The times., 1898-10-02

acters. He is very candid in his remarks
and will not fatter or tell untruths 10
please his subject. 1t was great fun at
first 10 watch the proceedings, especially
when the candidates were feminine. They
did not want him to bother about what
had occurred but 10 tell what the future
held in store. Every chorus girl was
anxious to have him prOphesy that she
would become a comic opera queen, but
as | said, Stuart adheres strictly to the
truth and there is now a sarge, Icy
barrier between him and almost twenty
of the young women who are prominent
in the ensemble numbers of the program.
There is a particularly amusing incident
connected with the readings. one of the
most demure of our young people is very
much in love with a certain newspaper
man in Hartford, Conn, and in return
she is deeply beloved by the said scribe.
Stuart looked at her hand the other night
in Trenton. and among other things told
her that she would have much trouble in
affairs of the heart during her twenty
third year. The reading stopped there.
The girl was noticed as missing during
the rest of the performance. After the
curtain had been rung down on the last
act a search was made for her. and she
was found in a dark corner of the property
room, curled up on a trunk, crying as
IL her heart would break. Between sobs
she told some of her friends that her
twenty-second birthday had passed only
a few days before, and that after that
awful prediction she was sure she would
lose George, right Off She was COM
forted with stories of how little anyone
could tell of the future, and evidently
consoled herself with a letter to George,
for next day there came three kilograms
for her, followed the night following by
as many letters. But she still wears
Woe -begone look on her face, and keeps
very far away from Stuart
Rapturous press agents are the rule
rather than the exception to dramatic
critics. and many advance notices that
contain a sufficient number of poetic trib-
utes and glowing phrases to have made
the writer's famous had their talents
only been employed in another direction,
are thrown into newspaper waste bas-
kets during the course of a season But
the richest specimen of the sort known
to have been seen in local circles for
many moons was Sent to The Times yes
terday by Frank Wilstach, representative
for De Wolf Hopper. Even the widest
enthusiast could hardly have used the
story seriously but the authors stock of
adjectives seemed too good to waste on
the desert air. and hence the tale is
printed in it's entirety as a horrible eX-
ample to composers of dramatic notices.
1t follows:
when De Wolf Hopper comes to town,
nature seems to put on a smiling glance,
care takes wing, and joviality reigns in
it's place Barnum attracts crowds to
the sidewalks; Hopper brings cheerful
ness to the heart of man.
when Hopper comes to town, jaun-
| diced-eyed, morose, and sour-spirited,
splenetic, sullen men appear to throw off
their humors and enter into the frisky
frivolities of life with undreamed of in
terest and fervor.
When Hopper comes to town, his smile
| cracks the shell of the reserved. tickles
the ribs of the grave, electriies the glum,
| sends a warm glow through the veins of
| the frigid, unbends the naughty, and di-
| verts the dignitied.
when Hopper comes to town neigh
| bors cease to quarrel and talk of pleasant
things, wives welcome home their hus-
| bands as joyfully as does the watchdog.
while the contrary become softly yielding
| and the contentious and perverse grow
amiable and indulgent.
when Hopper comes to town, he
serves as a human sugar bowl that sweet
ems the acerbitous, ambrosiates the acri-
moniouS, candies the grabbed saccharines
the sour, confectionarieS the vinegariSh,
treacles the styptic, palatables the pep
perish and homes the hungry.
when Hopper comes to town, drug
gists complain through want of trade,
while physicians, owing to the disgust
inGiy healthful condition of the populace,
rush along the street in mad haste in
| order to make the people think they are
really busy; fat men lose flesh through
| shaking their sides, and thin men grow
| fat by feasting their risibleS on healthful
! humor.
when Hopper comes to town his voice
| is not found to be of that coiorature
| quality which charms birds off the BUSH
| es, but rather of that manly, full, and
| stirring basso cantata type which opens
! the ears of the stupid, rouses the supine
| into attention, engroSses the liStleSS, and
| awakens the preoccupied.
| When Hopper comes to town all these
| things happen, because Hopper is the po-
| tent elixir the revivifying essence the
compound of mirth. the collyrium of jo-
viality, the comic opera microbe antisep-
! tic, the relief of the blue devils, the
| panacea for jaundice, the lentitive for the
joyless the restorative for the detected,
| the balsam for the dumps. the lictus for
the funeral and the never-faiiing cordial
for the sorry-sighted.
when Hopper comes to town one can
| no more keep the populace from fiockinf.
to see him than can an oak clasp hold
! fast the blasts that blow through 1t.
! when Hopper comes to town we are
to have a speech, rigged out in all the