The Progress., 1893-04-29


in the city the thoatcr enters, and while
the sou, l. intoxicato1 with the s'nsc OF
beauty begins to iuStill even unCon-
sciouslv the seeds of moral death. Thcr"
are clements i'll the life of the coUnt~i
districts which answer to this need no;
found IN the city. Those who live in the
country have the beauties and glorics of
nature. They can live in her. move m
her and have their being in the hc@uty Of
landscape and mountain. in field and
meadow. Besides. in Our country towns
today IN America there have been eStah-
lished q system of lyCeum entertain
ments and lectures of the very highest
order. These things occupy the life of
hctowu through the long wintcrm0nths.
The city fails TO provide as yet such cen
ters of intellectual relaxation and social
improvement. 1t is to the thcatcr that
young manhood and womanhood immc-
diatcly go III the city for amusement. If
the sum total of the influences of the
theatcr he overwhelmingly evil. how ter
rible must bc the results,
Out OF al the thoatcrs in the city Of
New York yo'I can count on the fingers
of one hand those that are conducted
upon strictly decent principles. And
even these arc now and Chen discTacCd
by performances which for the time put
them ou the level of the lower Centcrs of
evil. Some wears ago. when n distin-
gGlSh"d minister undertook an invCStiga-
ton uftho underworld of New York city,
he started out one evening at 10 o'clock.
The detective officer who accompanied
him said 20 him: 1T is only 10 o'clock,
and il is too early to see the places that
we wish to see for the thcatcrs have not
yet let ont. Tho preacher said, What
do you mean bv that We'll" he said.
''thc places &C iuiquity are not in full
blast until after the people have time To
arrive from the thpatcrs" 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 thcatcrs today is overwhelmingly
evil and evil in its immediate results as
well rs its ultimate tendencies.
Second say it from the character of
the plays that. as rule. are produced
today. Instead of the intellectual work
of Shakespeare or one who modestly
aspircs 20 be his disciple. we are now
passing through the era of the stage car
pentcr-the mechanic. II is the hour Of
the great tank act. of live horses on the
stage and of real fire engines that are
drawn across in G., 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
thcatcrs the other night poor woman
leaped from her seat n 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 ACEOBATS.
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
human nature and are on par with
the fight of the gladiator. with the
wild beast of the Roman arena. and re-
suits are frequently rs fatal. Recently
at n theater an acrobat "a years old wCg
engaged in making turns over a 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 ard the musicians and was in
SANITY killed.
The amount of unmitigated rubbish
that is dished up i'll our theaters today is
absolutely appalling. Ten years ago
New York daily in reviewing the condi-
tion of the drama. said: There has been
a 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 SEN
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 10 years has
been baser than in any 10 previous years
in the history of the American stage.
An Anerican writer in The Contem-
porary Review, speaking of the New
York theaters, says: "A friend of mine
who made n tour of them all was in
clined to think that those patronized by
the roughs in the Bowery were less i'm
moral than those patronized by the resi-
dents of Fifth avenue. 1t is a 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. They do not pub
lish the criticisms of men of brains, who
are able to do the work, who are NOM