The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1903-08-01

"OR a really lively. interesting
newspaper interview commend
one to a bright American wo-
- man after she has spent year
abroad and meanwhile kept her
eyes open. Miss Alice Z. Ives is that
sort of woman. She has just returned
from a season in Europe. spent mostly
in London. She was over the water
attending to the staging of her latest
play, STAIRS Girl which, rather odd
ly, appeared in England before it did in
America. However, it is to be brought
over here in the autumn. Another of
her plays is 1.-The Great Brooklyn Han
dicap." In collaborat ton with Jerome
Eddy she wrote also The Village POST
master" Altogether she has had six
dramas produced.
STAIRS Girl" is a western American
play. introducing a mining camp. Old
Starr is a quaint character, and his
girl is Zona, of whom her fond father
says:
"Zony named her horse Hamlet be-
cause fore she got him broke he wus
allus actin as though he wus SEEM a
ghost
An English notice of the play says
there is an ''undercurrent of spicy hui
NOR running through the piece" When
an Englishman can appreciate Ameri-
can humor it is a compliment to both
the Englishman and the humor- The
star of STAIRS Girl" in England was
May Edouin, daughter of Willie Ed
ouin. and Willie Edouin himself is man.
ager of the play.
Miss Ives is now busy here at home
in America on a new play for leading
London manager which is to be pro-
duced there in the fall. She spent all
last winter in London, and her expo
riences were at once humorous, chilly
and happy-much of a mix-but out OF
it all she manages to make merry
Iightsome picture. She liked the Eng
| lish people. but London to an American
from December to April is a purgatory
of cold. Comfort? The Britisher knows
it not. The luxurious hot air furnace
or the steam pipes in every room in the
house. the floods of hot water supply
the warm bath room, the convenient
dumb waiter from basement kitchen to
dining room, saving the maids weary
steps-such suggestions only make the
Briton stare. They called Miss Ives
1.-The chilly American in London be-
cause she had not reached that sublime
height of stoicism where she did not
know when she was cold. She saw
English ladies around her with only
thin cotton shirt waist sleeves upon
!
/ ing and living in rooms without fire
with the chill breath of January smit-
| ing them till their teeth chartered, they
| fattering themselves the while that
this was highly hygienic.
And are they healthier than Ameri-
cans?"
Goodness, no. They keep their liv'
ing rooms so icy that it takes all their
vitality to maintain the natural animal
heat of the body, so they have none
left for anything else
| Miss Ives lived in one of the so called
swell mansions of London, having inn
mense rooms, adorned with all extrava-
gance of aesthetic and high art furni-
ture and draping. yet there was nc
furnace under the house, and the only
way of warming her room was by 6
tiny CRATE few inches across. The ut.
most her thermometer would achieve
with all the coal she could pile upor
thatanfinitesinal crate was 60 degrees
and most of the time it hung fire at So
And yet the British-heaven have mer-
cy on themi-thought this the height Of