Herald and news. [volume] (West Randolph, Vt.) 1878-1943, 1893-05-03

| the soul Is intoxicated with the sense o.
beauty begins to instill even uncon'
sciousIy the seeds of moral death. There
are elements in the life of the country
| districts which answer to this need moi
found III the city. Those who live in The
country have the beauties and glories OF
nature. They can live in her, move IN
her and have their being in the beauty OF
landscape and mountain, in field and
meadow. Besides, in our country towns
today in America there have been estab-
lished a system of lyceum entertain
ments and lectures of the very highest
order. These things occupy the life Of
the town through the long winter months.
The city fails to provide as yet such CEN
tiers of intellectual relaxation and social
improvement. 1t is to the theater that
young manhood and womanhood imme-
diately go in the city for amusement. Il
the sum total of the influences of the
theater be overwhelmingly evil, how ter
rible must be the resultsl
Out of all the theaters in the city OF
New York you can count ON the fingers
of one hand those that are conducted
upon strictly decent principles. And
even these are now and then disgraced
by performances which for the time put
them on the level of the lower centers of
evil. Some years ago, when a distin-
guished minister undertook an investiga-
ton of the underworld of New York city,
he started out one evening at 10 o'clock.
The detective officer who accompanied
him said to him: 1T is only 10 o'clock,
and it is too early to see the places that
we wish to see, for the theaters have not
yet let out. The preacher said, "What
do you mean by thatsp ''Well, he said,
1.-THE places of iniquity are not in full
blast until after the people have time to
arrive from the theaters." In that sin
gle reply Of this police officer we are
brought face TO face with the terrible
fact that the sum total of the Influences
of our theaters today is overwhelmingly
evil and evil il its immediate results as
well as its ultimate tendencies.
Second-I say it from the character OF
the plays that. as a rule. are produced
today. Instead of the intellectual work
of a Shakespeare or one who modestly
aspires to be his disciple, we are now
passing through the era Of the stage car
penter-the mechanic. 1t is the hour Of
the great tank act, of live horses on the
stage and of real fire engines that are
drawn across in the midst of tremendous
applause II is the hour of mechanics
and cheap claptraps. As the fire engine
dashed across the stage in one of our
theaters the other night a poor woman
leaped from her seat raving maniac
and was carried to the lunatic Asylum.
We do not wonder at this. The char
acter of the plays produced now in
number of our theaters is enough to un-
hinge the mind of the average man and
woman if taken seriously.
JUGGLERs AND AcRoBATs.
Besides, there have been introduced
elements of daring and danger in our
theatrical amusements of late that indi-
cate downward tendency. In houses
once used as decent places of amusement
we have jugglers and acrobats, whose
feats pander to the basest elements of
utlhdu Hdtui1 anu dAe vi par Will
the fight of the gladiator, with the
wild beast Of the Roman arena, and re-
ats are frequently as fatal Recently
at theater an acrobat "a years old was
engaged in making turns over pole
near the ceiling. He had made several
turns about the pole, to the admiration
of the gaping audience, when his perch
suddenly gave way. and he fell down
ward. He struck between the orchestra
chairs and the musicians and was in
stantly killed.
The amount of unmitigated rubbish
that is dished up in our theaters today is
absolutely appalling. Ten years ago
New York daily, in reviewing the condi-
ton of the drama, said: There has been
greater mass of meretricious rubbish
put on the New York stage during the
last 10 years than during the whole of
its existence. We do not of course refer
solely to pieces that appeal to the baser
instincts, but to the whole body of sem
sational or emotional products, the fe-
verish slop of French melodrama." A
distinguished dramatic critic told me
few days ago that in his opinion the av-
erage production of the last II years has
been baser than in any 10 previous years
in the history of the American stage.
An American writer in The Contem-
porary Review, speaking of the New
York theaters, says: "A friend of mine
who made tour of them all was in
clined to think that those patronized by
the roughs in the Bowery We're less i'm
moral than those patronized by. the resi-
dents of Fifth avenue. It is matter Of
dispute whether they honestly enjoy
good music as much as they enjoy i'm
moral plays" The hopelessness of the
situation is further accented by the fact
that our great newspapers do not seri-
ously pretend to do the work of honest |
criticism for the public. either one of |
two things is sure. Thch do not pub
lish the criticisms of mel Sc brains, who |
are able to do the work, who are NOM
inally in charge of the department of |
l. All