The Daily Texarkanian., 1898-11-22
COULD NOT PLAY.
Opera House Was Cold, People Cold
and the Actors Cold


having previously secured dates to
play at the Park Auditorium.
When the advance agent was
here the weather was balmy and
the mocking bird sang his songs
from every bough of the trees in
the park, and the world looked glad
and there was no indication that
the ice king would ever visit this
hamlet.
1t was true the advance agent
noticed few hundred cracks in
the walls of the building, where
the air could get in, but he reas-
oned that it would be good thing
to let out the foul air of a crowded
opera house, and he could see moth
ing in the wind that would keep
his company from leaving here
with a safe full of money.
Well, as we said the widow ar
rived, along with her came the rest
of the actors.
Things would have went right,
had the weather behaved itself and
stayed in the honey-suckle zone,
but it did not. A rain came up in
the morning and when it stopped
off, cold snap set in and kept get
ting colder, aud when nightfall came
the grand froEe over and the first
real cold spell of the season was on,
The reporter with all of this against
the show, knowing the auditorium
could not be heated up in its pres
ent unfinished condition, went over
and found some twenty or thirty
people there gathered about the
steam radiators, which we're hot
enough, but the circulation was
like some OF our brag papers, did
not reach out at any considerable
distance from the radiating point,
therefore, the people hugged about
them like the girls did around Hob
sou when he was in the hero bust
ness.
At nine o'clock there were about
100 people present. They all looked
as though they expected to see the
fool killer appear at any moment
aud start wholesale slaughter.
At this point one of the show men
came from behind the curtain, and
invited the Mayor back there TO
test the cold, and Dr. Spearman
also went back, but either of them
did not say what they went upon
the stage for, but 1t was learned
afterward that the manager want
ed them to test the weather to see
how cold 1t was
After this the manager found Mr.
Whitley and started back behind
the curtain with him but Mr.. Whit
ley had been to Klondike before, he
stopped near one Of the radiators,
and he and the show man had an
animated conversation, what they
said we do not know, but, it went
off something like this: - p
- - p.
Manager Whitley pulled his
freight in one direction and the
show manager went back on the
stage and invited the box party on
the right OF the stage to go behind
the curtain which they did, and
with all of this the people who
had paid their money to get in was
still in ignorance.
After the box party got through
with their inspection they resumed
their seats and the manager came
out in front of the footlights and
detailed a description OF the wealth
er behind the curtain. He said
that there was but one little stove,
only one dressing room and the
night being too cold, he did not
want to expose his actors as they
would haye to be in changing their
clothes, and that he had asked the
manager to let him of from giving
the performance, but he would not
do it, and he then appealed to the
house whether he should give the
play or dismiss them Mayor
Hardin spoke up and said give the
show. Here the manager made
another appeal and said that if he
was forced to play in an opera
house poorly equipped as this one,
ne promised that not another show
would ever appear in it again. AT
this the people rose up and filed
out by the box Office, and their
money was refunded,
To prevent another repetition of
this kind, Manager Whitley should
make his house comfortable as pos
sible aud above all seal up the stage
and put stoves in position for the
actors, for If they once get it in