The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-09-13

uJ' is Iho only Aorc18uer Tn the com pany.
 Probably you were not credulous if you heard the racy Lillian Russell say, in "Wildfire." that although her dead husband had left her a stable of race horses. she knew nothing about the racing game. You probably would welcomed her and 'Wildfire" to New York with uproarious applause and cheers. They laughted at the farce when they did not laugh with it. And the beautiful Lillian did not seem to mind. Lillian had come back as beau tiful as ever and thinner than of late. But she had unwisely sacrificed her figure to fashion. All her gorgeous gowns had sheath skirts which in ef- feet added a naughty number of inches to. her circumference. Yet at each change of dress she was loudly ap- plauded. with Anna Held. glIttering in the first row. leading in the demon- stration. When she entered for the dramatic climax of the play, the scene was the stable which still bore the name of its former owner, so that none of her unsportive friends should know that it belonged to the fair widow. By this means the man in control of the mare, Wildhre,' was able to order the jockey to throw the race. He told tnG DOy lHdlg do n0 IuLHC0 AntO NAC home stretch, he was look to a certain window of the club house. If he saw no signal, he must ride to lose; if the crooked gamester wanted it won, he would wave a white handkerchief. A stable boy overheard this, and just as the race was called, warned the real owner of Wildfire. She and her vil- famous adhirer, whom she had scorn- fully spurned, watched the race from the window together. The frenzied widow wanted to make him appear to wave his handkerchief. So the shrink ing Lillian overcame her girlish timid- ity and let him embrace her, so that she could steal his handkerchief and wave it as though he were giving the signal. And that is how Wildfire won. with Lillian describing 1t in a Lady Gay Spanker sort of eloquence.
 The audience liked Lillian so much. as she nobly threw her modesty to the winds, that cheers were added to the volume of applause. She had to make a speech. Then she did the tnlnY which has always enhanced the charm of the American beauty. She remem- bered others than herself. Actors high and low generally forget that there is such a person as an author Of the play that enables them to succeed; but Lillian auietd the friendly uproar about herself to thank the writers of "Wild> 
 there had been a call for them. As she dragged forth the sout George V. Hobart and the slim George Broad hurst. she said: If I've won, 1t Is because I held big and little casino"
 Arnold DaIv a year ago was an act iner disciple of George Bernard Thaw. Actor and author seemed Intimately ofinitiye. They were alike in eccen- trictties which denote genius-or diJn't. How Daily makes of himself a Bowery tough man, made tender oy girl missionary in Regeneration. Daly's study of an ignorant, degraded vet reclaimable young fellow is Eraphic, and is like Dickens's, Zola's and Tolstois; yet the play is not dis tinpuishable from the mass of melo. dramas of New York criminology in the slurns. The material IS trans ferred from My Mamie Rose" a nov ell. whose author named himself Ow- en Kildare for handspring into lit- erature. He went to live in the Bow cry. married a settlement worker, and wrote a novel about one Owen Conway. and of his love for a missionary. Just to show that life Is stranger than tic- tion. Owen Kildares romance came to a play In Broadway, while Owen Con- ways ends In jail. The other even ing, in the Bowery, Chuck Coners told me that II OWGh 1AAl0AAO SNOA NOAAOo back there they would mob him. Af- ter seeing the play, I am inclined to think they of the Bowery would get the cooperation of those of Broadway who look for art in the theatre. At the same time it is not at all bad en- tertainment.
 owen Kildare's owen Conway Is the leader of a gang that gathers in one of those cellars that are scarcer in the Bowery than on the stage. In- to 1t rushes suddenly the settlement girl, who having caught one of the gang trying to rob her, has been ac- cused in turn by him of a worse crime of the streets. owen defends her: and then the whole trouble begins. By the next act. she has him on his knees praying. Then she makes him janitor of the mission. He is as good as Lord Fauntleroy then; Is, in fact, scrubbed clean inside and out. He loves Mamie and Mamie loves him. But right into the middle of his hap piness dashes a former pal. begging to be hidden from the police, who are after him for muTdering his woman. nxycu hides him ThRraunOn fha rfn