New-York tribune., 1900-10-07
PERILS OF THE STAGE.
NARROW ESCAPES OF THE HERO AND
HEROINE FROM MACHINES DE-
VISED To SLAY THEM.
A STEAMSHIP COLLISION THE LATEST CON
TRIvANCE-THE sHIPwRECKs, FIRE EN-
GINEs AND BUzZsAws OF THE PAST.

who said that he would give-weu, no matter
just what be would give. Those little details
are always hard TO remember, and it is of no
consequence any way, because he probably
would not have given it If he had been brought
| to the test But he said that he would give a
considerable sum to any who would suggest
TO him a new sensational and realistic mechani-
! cal act for the climax of a melodrama- 1t was
! his judgment based on experience, that what
! the public wanted in the way of dramatic art
was to see some sort of horrid machine come
pretty near killing the hero quite kill the
villain, or both, and that this machine must be
real one, set right up on the stage.
Naturally it grows constantly harder to sup
ply this want as the stock of novel notions gets
low till some device which has been used be-
fore becomes forgotten and be used again
/ Naturally also. the devices tend to grow more
and more elaborate. The recent news that the
! current Drury Lane melodrama has scene in
| which an ocean steamer runs down yacht
shows l, what lengths the stage manager now
feels himself driven.
! These realistic effects are sometimes said to
have had their origin in the railway train in
| Under the Gaslight" but this opinion testifies
! only to the short and sef-suficient memory OF
those who hold it. Surely the oft recalled real
pump and real tubs of Vincent Crummles were
forerunners of all these things, and they
themselves were but the caricature Of some
thing which already existed But certainly there
has been first and last, good deal OF study
and toll Iavished these attempts to place
inanimate things the stage as they are.
HOW THE TANK DRAMA PROsPERED.
Seldom has a complete failure achieved such
success as the tank drama. few years ago
tanks were all the fashion. They represented
lakes and rivers, the surface whereof real
5 boats could float and into the depths whereof
men could dive They never looked in the least
like real rivers and lakes A scene painter who
could not make something to look more natural
would not be allowed work for the Grand
| Opera House Of any one night stand in the coun-
try. Still there was the water and it was wet
and the boats that were put into it f1Oated, and,
actors being selected who didn't mind, the hero
jumped right into 1t and brought the heroine
cut dripping. So those who would not turn
their heads to look at a Whole East River fun
of shipping made happy
Jumping into the water TO save the heroine
suggests that she might be saved in other diff
Cult ways. Probably no more improbable way
was ever devised than the one in melodrama
Of a few seasons ago called The Span of Life"
Here three acrobats performed something like
what is technically known a brother act"
In the brother act three or four men stand on
one another's shoulders the heaviest and strong
est at the bottom and the smallest and lightest
| at the top. Then the tower Of men begins to
! fall, still holding itself perfectly straight. and
| when it looks if all but the bottom man We're
to be dashed TO pieces on the feather bed, they
| break apart, each turns a somersault, and all
| land on their feet In The Span of Life the
| three men locked their heels and their heads
| together with their arms, and formed a bridge
| across a chasm which the heroine walked
| with her child, while the villain still pursued
| her. on the other side. This effect could hardly
be said to be produced by inanimate objects
but it really belongs 10 the same class
| Houses on fire were a commonplace long before
the real steam fire engine of The Still Alarm"
| began putting them out and gratifying the pub
! lie longing for machinery the stage. As
soon as the machine is disclosed at the rising Of
the curtain and the actors begin TO talk about it
the audience knows what is coming.
so this is the mill in which old Hundmuller
grinds his celebrated sausages."
| Yes. You see how it works. The carcasses
| are thrown whole into this great hopper That
horizontal wheel, all set with automatic hatch
cts. makes million revolutions minute, and
| in ten minutes everything that goes into the
| hopper is reduced to powder. It is the fact
that the machine thus reduces muscle, bone,
hide and hair alike that the sausages owe their
great nutritive power. They then pass through
this trough TO the floor below, where they are
compressed by a weight Of ten thousand pounds
to the square inch. 1t is thus that single sau-