The Anaconda standard., 1899-10-08

| cllent.
Two thousand guineas is a lot of
| money. Miss Beaudet wavered again.
Pshaw, How undecided and weak I
am, she murmured petulantly. throw
| ing johannesburg scarf-the earIS
first sift-over the cage of the chat
| tering parrot. I will never give him up!
Never, Two thousand guineas. That
, is more than $4,000.
The soft Toronto twilight gently
wrapped in it's purple shadows the sec
! und-hand furniture of the hotel room,
| the pug dog. the chaperon. the parrot
and the maid. The calm of Canadian
| evening settled over the landscape, but
/ Miss Beaudet was not there to see 1T.
A ffercely snorting locomotive trailed
! its cloud of smoke and sparks through
/ the murk of night and bore the 1.-THE
I and lissOme Louise toward the offices
of H. & H., in New York.
And so Miss Beaudet was profoundly
secret in all her movements. A mere
mercenary manager, especially if he
| lives in Toronto, cannot understand a
Woman's heart, and he might have
done sordid and unkind things if he
had known that the charming actress
who broke her contract was not chained
to her tossing couch with the laryngitis,
which was her excuse for leaving him
in the lurch.
Meanwhile everyone who admires
versatility in an actress will hope that
Miss Beaudet may get her 1000 guineas
and that she will promptly purchase
new presss agent.
Mary of Magdala" is the title of
five-act drama just completed by Paul
Heyse. and already the subject of
much discussion in Germany Although
presenting Mary Magdalene with utter
fidelity to the scrlptural narrative the
play is described as quite unobjection-
able from the Christian point of view
the person of Christ remaining invisible
and only his power for good entering
as divine influence into the scheme of
the story. BY poetic license a kindly,
veil has been flung over the early his
tory of Magdalene.' She is represented
as having been given in marriage by
her parents to an elderly husband, one
of the richest and wickedest men in the
city. With all her simple beliefs killed
by the three years which follow, she
fees to Jerusalem. and, to make her re-
turn to the husband she loathes impos-
sble, cuts herself desperately aloof by
a life of sin. Upon this. however, she
presently turns her back, strong in the
friendship she has formed with man
whose sole thought and aim it is to
end the oppressive rule of the Romans.
This man is Judas Iscariot, through
whom she enters the presence of his
master, Jesus of Nazareth, in the house
of Simon. Very subtly it is implied
that the love and admiration with
which she is inspired are purely hui
man feelings, and not until the betrayal
by Judas. and her subsequent resolve
to purchase Christs liberty by sacri-
ficing herself to profiigate nephew of
| Pontius plate. is the meaning of the
| divine mission borne in upon her. This
| scene furnishes the dramatic climax
| Of the story, and the prolonged con-
tlict of passion, the agonized determin-
| alton of self-surrender, and the revul-
| sion of feelings and divine resignation
when her helplessness is revealed are
said to constitute an intensely moving
! and tragic finale. The same objections
to the performance of the drama are
| being urged as were advanced against
the Johannes" C'John the Baptist')
| of Sudermann; but the command of the
curt as in the previous case, is, it is
I, said assured, and the official ban will
| be removed.
A well-known comedian who mas a
reputation for bright stories and prac-
tical jokes related the following story
| at dinner one night when the conver-
sation turned on travelling theatrical
companies, says London TidBits:
Years ago" he said II was in a
small company skipping from town to
town. We had met with extremely Dad
luck up to our landing in the town CT
| D.. There we found the lowest ebb
| of all. for when the curtain rolled up
there We're just two persons in the au
| dience, young girl in an orchestr
| stall, and a young man in the front
| row of the gallery.
We went on with the performance.
however, possibly to warm ourselves
| more than anything else. According TO
my part. I was helping the heroine to
escape from the clutches Of the villain,
and in one of the lines l said:
rl,l
bright moon is rising to light US On
our way?'
| Before she had time to reply the
young man in the gallery called out:
- am not so certain about the
young lady downstairs, but l can see
| it all right
A writer says there are 5000 theaters
, in the United States, counting all kinds.
| More than 1000 are fairly classed as
legitimate, and over 1000 more are de-
voted to vaudeville. The other 1000
taper off in various ways. To estimate
| the capital invested in all this theat-
! rical property is difficult. But about
| $10O, ZOO, 900 is invested in the 5000 first
| class legitimate theaters, which will be
| considered in this article. That is an
| average of $3S,33S each, which is low
| enough. some costing as much as $780,
| 900 each. 1t is equally hard to COM
|
| theatrical amusement. Separate audi
ences yield from absolutely nothing in
| extreme cases of failure to as much
| as $4,000 at an exceptional perform
| ance of opera. A conservative calcu
| laton is that the aggregate reaches
| $40 600, 900 a year. Not less than l,500,-
900 persons sit in these theaters each
| week day night in the season of at
| least eight monts.
A New York paper notes that Lee
| Harrison hurt his arm the other night
| by dropping to the stage in one scene
| of the Roger Brothers in Wall Street y
Gus Rogers advised him to go and see
| lis physician about the injury.
| Il have the best doctor in town." said
| Gus. Il went to him the other day and
said: Doc, I'm u victim of insomnia.
I can't sleep if there is the least noise
| such as a cat on the BACK fence, for
| instance
This powder will be effective said