was
very small, and the drop curtain consisted
of strips of white muslin sewed together.
In the aisles and between the front row of
seats-ordinary wooden chairs-and the
stage, were very many dogs of various
breeds, from long g-pedigreed pointers to .rel-
low Mexican ours. There were numbers of
babies and small children at the teatro, too,
snd toward the close of the entertainment
il lasted until 1:30 A. M-some of the little
children lay on the floor asleep, with their
heads resting on the bodies of their friends,
the doing dogs.
SOLITARY SCENE
The company appeared in the very dole
full and terrible tragedy, la Fornarina' -
II was quite remarkable tragedy as pre-
sented in Solomon Levy's teatro last night ]
The scenic effects and the costumes were
like nothing ever seen on metropolitan
stage There was one scene which did duty
for garden, an ancestral hall, boudoir
and dungeon cell The only changes in it
were made by different arrangements of the
chairs and tables, and by the introduction
in the ancestral hall act of an easel with a
picture on it. The picture was supposed to
be that of E. Marquis, who had died in a