The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1902-10-26

ceipts of Nine. DuBarry" having
mounted UP to more than 81. 900 in a
single week.
Mr.. Beiasco is able to work in con-
ditions. which would completely dis
tract the average brain-worker. 1t is
not unusual for him to stop directing
the rehearsal of one play to retire to
little nook. about the size of a small
clothes closet, on one side of the stage
to write few lines of another play.
Joseph Arthur, whose two great sue
cesses were Blue Jeans and THE
Still Alarm is part lessee and mama
ger of the old Fourteenth Street Thea
ter, which has fallen from its once
high estate of house designed for
the production of plays by French au-
thors by a French company in the
French language into a cheap price"
house. The French experiment was
tried years ago when Fourteenth street
was in the very center of things, and
was an immediate failure.
Joseph Arthurs career has been full
of change and interest. He has prac-
tically retired now, living in the beau
tiful house that "Blue Jeans" built at
Pelham Manor, and devoting his time
mostly to horses, hens and dogs.
In his early days, Mr.. Arthur was a
newspaper correspondent and among
things Through a miscarriage of mails)
was stranded in Egypt during one of
the Soudanese campaigns. and had to
foot 1t through what was practically
desert country for more than 500
miles. He has all the money he wants
although he is not fabulously rich, and
he will write no more.
Mrs. Arthur is the aunt of Little
tuesday" (who is little no longer) and
she is Arthur's constant companion.
He has had much to do with her edu-
cation as an actress and has coached
her continually.
When he was. actively engaged in
management, Mr.. Arthur was known
as the most unyielding task-master at
rehearsals, but he finally gave it up
with the remark that his own bad
stage management had spoiled his own
plays, which might have succeeded If
he had left the work to "some man of
ordinary, common or garden intelli-
gence.'
group of men, all weIl-known in
the literary and art worlds, were dis
cussing various members of their call
1ngs the other day, and in the course
of the conversation somebody men
toned the name of Ernest Thompson
Seton.
Ugh" grunted one of the artists,
Thompson, instead of changing his
name to Seton, should have amended
1t as several of his literary advisors
suggested when he first came to New
York"
How was that?" queried one of the
listeners
I'm coming to it," replied the
speaker. well, when Thompson, or Sc
ton, rather, hit the East he looked as
fierce and shaggy as the wolves he
writes about. If you'll examine his
photograph, you'll find that he still
looks picturesque. This untamed aspect
| of the man at once struck his publish
| fishers and they thought that it would
be good idea for Mr.. Thompson to
| sign the name of Wolf Thompson to
| his books and stories. It's a name
that will go around the world, because
it's catchy and apropos of your sto-
ries, they told him. But Thompson was
obdurate and insisted on signing his
bapusmal name. Now, he has twisted
that about, but those of us who met
him during his first weeks in the East
still think of and address him as Wolf
Thompson. Pity he didn't adopt it," !
There recently returned to this CITY
man who has been helping to pro-
mote the American commercial inya-
sion of Europe. One of the many anus
ing and interesting incidents of his
three years on the continent gives,
good idea of how our enterprising "ex-
pert drummers" place their lines on
the foreign markets.
This particular salesman was inter-
ested in a brand of stove polish that
isn't so very widely known at home.
His firm sent him to Germany with a
large roll of money and brief instruc-
lions: See that our goods are well in
troduced over there"
The man didn't know enough about
Germany and Germany's ways to un-
derstand the meaning of Itch liebe
dich' on "lese majestic" but his ignor-
ance of things in general beyond the
bounds of Yankeedom didn't worry him
in the least.
On the way over he met fellow pas
senger who told him that Frankfort
was a city in Germany; also Berlin
and Hamburg. The drummer" select
ed Frankfort for his initial field of en-
deavor as compliment to the head of
the firm, whose name is Frank.
When the New Yorker arrived in
Frankfort he put up at the best hotel
and for three days struggled with the
German language whenever he got
hungry or wanted drink, and
thought. At the end of that time he
somehow secured an interpreter and
then began his campaign
First he dictated an alluring circu-
lar setting forth the hundred and ten
virtues of his stove polish. He had the
interpreter translate it into proper
German and get it printed in attractive
form. Next he told his interpreter
to secure him twenty-five boys. When
the youngsters put, in an appearance
on the day set he loaded them with
bags filled with samples of the stove
polish wrapped in the circulars, and
started the small army distributing
it's burdens from door to door among
the good German housewives.
After this the drummer" rested
from la Dor for three days. Bright and
early on the fourth day and accompa-
MED by his interpreter he sought out
the proprietors of the Frankfort whole
sale and retail grocery stores. Through
his interpreter he asked:
"Have you had any requests for the
"None Such" stove polish?"
The proprietors invariably threw up
their hands.
Requests? Hundredsl"
Then the American told who he was,
that he and he alone could sell them
all the None Such" stove polish that
they wanted, that it was the finest
thing of its kind under heavens" ct
cetera.
The upshot of the whole business
was that on the first day he placed
orders for $4,000 worth of stove pol
ish, and by the end of the week he had
raised the sum to $4,000.
And So he worked through Germany