Virginia citizen. (Irvington, Va.) 1891-1921, 1907-12-13
IRvINGTON, VIRGINIA. FRIDAY DECEMBER 13 1907.

with her thumbs, but she is instantly
kissed by her employer as she is bend
ing over the machine.
| Occasionally have been led to be-
lieve that l owned a CLEAN of a
sense of humor, but l think it is a
mistake. 1 find no humor in the perse-
cuted typewriter girl. All those stage
heroines seem to me to persecute their
employers. They won't let the poor
chaps employ them unmolested. If they
don't get kisses, they think that they
are going to get them, anyway. If
they are not taken out to wine sup
pers, " they hope to be taken before the
fourth act. They are always beautiful
on the stage, just as they are always
beautiful in the eyes of the reporter
who finds one ruined or murdered. She
may have been hideous to look at-a
sightl-but the reporter writes of "the
lovely girl who used to typewrite for
living | can't see where the glamour
of Remington comes in.
Young girls who see these dreadful
plays get a distorted and perverted
notion of life. They may be unsophis-
ticated and guileless as infants, but the
germ of wrong idea is plantedin them,
and it spreads. These girls are like
the woman who, before going down
town, said good-by to her children, and
added, ''Be good while I'm away, and
don't put beans up your nose" When
she came back she found every blessed
child with bean upits poor little nose.
In these cheap plays, moreover, to be
lovable, the character must be illiterate.
The dear old lady who charms is forced
to use double negatives and the vilest
sort of grammar. 1t is one of the very
oldest of all stage idiosyncrasies. Hitter
acy is looked upon as human and SYM
pathetic. The naughty dame, in low
neck black velvet. and a ta-ra-ra in her
white hair very wicked and plotting
says, Il simply won't do it, But the
dear old lady you are asked to love and
revere says, 81 amt agoin' to do no
such thing" If she used the language
of the naughty dame she would be
looked upon as an anomaly.
Even cleanliness and personal neat
ness are at a premium with the heroes
of the cheap stage. The playwrights,
catering to griminess, insist that the
hero shall be soiled, frayed creature
with black finger nails. 1t is the villain
who is beautifully washed, whose clothes
fit, and who looks like a civilized human
being. The idea of these plays is that
anything pictorially respectable is dis
gusting. To be kind, sympathetic, right
minded, vi-tuous and amiable you must
be dirty slob, and you must speak the
language of the car conductor or the
barkeeper. One rightly constructed
sentence is enough to damn any stage
hero of the popular price plays. Gram
mar is for the villain only. Grammar
is the accessory of the silk hat, the
clean collar and the pressed trousers
always called pants" by all the really
nice people,. The man who says 81
didn't WENT is hero. The man who
doesn't say it is contemplate dude.
These plays gid illiteracy and
star dishonest, mock-heroic sentiments.
Many of them are abjectly disgusting
much more repulsive than the sexual
shortcomings of the Broadway plays.
They leave nasty taste in the mouth,
because everything that has semblance
of decency is held up to disapproval,
while all that is common, and vulgar,
and squalid, and illiterate is pronounced
the real human thing. The decent citi-
zen is dude or villain; the indecent
one, trough diamond"
Youngsters leave these playhouses
with twisted minds. They see in their
hapless employers mere reprobates;
they note in clean people tendency to
put on airs and be insufferable; they
view in all wealth crime and infamy.
The houses of the rich are dens of vice.
They are taught to respect lack of edu-
cation, to admire the buns and the
loafers, and to ascribe all the virtues
and all the hopes of life to the slums.
The plays never vary. They are con-
sistent-consistently rancid. They ap-
pear to have been designed for the pur-
pose of uneducating those who have
been partly educated. They undo what
the public schools have tried to do.
The Western Daniel knew what he
was talking about. Cheap plays have
good deal to answer for. They are
often ridiculous, and always-worse. =