The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-05-24

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add these last and rub the whole together
on paper.
To use mix little spirits of wine with
the powder and burn in a dat iron plate or
pan. The effect is excellent on the picture.
Suiphate of copper when dissolved in
water will give beautiful blue. The COM
mon red cabbage gives three colors. Slice
the cabbage and pour boiling water on it.
When cold, add small quantity of alum,
and you have purple. Potash dissolved in
the water will give q brilliant green. A
few drops of muriatic acid will turn the
cabbage water into crimson. These put in
globes with candle behind will throw the
light on the picture.
Again if CHASTITY look be required and
ghost scene be in order. mix common
salt with spirits of wine in metal cup.
and set II upon wire frame over spirit
lamp. When the cup becomes heated, and
the spirits of wine ignites, the other lights
IN the room should be extinguished and
that of the spirit lamp hidden from the
observer. The result will become like the
witches in Macbeth
THAT look not like the inhabitants of
the earth but yet are of it,
The burning of common salt produces
very wierd effect. 1t seems that salt has
some other properties than the conserva-
tive, preserving, hospItable kind OF quality
which legend and the daily needs of man
kind have ascribed to it.
A very pretty effect for Christmas eve
may be made by throwing these lights on
the highly decorated tree
To return for a moment TO the first use
of the stage, the play. 1t is a curious
thing to see the plays which amateurs do
well. The Rivals" is one of these, and
so is "Everybody's Friend" THE Follies
of Night" plays itself, and "The Happy
Pair" goes very we'll. "A Regular Fix"
one Of sothern's plays; the Liar" in
which poor Lester Wailack played, and
"Woodcock's Little Came are all excel
lent.
Cheap and unsophisticated theatricals
such as schoolboys and girls can get up in
the garnet or the basement are those
which give the most pleasure. But so
strong is the underlying love of drama
that youth and maid will attempt hard
and sometimes discouraging work even in
cities where the professional work is so
very much better.
The private amateur play should study
to be accurate as to costume. No pink
satin Marie Antoinette slippers with a
Greek dress. Classic sandels are easily
made.
1t is an admirable practice to get up a
play in French. 1t helps so TO conquer
the deticatesse of the language.
The French repertoire is very rich in
very easily acted plays which any French
teacher can recommend.
Imitation negro Ministries are funny and
apt to be better than the original. A funny
man, mimic, one who can talk In various
dialects, is precious boon to the amateur.
Many of Dion Bouccicault's Irish charac-
tiers can be admirably initiated.
But in this connection, why not call in
the transcendent attraction of music?
Now that we have lady orchestras, why
not have them on the stage, or have them
play occasional music between the acts. or
while the tableaux are on? 1t adds a
great charm.
The family circle, where the brothers
learned the key bugle and cornet. from
bone and violonceilo, and the sisters the
piano and harp, is to be envied. What
blessing in the family is the man who can
sing comic songs, and who does not sing
them too often.
small operetta is often very nicely
done by amateurs. Would that Sir Arthur
would write another Pinafore, but alas!
there was never but one.
Tableaux vivants are very favorlte
amusement. They are easily gotten up at
the end of a long parlor, requiring nothing
but movable stage, raised three or four
feet from the floor, with curtains of green
baize for background and draw curtain
to go UP and down. A row of common
lamps is placed in front for footlights, and
the llSHLS can Dt bUTOWH iIOlu DtuiUu.
AS to dresses it is the easiest thing possible
to invent them from the cheapest cretonne
or the most cottony of velvets. The house
hould will furnish discarded curtains, and
odd old dresses, which clever girl will
instantly find use for. The getting up of
the tableaux will occupy rainy week to
great advantage.
Private theatricals will call for more
brain, but there is nothing so remunera-
tive if well done.
A clever woman to manage them is all
that is required at the start. Some one
who will select the heavy father. the light
and CAV hero, the stately heroine, the sing
ing chambermaid. the delightful subrette
of the French stage, the humorist, the
Irish or Yorkshire or Yankee character as
desired Some people are born with dra-
matte instinct; It is great boon. Others
have it not.
These last must be reserved for the
tableaux.
A private theater is great addition to a
large country house, and it can be done
so cheaply and well by a modern archi-
tect, used as ballroom on off evenings,
and perhaps library, DINING room or
any other gathering. that it is wonder it
has not been thought of more frequently.
And nothing can be more improving to
young people than to study up play.
Observe the faces of the Oberammergau
peasants their intellectual and happy
faces, Uniformed with thought" and con-
trast them with the faces of the German
and Bavarian peasants about them. Their
old pastor, Deisenberg, by training them
in poetry and defamation, by founding
his we'll written play on their old tradi-
ton. by giving them this highly improv-
ing recreation for their otherwise starved
lives. made another set of human beings
of them They have a motive in life be-
sides the mere gathering in of livelihood.
So it would be in any country neighbor-
hood. however rustic and remote, if some
bright woman would assemble the young
people at her country house and train
them to read and recite, lifting their young
souls above vulgar gossip, and helping
them to understand the older dramatists,
and even attempt Shakespeare. Funny
plays might be thrown in to en-
iiven the scene, but there should
be a good deal of earnest work incul-
Gated as well. Music, that most d.
vine OF all the arts, should be assidu-
ously cultivated. All the Oberammergau
school masters must be musicians, and all
the peasants learn how to sing. What a
good thing it would be if our district
School teachers would learn how to teach
their scholars part songl
When the art of entertaining has reached
its aporheosis we feel certain that we can
have this influence emanating from every
opuIent country house, and that there will
be no more com plant of dizziness.
NJ. E. w. SHERWOOD.