Evening star., 1900-12-22
are willing to grant concessions for vastly
smaller rake-downs?'
Retributive Justice.

Retributive Justice.
| Tragic scenes are occurring every night
| In front of the theater at which Bernhardt
| and Coquelin are performing. That is to
| say, the ticket spectators are delighting
large crowds every evening by their exhibit
| tions of gloom and their frantic efforts to
| unload their goods. Men who have suf-
| fered for years in this town from the plum
! dering of the ticket spectators go down
| to the front of the theater every evening
| for the sole purpose of gloating over the
SPECTATORS in their misery.
When the sale of seats for the engage
ment of the great pair of French players
| began the spectators simply fell over ca ch
| other in their endeavors to get hold of the
biggest blocks of seats obtainable for the
entire @ engagement at the rate of s. per
seat for the downstairs portion of the
house. On the first few evenings of the
Bernhardt-Coqueln engagement the specu-
iators reaped veritable harvest They
SOLD the 50 seats for $15 and $40, and, in
some cases, even more, and the haughri-
ness with which they rejected offers of SO
| ana III for such seats was overpowerlng
| Their dreams of wealth In continuous per-
| formance streams were diSpelled along
| toward the close of the very first week Of
| the engagement, however. The So and $50
buyers didn't come along The $40 buyers
| appeared to have about faded, too by the
| close Of the first week and there were few
81 folks in sight at the beginning of the
second week. BY the middle Of the second
week the spectators were imploring pass
| ers-by to take their IS seats of their hanls
| at cost prices.
When the Bottom Dropped Out
For some time past now they have been
selling the S seats for anything they can
get for them, and the folks who are willing
TO pay a reasonable figure to see the Bern
hardt-Coquelin aggregation have learned
fox1ness. They turn up in front Of the thea
ter, that Is to say, along toward S:35 or $40
O'Clock, and walk by through the vocferous
crowd Of agonized SPECTATORS as II they
We're just taking a stroll. Thus they are
enabled to get the spectators best figures
and some of them have succeeded by COM
ing along a little later in getting the best
orchestra seats for seventy-ive cents or a
dollar. At that the audiences have not
been large ones since the beginning Of the
engagement.
A vast number Of persons who were will
ing to pay - for the privilege of seeing
Bernhardt and Coquelin and who tried TO
get seats at that figure when the sale Of
seats began. found that all of their efforts
were futile-that the spectators had gobbled
up everything. The resentment of these peo-
pie has therefore. taken the quite natural
form of causing them to remain away from
the Bernhardt-Coquelin performances alto
gether The management of the house g
not suffering, because the spectators
bought up almost the entire houses for the
entire engagement. The spectators failed
to figure on the Christmas shopping that
theaters at this season, and they also failed
to calculate upon the wrath liable to be
aroused by their hoggishness in the disposi--
ton of seats for the early performances.
This Is virtually the first time that the
theater-going population of this town have
united in what seems to be deliberate and
concerted effort to punish the spectators,
and the spectacle is distinctly refreshing
one
Feigning Insanity.
Two men employed by different yellow
newspapers published here have lately at
tempted to palm themselves off as insane
persons at Bellevue Hospital, and both Of
them fell down dismally. One of them, who
raised a rumpus at the Hoffman House by
loudly demanding to see the Prince of
Wales, in order to get himself arrested as
crazy person. was put through such a
course of sprouts in the insane ward of the
hospital by the doctors in attendance-who
suspected that the chap was merely sham
ming-that he was forced to own up on the =,
second day, and tine other man lasted even
a shorter space Of time under the lugu-
brious influence Of the padded cell and other
little methods whereby he was handled by
the hospital folks. From all Of which the
fact appears deducible that men less
successful in the stimulation of insanity
than women. Nellie Bly," the qulck-tIme
globe circumnavigator, successfully accom-
plished the trick at this same hospital a
number of years ago, and the experts in
charge of the Bellevue insane ward pro-
nounced her hopeessly and incurably mad.
So convinced were they that the little wo-
man was bereft of her wits that the news
paper in whose employ she then was had
actual difficulty in gaining her liberation.
Another once well-known newspaper wo-
man not only succeeded in getting through
the Bellevue ordeal but she had herself
committed by the Bellevue powers to the
hospital for the insane Wards Island,
where she spent month, viewed one Of 4
the maddest of the mad, and, upon emerg
ing. related some stories about the place
that caused it to be turned upside down.
The fact that two Of the attendants Of
the Bellevue insane ward are noWunder in
dictment for homicide for having, as al
legged, kicked harmless old lunatic to
death a short time ago would seem to in
dtcate that the institution needs a lot of in
vestigating.
A Blackmailing Scheme.
The women stenographers and typewrit-
ers Of this town using violent express
s1ons with reference to the attractive young
woman who faced a police magistrate the
other day for attempting to blackmail her
employer, a republican state senator, by
threatening to hand to the opposition her
stenographic notes Of a shady deal in which
he was involved IL he did not present her
with certain sum Of money. The young
amanuenss even went to Richard Croker.
before that worthy departed for England,
and offered to sell him the notes. Croker,
it should be mentioned to his credit. was
of this to the republican state senator, who,
declining to yield to blackmail, had his
young woman stenographer arrested. The
of attempted blackmail clearly
proven against her in the police court, and
after she had had scare of very large
proportions. and had wept in the court
room with quite effective profuseness, the
state senator asked the magistrate to per-
NIT the case to be squelched which the
magistrate consented to.
The large number of young women over
here who occupy confidential stenographic
positions look upon the blackmailing young
woman's escapade as unfOrgivable Of
fense against their order and as blow to
their prospective continuance in amanuen-
sis employment, particularly as the fact
has been made known that large num-
Der of employers Of women stenographers
In mercantile and political life were in
duced to dismiss their skrted amanuenses
by the revelation Of the blackmailing young
woman's duplicity. The female stenog-
raphers over in this town have right to
feel sensitive in these matters for the fig
ures of the employment agents decidedly
Indicate that women stenographers are be-
coming less and less in demand every year
The employment agents attribute this state
of things to the alleged facts that the wo-