The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-09-06

matic factory will be given here this sea- son. This number can be confidently counted upon by the public but is is not altogether certain that there may not be five or six additional ones if MT. Fitch is in the mood. In ten years from play royalties alone, Fitch has become a rich man, the Carnegie of the industry, and as he knows how to keep what comes to him, the probabilities are that he will die deeply "disgraced." The roy atty on a successful play during a single season amounts to about twelve or fif- teen thousand dollars. Some years ago a manager said that the population of the United States is about seventy mill lions, mostly playwriters.'
 One of the Frohman brothers does not appear to care a button about the old thirteen" superstition. This is apparent from the fact that he now has under his management thirteen playhouses in this city and an equal number in London and two or three other foreign capitals. How he contrives to run them all is a mys- tery, but he does 1t and at, l am told, a very handsome profit. The two Froh- mans are certainly remarkable figures in the theatrical world. They began life as boys in the publication office of the Tribune office when Horace Greeley was it's editor.
 The late John l Davenport was a pupil of General Benjamin F. Butler, of Mas sachusetts, and acted as his shorthand writer while he was In command at New Orleans. Later on, he became a news editor on the Tribune of this city. from which he was graduated into political life as supervisor of elections here when Grant was President His "iron cage" in which he shut up persons accused of fraudulent voting, won him fame or in- fanny according to the point of view from which it was looked at The con trivance was certainly Butlerish Da- venport was threatened with death thou sands of times, but he was absolutely without fear and never wavered in the course he had marked out for himself Rich members of the Union league gave him immense sums to ferret out fraud ulent voters, and he lived at one time as if he had an unlimited bank account
 
 MT. Charles Warner, an English actor of considerable reputation, Is billed to appear next week in a play called Drink" which has had big bibulous run, or run of the bibulous. in London, and will doubtless prove as successful here. Warner has record which is in many respects remarkable if not unpre- cedented, namely, he has played in one role, that of "Coupeau," over 5000 times. Just do little figuring on that and see what it means In round numbers there are 300 nights in the year during which theater could be open for dramatic purposes, so that 1t would take him ten years to get up with the record he has made with one performance day. Joe Jefferson is probably the only other man that can come up to Warner. He must have in the course of his career, which promises to stretch over yet many more years of the new century, appeared in Rip Van Winkie'' fully as often as Warner has in Drink"
 The fashionable churches. like the the atres. are beginning to reopen. In other words, the ministers are arriving on every foreign steamer and every train from their summer vacations. If any one supposes that the preachers do not