The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-12-02

older man at my left, -never would have % outraged the poetry of mo- tion.~
 Just then the ponies fell on their baclxe, danced a moment with their feet in air, and went cartwheeling off the stage. The two venerable critics lock- ed grim, and clapped no hands. but I couldn't help suspecting that they didn't mind 1t when the applause com pelled those girls to come out and do some more circus feats.
 F.1farie Bonfanti never did that" said one. 'Nor Fanny EIlsler," said the other. "And then. too.s said !. Marie and Fanny couldn't"
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 Seldom does fact provide material for fiction so effectually as in Jose phine Terranova's killing of her uncle 1 nactual life and the imitation of it by Eleanor Robson, in A Permanent Tragedy" I don't konw if Clotilde Graves, the English novelist. got the idea of dramatizing it from reading newspaper. report, or if Miss Robson desiring to venture as dragedienne, offered the job to Miss Graves.
 Josephine was reared by her Italian uncle and aunt in a part of New York as foreign as though it were In Rome. The uncle was bestiaI the aunt pander- ed to him, and the girl was too ignor- ant to know that the uncle's relations with her were hirribIe, At seventeen she married a young Italian. The uncle mad with Jealousy at losing her. told the truth to the husband on the bridal day, so that he might send her back to her infamy. The husband did as the uncle expected him to but the spurned little wife didn't return to the monster; she wandered miserably in the streets several days, and then, lying in wait for him. shot bullet through the place where he should have had a heart. 4 court did not condemn her to death, nor yet acquit her under any ''unwritten law" but sentenced her to reformatory for an indefinite teme.
 A wellnigh literal transcription of that homicide. makes a grisly, yet fascinating play for Miss Robson to use in the same bill with a merry comedy. The malEe-believe tragedy is located in London. The uncle and aunt remain Italian, but the girl is an a5- opted English waif, and the bride groom is a Londoner of the coster type. Miss Graves has created a valu- ably dramatic character, too. a blind and pious mother to the bridegroom. This Woman reads the Bible with her fingers in lieu of eyes, by feeling the raised letterss and when she is mind ed to drive the pitiably defiled bride from the home of virtue to which the unsuspecting son has brought her, she says: "Open the good book, hap'azard, an the varse Oi plices me finger on shall be me goide."
 With a suggestion of divine prov!- dence. the verse thus chosen is Christ's admonition to the accusers of the Mag daline; "he that is without sin, let him cast the first stone" The audience is da3fOhfaa and ryfraa aTUau faara vyhiob Miss Robson's plaintive voicing of the woe-begone girls plea has set trick ling: "Oi didn't know I was wicked nobody told mean wen Oi tried to. stop me uncle, e beat me. But Ofve carried this" a dagger in her bodice. "sonce your son got a right t ave me to 'imself."
 It is a throbbing. shuddering climax when the bridegroom, maddened by a sudden knowledge of the truth, filings from him in disgust the girl he has loved. and goes out to kill the Italian if he has to ''hang for It." Then the monster comes in to get the wretched creature, and she stabs him to death 'Tt's me. not Bill, that1l 'ang fer this, an that's low 1t oughter be-"
 All this is in a single act, and the audience goes home to imagine a sec ond, in which Miss Robson isn't even CQAfAAAANE0 AO & wholly free, to be loved and cherished by her husband.
 Ss Ss S
 Who has not been in a social gathering when someone brought along songs, yet had to be. coaxed to sing them, and who while singing was listened to by the polite few and dis regarded by the chattering many? It Is a wonder that authors of comedies have 1eFt fo EIaddau Csl1a m hare at this late day. to reproduce that fre- quent thing on the stage. Chambers does it in a play which, although he is an Englishman. has had It's first performance in New York The anna teur vocalist delivers ''oh, Promise Mel directly to the girl of his heart and very deeply emotionalizes the hope that some day you and I shall take our love together to some distant sky" but she gave no heed to his yearning. and talked fondly with his rival.
 By the way. I have never seen in print, the story of Clement Scott. writer of the ardent "Oh Promise Me" being a devil of a fellow among Wo- men, didn't at first publish the verses, but gave autographic copies to half dozen Lodon ladies. It isn't told how many of them,if any,made the prom ise to go lovingly skyward with him:
 
 compare poems and destroy the value of his amatory composition for private use by sending 1t to a magazine for publication. Subsequently,, our Reginald de Koven made a tune for it, and 1t become instantly the popular ballad which it still is
 $ @ s
 A Japanese war drama was novelty of the week It was a half-hour affair l at matinee, and its authoress was | it's actress, assisted only by two per ] sons, who spoke no more than a hum | dred words each. But the woman was ! Fuji Ko, 8 young matron of high social 1 degree in Japanese smart society i'll both Tokio and New York. The same Yashio Markino who had been Belas- | co.'s aid to Jap accuracy in Madam l Butterfly and '"The Darling of the | Gods" bossed the production of 'The | Love of Geisha," which therefore was to be accepted as an authorative sort | of thing, and when Fuji-Ko toddled in | to view, with her body bent forward | from the hips, and opened her ran l with a jerky flip, I had to give up my old notion that the three little maids | from school" in The Mikado" were l congregations.
 II Fuji-Ko began with a lullaby to her l baby, probably a song in common use in her native land, and so cooingly