The times., 1898-10-23
THE PASSING SHOW.

We are great pretenders-we humans.
The habit is acquired early in life and is
generally retained all our days. We be-
gin at playing noblemen II we are really
poor, and at making believe" that We
are beggars If our fathers happen TO
have enough of the worlds goods to
keep the wolf and the tax collector from
the door. Given the materials, a child
can seem anything from the president
of a railroad TO its locomotive and from
coachman to a bay horse. Sometimes
youngsters with exceptionally strong
imaginations do not even need founda-
tions on which to build. There are little
ones who will erect castles, establish ar
mics and set up principalities on nothing
more substantial than strawberry boxes
and a few toothpicks. But these are the
infants whose mothers are certain that
they will grow into Thackerays or Sir
Isaac Newtons some day or other.
Curiously enough. beginning at the
earliest age the assumptions of men and
women go toward those things which
they should loathe and despise. From
the time when boys begin asserting
themselves to be robbers and highway
men to that period at which they cease
wanting to be thought blase old roues,
very few of the right sort of aspirations
find lodging place in the human breast.
And perhaps it is because of this that
New York is now laboring day and
night in a desperate effort to convince
itself tlat ii is a thoroughly wicked
place
g, this the mplOirl
have accomplished what dime novels do
with the street urchin. Having failed
TO gain emphatic supremacy in any 9TH
er way. the Gothamites may have recall
ed the fact that on the stage they were
always pictured as villains, either of the
darkest or the brightest dye, and then
there must have been born this wild am
bition to be reckless. AT that period New
York was thes tamest of towns, and might
have remained So even in the face of
this new hope. had not few reformers
called the fruit forbidden and thus
strengthened in many a youthful heart
the ambition to drink claret lemonade,
smoke cigarettes on the padded couches
of Turkish pariors. and be otherwise care
less and dissipated in the extreme
OF course. this sentiment soon crept out
in the theater itself. and was keenly felt
there But Gotham has a law against
that which is improper and indecent, and
hence, TO the undoubted disappointment
of managers in general. it was found
that the playhouse would have to plod
along in much the same line that it had
done before And just at this period an
inherent longing for pretense came to
the aid of the would-be-surfeited poseurs,
and, not being able to openly transgress
the rules of society. they began making
believe" that they were doing So.
This highly-elevating proceeding soon
met with the appreciation of all concern
ed. and things were rapidly put in full
swing Performances were brought as
near the suggestive as is possible in a
place of amusement in which police Off
GERS have standing room. and the long
expected ribaldry was allowed to progress
in a quiet and gentlemanly fashion that
might have given points to the directors
of the French Ball. House press agents
and dramatic critics were. of course duti-
fully shocked at these exhibitions; syndi-
cate writers began accusing New York of
viciousness. and then the ordinarily plac-
i'd youths of Gotham town knew that they
had attained the height of deviltry
The foundations for this belief were
generally given in the mildest and most
harmless form imaginable. Things that
had been done for the sake of sensation
and bits of work that had gone unnoticed
seasons before were enlarged and dis
cussed to the fullest extent. Charnion
climbed a trapeze with her clothes on.
manipulated her skirts so as to permit of
the display of garter and an inch or so
of pink tights. finally removed her outer