Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1892-03-24
ELOCUTION IN THE PARK.
A Jealous Theological Student Falls Into
the Hands of the Police.

the Hands of the Police.
The life of park policeman is so
destitute Of incident that it was nat
ural that one Of them should start
in surprise, one morning recently in
Central Park, when he heard a series
of unearthly sounds come from Sc
Guided thicket in ittle-freQuented
section of the great pleasure grounds.
The sounds were of kind which, if
heard in house at night, would have
at once stamped it as haunted. The
voice, or voices, were now raised in
anger, now dropped in love. At one
time the accents told of an Overmas-
tering hatred, at another they seemed
to speak of victory and joy; sarcasm
was now the keynote, then bitter in
vectiye or gentle pleading. The po-
liceman warily approached the fast
nesses whence the noises came, fully
convinced that he had a dangerous
duty to perform. He felt Of his re-
volver to make sure that it was all
right, and stole forward until he saw
whence the voice came.
In a little opening in the forest
stood a tall young man, in a long,
black frock coat. His black hair was
long and tossed in disorder. The
man had taken off his hat and over
coat and had thrown them on the
ground. He was all alone, but was
declaiming away, gesturing with his
long arms as if addressing a large
multitude. The policeman could at
first make neither head nor tail out
of the spectacle, but when he heard
what the lanky young man was say
ing, he became convinced that he was
an escaped lunatic. This was what
the orator repeated over and over
again:
90, thou, that rollest above, round
as the shield of my fathers! Whence
are thy beams, 0 Sun, thine everlast-
ing light?"
The man ran through the whole
gamut of human passions and moods
with the sentence, varying his ex-
preston each time to correspond with
hate, longing, hope, love, envy,
pathos, or the other feeling which he
WlSnoQ TO represent.
The size Of the speaker, the We
hemence which he put into his words,
and above all, the energy with. which
he swung his long arms in emphasiz-
ing his question, gave the policeman
such wholesome idea of his physi-
cal proves that he quietly withdrew
for assistance. With two brother po-
licemen he came back to capture the
supposed lunatic. The young man
had put on his hat and overcoat and
was leaving the secluded spot, when
the policemen came up. to him and
made him a prisoner.
To their great surprise he sub
mitted calmly, and asked what he
had done. When they told him their
suspicious, he did not know whether
to be angry, mortified or amused. He
soon explained to them that he was q
student at the Union Theological
Seminary, and had been advised by
his instructor in elocution to go over
the lines of Ossian, out of doors,
putting in them the various emphasis
and intonations. He knew of no
better place to practice in than Cen
trail Park, SO he had gone there.
The righteousness of the whole
thing finally struck all four Of them,
and they burst out laughing. The
prisoner was released, but hereafter
when he goes to Central Park to prac-
tice elocution, he will take an audi
ence of one with him.-NeW York
T'rihI1na