The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1895-02-24

Kansas is full of men with ideas.
When a Kansas man is seized with an
idea it becomes fixed. As the years
pass the idea becomes encysted in his
nature. If il is a bad idea it viii cost
him illinnitable woe. If il IS good
idea he prospers. There is Kansas
man in town at present and he has an
idea His name is w. l. Haskell and
he is originally from Atchison. He is
young man To have been born there
Haskell is possessed of an energy
that might be termed agility. Those
bones and muscles which are at once
a cushion and a spring 10 the step of an
unfeathered biped are abnormally de-
veloped to the fullest in the feet of this
ideaed young man. He is always on
the jump.
Mr. Haskell jumped into a town few
evenings ago; jumped down to the Craw
ford opera house, proudly designated
in these parts the grand" jumped up
the steps; jumped past the angular and
wieldy architectural horrors locally
known as boxes" jumped on the stage
jumped out before a beVy of charming
girls duly guarded by staid matrons
and presented with some bones; other
with tambourines and others with mu-
sic scores an6-a rehearsal OF the La
dies Minstrel show began then and
there.
This is Haskells idea. He has organ
lied these Ladies Minstrel shows all
over the west during the last four
months and always in the same way
that is, on the jump. He sets his APP
pointments by telegraph and keeps his
engagements by the through express.
March ! the Ladies Minstrel show viii
be ready for the eyes and ears of Wich-
tia.
This is remarkably short period of
time for the organization of an amateur
performance. And it is the particular
and original idea of Mr.. Haskell OF
Kansas that it should be so. Uusally
the amateur performance is the result
of prodigious drill and stupendouS
paroxysms on the part of local society.
But Haskell does away with the ordi-
nary prolonged survey of local social
conditiona; brushes social jealousies
and cliques aside with rude but de-
cisive indifference, gives his show and
meets another engagement at the other
end of the state.
In two hours after he arrived in Wich
ita his minstrel performance was in
progress. The end-girls were spatter-
ing the bones in awful din, the inter-
lOcutOf Eau acquired an air VI peTSls-
tent and graceful inquiry, and the show
was virtually ready TO be spread be-
fore the public.
There We're touches, however, that
must yet be put upon the coming per-
Torrance. There is a 'Trilby" scene
that Will take drill; and the air of this
song, I'm Old Vienna ct was written
by Ion Arnold, once of Wichita) must
be learned. This other Kansas produc-
ton: THE Sweetest Story Ever Told, y
has yet to be mastered.
There are two other ramifications to
the idea of jump which preyades Mr..
Haskell's whole being-one is that a
Ladies Minstrel show must be high
class and surprise the people who be-
lieve that coarseneSs can not be avoid
ed; the other is that the surprises in the
story and the acts of the minstrel show
shall not be divulged beforehand but
must be kept in secret for the edifica-
ton of the audience through the agency
of establishment. And so all the parti-
cipants are cautioned to keep the show
under cover of the drop curtain.
In Topeka where the last performance
was give, sixty women accomplished.
under enormous pressure. the feat OF
keeping the show and its features d
secret and cleared $500. The same thing
was accomplished in st. Joseph. 1t
may be possible to concei the plot, or
the absence of plot in Wichita.