The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-07-21
War Shows at Jamestown
BY FRANKLIN FYLEs.

jamestown talr, July 19--W at
shows are bigger than any of the
shows of peace at the jamestown Ter
centennial exposition. There is no
Palace of Art among the fairs build
jngs, but camps of United States
troops, of shifting regiments of the ma
tiOnal guard, and of numerous mlhtary
schools, make the place look ike
martial campaign. The buildings de-
voted to machinery and manufactures
are not amazingly spacious, nor are
they crowded by exhibits of ways and
means of nOn-cOmbative life; but Uncle
Sam displays more contrivances of
slaughter than it did at Chicago or st.
Louis; and in Hampton Roads, where
the Merrimac and the Monitor had the
first of noval fights in iron armOT,
float enormous battleships Of the lat
est make. The police wear soldiers
uniforms and carry sabres. TO the
variety of costumes of American fight
ers on land and sea are added those of
foreign navies. So the fair has much
more of the aspect of war than of
peace.
!, K X
The Warpath is correspOndingly mar
tial in its more conspicuous shows Ye
Olde jamestown has a theatre in
which, as l told you last Sunday, the
story of Captain Smith and POcOhOn-
tas is enacted by descendants of Pow
hatan's Indians, and the play is made
up mainly of fights between the red
abOrigines and the white COlOnists. No
stage attention is paid to anything that
happened in America during the en-
suing two centuries, or until Paul Re
we're rode ride which, like Sheriddn's,
CHANGED to get poet TO rhyme it into
history. A Snowman hit on the idea
of illustrating Phil SheTidan's later
equestrian exploit at Winchester in
Warpath show He hired one of those
Ireadmills which Neil Burgess patent
ed for Miss Prue's mare, Cold Mo-
IasSes, to trot on in The County
Fair" and which afteTward rendered
spectacle of the Roman chariot race
possible in Ben Hur." He bought a
handsome horse accustomed to that
kind of service. He started an artist
painting a panorama of that good,
broad highway leading down" He
nired an elocutionist to explain how
morse saved the day, by carrying
Sheridan into the fight, from Winches
Ter, twenty miles away" and especial
~ TO recite Buchanan Reads poem
with dramatic effect. His preparations
were we'll under way, when he was told
something that discouraged him.
Don't you realize that jamestown is
in Virginia ?" he was asked land
can't you imagine that Sheridan's ex-
plot of saving the day isn't cherished
fondly in the Old Dominion Oh, yes,
the war is over. but 1 don't believe
your show of 'Sheridan's Ride will
enjoy great popularity here"
The first sentence of the showman's
response is not printable, but the sec
ond was: Have l got to lose the thou
sand that l have spent in prelimina-
ries?"
No" said the other: Just turn the
show into Paul Revere have your
panorama represent a Massachusetts
instead of d Virginia road, make your
elOcutiOnist deliver that one of Long
fellows tales Of a wayside inn which
recounts the midnight ride of Paul
Revere, and there you are"
And there he is-with a show that
may have cost 81, 200 to install, and $25
a day to maintain: and it is a rather
good twenty-minute show, too, though
not worth more than 10 cents of the %
charged for it. Paurs horse, thus TAX
ing the place of PhiPs, trOts, gallOps
and finally runs on the treadmill four
minutes-which is about eight times as
long as Ben Hur's chargers race in the
arena-while a combination of painted
cloth and projected photograph is
moved back of him, lights and shad-
Ows produce the phenomena of a
stormy night, the familiar poem is de-
livered rousingly, and the illusion is
remarkable.
The largest three structures on the
Warpath contain reproductions of
three battles of our civil war. Two are
cycloramas of the kind that. thirty
FIVE years ago, amazed the public with
illusions of distance. 1t was found
that, by hanging painted landscape
on the inner wall of a circular build
ing, carefully filling in some level
space, and milling the spectators
on a high platform in the center, an
astounding sense of reality was Gre
ated. Those cyclOramas had their day
as mdryelS in shows, and are seen no
more except at occasional fairs. The
same problem that was solved by
changing Phil Sheridan's ride to Paul
Revere's had TO be faced in putting a
civil war cyclorama on the Warpath.
The solution of the difficulty would
have been easy if some sufficiently IA
nous battle with a neutral result had
been availabl The Snowman sought
safety by putting up two cycloramas
side by side, one picturing Manassas,
with victory for the cOnfederates, and
the other Gettysburg, with victory for
the uniOnists. The persuaders at the
entrances talk in opposition, the music
of Dixie" and Yankee Doodle mix
in rivalry, and it is common to see
aged survivors of the battles, thus in
cited, engage in colloquies that look
for awhile like controversies. but are
apt to end in a handshake, or an am
icable crooking of elbows at the bar
nearest by. And there more imme-
diate and personal question arises to
put aside old-time bitterness, and unite
the Yank and the Reb in a new bond
of mutual sympathy. Whisky Is 20
cents drink on the Warpath.
Peace is hell" said a veteran, on
paying the usual price of four drinks
for two.
x * x
The third battle with a theatre TO
itself is that of the Monitor and the
Merrimac. Can you answer, Offhand,
the question which of those ships
whipped the other? You know well
enough that the MeTTimac, newly iron
bound, was sent out from the James
river into Hampton Roads to destroy
some all-wooden Union vessels; that
1t was well along in its job when there
came from Chesapeake bay the iron
turreted Monitor which Ericsson had