Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1899-09-24

dashabille. His efforts were practically
the apostheosis of the ligntgown and
the underskirt. Anaemic young Brook
Ign clerks who sought to escape the
dizziness of a hal bed room by dropping
in to see something warm" drank in
every detail CT such fascinatingly
naughty bed room scenes and thrilled
ecstatically over the peep at mingled
lingerie and RIGHTEOUSNESS which the
exploiter Of the -four poster" dished up
to him.
But, naturally, this sort of thing can
not go on forever. You can have differ
ent kinds of bedrooms, of course, and
you can have divers sort of beds, and
you can drag in several duly varied
references to the seventh command
ment. But even then the bedroom will
pail in time.
So there must be a change. What
| that change will be is plain. If the
importers of French farces are to fol-
low out the lines along which they
have begun, and if they wish to keep
the young clerk from the hall bedroom
! of Brooklyn still thrilling, there is only
one thing for the Gallo playwright and
the American manager to do. The bed
room must be discarded and the bath
room must take its place. Here are
green fields and pastures new teeming
with dramatic possibilities! The
enamel tub shall %supplant the -four
poster and. the attenuated bath robe
shall supersede the u%nderskirt. Then,
instead of The Disrobing Act" it will
be-but why go into details? The sup
pie imagination and the absinthe of the
b%oulevards will attend to that: We
shall have a new era of thrills.
This may or may not happen. If the
soap is used on the moral make up of
the dramatist and manager instead of
on the %soubrette, it will be more desir-
able. But that, of course, is unproit-
able. With the up-to-date manager
who exploits Partisan farces uncleanli-
ness is next to a Klondike. And, like
the Klondiker, he pans most of his gold
out of dift-good, old fashioned dirt,
but paying dirt to him.
Here it comes again, the managerial
howl about the ticket Spectator. This
time the wall emanates from Charles
Frohman, who, as is well known, is
not only the most prominent manager
IN this country, but perhaps the most
important theatrical magnate the world
has ever seen. Mr.. Frohman is deter
mined that the sidewalk Spectator
must go. He is a nuisance, according
to Mr., Frohman, and the law should
legislate him out of existence by MAX
ing 1t impossible for him to earn a liv-
ing. Mr.. Frohman has incidentally
| TnnnA n nnn0noO fNn tIo rrna,,latAr o.;T
which will without doubt find its way
into the pages of the best humorous
papers. 1t contemplates the passage or
a aw by the city fathers restricting the
spectators from plying their vocation
within 100 feet of the entrance of any
regular place of amusement. The law
now permits them to offer tickets for
sale anywhere except directly in front
of the theatre. Mr.. Frohman, in his
ingenious ignorance of the ways of the
world, fondly imagines, or processes TO
imagine, that if these gentry are moved
sidewise 100 feet, the nuisance will be
abated. He ought to know, if this were
done, that the patrons of his and other
houses, knowing just where to find the
spectators, would do so whenever it
suited their convenience.
If Mr.. Frohman were no so limo
cent of the wiles of mankind, he would
endeavor to have an ordinance passed
making ticket speculation illegal. 1t
would probably be declared u%nconstitu-
tional by the first court before which
a test case might be made, but the ad-
vertisement would be there Just the
same. Then. if he We're terribly in
earnest, he might do the very simplest
thing in the world, which would at the
same time wipe out the evil in a triee.
That would be to issue to purchasers
of seats c~onsecutively numbered tickets
on which nothing would be stated as
to the number OIL even the location of
the seats. On the stub bearing a cor
responding number the Cecil Rhodes
of the box Office writes those particu-
lars. This stub is turned over in the
evening TO the assistant doorkeeper.
who arranges them conveniently and
c~onsecutively on hooks on a table near
the doorkeeper in chief. When you
present your ticket. you are handed
the seat coupons attached to the stub
bearing the same number. and the
trick is done.
How does this prevent ticket specu-
lation? Why. in the simplest manner in
the world. No one has even accused
the general public of having ~unBounded
confidence in the integrity and veracity
Of ticket Spectators Some OF these