St. Paul daily globe., 1893-03-30
MUSIC FOR GERRY.
Prominent Actors and Managers
EndeavOring to Circumscribe
His Power.
Joe jefferson Quantity Tells Of
His Experience as Child
on a Stage.

ALBANY, N. Y, March 29.-There
was music here today for Elbrldge
Gerry, of the Society to Prevent Cruelty
to Children. Recent acts of his have
been deemed by the dramatic profession
as arbitrary in the extreme, and re
cent utterance of his against the women
of the stage has made the player folk
mad. So they have constructed bill
designed to cut Gerry's comb and cir
cumscribe his power to seize child be-
low sixteen from any stage at Will.
There was public hearing on this bill
Oday before the assembly codes
committee, and Mr.. Gerry was there to
oppose the bill referred to, and so were
the dramatic people there. Gerry,
when given chance, said that Ill ar
guing against this bill he was confront
ed by one difficulty. There came be-
fore the committee to advocate this bill
some of the most prominent managers
and actors of the entire country. But
they were not the real parties behind
the bill. Those who were urging 1t
through others were those whose names
did not appear. THESE gentlemen who
were present did not understand what
the bill meant. 1t meant that hun
dreds Of little girls would be ruined and
would eventually end in the Dr0thelS.
He meant to prove this rather bold as
sertion. He objected to the bill be-
cause it educated the children for I'M
wo:thy ends-for the song and dance
career. He wanted the full meaning of
this understood. The song and dance
people had nothing to do with the le-
gitimate drama.
MIR. Palmer gave it as his solemn teS-
timony that he never saw children more
carefully looked after ana lovingly
tended than the children of the stage.
The children that MIR. Gerry removed
from LA Cigale" were paid S. week
for few minutes work, and all went
to school. After they were removed
their parents we're so poor that they
were compelled to become cash girls,
working eight or ten hours day for
Sl.25 or 50 a week, and they got 10 op-
portunity TO 60 to school. He had
daughter of his own, and he would give
half his fortune IL she had the splendid
health of Regaloncita.
Joseph Jefferson made one of his
characteristic speeches, full of quaint
touches of humor. He said there was
no one back of him unless it was Sa-
tan, and we are told to tell him to get
behind us. He was here solely in the
interest of the stage children, because
he himself was child OH the stage. He
wanted to deny the impression that the
stage eXerted bad effect upon the
health. 1t was not SO. On the con-
trary, the theatrical profession was
healthful one, and conduced to lon
gevity, as statistics would show. Ihe
stage sent few of its followers to the
asylums; not anything like so large
proportion of actors became in
sane as of farmers, men who live
in the open air and work with their
muscles instead of with their brains.
Mr.. Jefferson also spoke of well-knOwn
actors who had gone upon the stage to
sing and dance in their early childhood
without any harm to themselves. He
himself had gone upon the stage when
he was three years of age. Indeed. there
was tradition that he had been carried
on in long clothes. The committee then
went into executive session.