The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1895-03-26
Tup LIMIT OF INDECENcY.


Black Crook was sensation that caused
many good people to grieve.
Since then we have grown accustomed
to the things spectacular on the stage
things spectacular usually having to
do with trunks and tights as applied
to the female form, SO that today the
Black Crook is simply very pretty pan
tomine-though still unsurpassed by
modern invention in the especial points
of attractiveness that made it of interest
quite apart from its peculiarly sensa-
tional features.
But from the old-fashioned Amazo-
nian marches, the stage burlesque devol-
oped on lines of female beauty, fgura-
lively speaking, until we achieved the
living picture craze There was moth
ing new about living pictures. The
vestry tableaux were at the bottom Of
them all, but because the up-to-date liv-
ing pictures reproduced the sensational
and nude paintings of the old and modern
masters the title became symbol for
sensationalism if not for indecency--so
that the most respectable charitable So
ciety could not announce showing Of
living pictures without compromising
its dignity by reason of only one kind of
pictures occurring to the mind
Well, the public got so used to living
pictures clothed In tights that they
ceased to draw. Then an unspeakable
female, or her manager. discovered "a
new idea. That was the production of
living pictures, the figures of which
should actually be nude and not have to
appeal TO the imagination of spectators
who could tell fleshlings mile off
for their effect So the nude
pictures were put on the stage covered
only with bronze paint. They were
called "bronze statuary," and the paint
was supposed to offer pretext of "a shield
against outraged public opinion, the
management of the amazing show pro-
claiming that bronze paint was more oil
a covering than fashling tights in the
same breath that the attraction was
exploited because of the actuality of its
nudity.
The exhibition naturally created a
sensation aud for time it really looked
as if the public sense of decency was
to finally be dulled TO even this limit OF
the indecent There was lot OF clap
trap talk about "art" aud the
"divine lines OF the human form, y
and such transparent mush to
this end, but it is needless to remark
that no one paid money to see the
'bronzs statuary," through any motives
Of "art" or Glove for the beautiful. +"
The veil of decency thus drawn was as
thin as the bronze paint.
Now we have the welcome news that
this outrageous show has been stopped
and the uuspeakable female who figured
in it and her companions and her man
ayers have been arrested for giving an
indecent exhibition--an act that outrages
public decency. 1t is, perhaps, ques-
tion whether after the public has stood
so much of this kind of show business
a conviction can be secured on this final
evolution of indecency. But it is hoped
that the limit Of the law may have been
passed even if there is no limit to the
amount of indecency. part of the
public may be educated to endure.
The show is interrupted for the time,
anyway, pending the result of the
action before the court, and that is
some satisfaction.
Incidentally. it may be observed
that the proceedings have brought out
the fact that the figures were not en-
tirely nude after all, pair of long
trunks being used to cover part of
the figure, but being painted with the
bronze so that the effect was complete
nudity. Thus 1t appears that the show
was fake as well as disgrace.