The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1908-09-27

solve for the season of 1862. 1 take up
her case to illustrate the difficulty en-
countered by those who. hitherto, have
entertained People with more dimes to
spend than dollars. A slump came to
the gun and knife drama last season.
The galleries joined with the parquets
in taking CORY melodramas as joke.
For awhile audiences got their moneys
worth of fun by treating heroics as
burlesque; but that form of diversion
lost its attractiveness and the multi
tude went like sheep over a wall to
vaudeville, female minstrelsy, moving
pictures, anything else than the ''melo
drama that for years their coins had
prOspered. What was to be done?
Four theatres in New York that were
devoted last season to the Bowery
brand of drama are turned over this
season to vaudeville, two are lifted to
good grade of touring plays, three
are occupied by stock companies, and
tenth, after a discouraging endeavor
to resume with the rejected sort of
melodrania, will drop back to moving
pictures. 1t was at this tenth theatre
that Lottie Mortimer has presented a
play of her own make.
For these reasons write an account
of "A Girls Best Friend" although nc
New York newspaper has given to it
a line of considera ton. Lottie couldn't
for the life of her think OF newer
character for herself than a born
heiress kidnapped in infancy, brought
up in poverty. and finally restored to
her heritage, nor could she hit on a
more congenial theme than that sug-
gested by the adage. "A girls best
friend is her mother" In her cogita-
ton she must have convinced herself
that girls best friend is not her
mOther-in-laW: for she doesn't find
her mother until the tip end of the
play, and even then doesn't show her
at all; but her mother in-law raises
hobbs for her continuously from we'd
ding to divorce. Her young husband
is tied more by maternal apron strings
than connubial bonds, and such row
is kicked up that. when some one says
there never was a house built big
enough to hold a man with his wife
and his mother" the parquet applauds
almost as loudly as the gallery yells.
Having put herself into "A Girls
Best Friend as jimmy, the ten-thou-
sandth kidnapped child brought up in
squalor-this time among Virginia po'
white trash and cullud fok-Miss Nor
timer couldn't consistently turn her
plot on anything less time-tried than
papers. Those papers are documental
proof or her Dlrthr1ght. why does a
Pinkerton detective, sleuthing in the
disguise of tramp to find the lost girl,
carry those papers in a pocket of his
tattered coat instead of leaving them
in safe deposit box? What a silly
question. So that a villain. also hot
on the heiress' trail, may try to get
them by numbering the detective: but
after whacking him on the head, the
intrusion of a sheriff compels him to
drop the body into well and run
away without those papers. The girl
hears the detective grooming in the
well, hauls him up by the bucket and
crank and the wounded man entrusts
the papers to her, explaining that they
are good for luxurious home and an
affluent mother.
1t is reasonable enough that Miss
Mortimer should own fiae saddle
horse that follows her around for love
and sugar. but could it be that the
poor, abused Jinny-stop without an
other foolish question. The horse has
brought the actress in with a hurrah
entrance, and now he is made to fur
Their earn his keep. The girl helps the
weak detective into the saddle and bids