Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1911-03-03
Seibert's Orchestra
Matinee Daily at ? p. m.
TRi: >sHEATHEN cHINEE."
And tho @G ds Bret Harte Wrote Into
 His Flowing Sleeves.


 Every one who knows American poetry is familiar with Bret Harte's "Heathen Chince," written in the ear. iy seventies at the time when the feel ing Gn tie Pacific coast ran high against the mild eyed Celestial and voicins that feeling by portraying the hero. if such a term may be applied to All Sin, as cr:fty card cheating Nill.i.. ., lo ouiwits tLe slnarps Of t..r CaNstr.ia mining camps.
 It is not generally known, hoWcye. tl4t t!se poem Is Unique in that it contains an error which the author failed to detect when reading the gal. ley proofs and which survived ard still survives all attempts at cor, ec- tion. Perhaps 1t is the only instance In literature where grossly patent error ill the copy reading of an after ward famous article, whether prose or poem, has persisted through n,.- merous editions despite all efforts ot author and editor to kill it.
 The poem was written while Bret Harte was employed on San Fran cisco daily and, to him, was merely a part of the days work. It tells of q Chinee, An Sin, who, with smile that was childlike and bland," sat in a game of euchre with Truthful James and Bill Nye
 At a crucial point of the game the artless Chinese plays the winning c,.J Uvx-I,s I, Il the narrator of the catastrophe. 'the same Nye had dealt unto mel" Where upon Truthful and Nye proceed to Ego for that heather Chinee.'' The damaging evidence disclosed by their rough and searching investigation is told as follows in the poem as it was printed-and has been printed ever since the initial publication:
 In his sleeves, which were long, there were
 twenty-four packs.
 Which is coming it strong, yet I state but
 the facts.
 In this form the busy Bret Harte let the proofs go down to the printer, and it was not until some time later that he recalled having overlooked an error in it. He hurried down to the press, but already several hundred copies had been struck off and were being distributed about the city to the morning subscribers. Bret Harte, at taching no importance to the fugitive verses, which had merely ooZed from his pen the afternoon previous, made no effort at correction then. When. box lo tically copied it and publishers and il. illustrators rang all manner of comic changes in it he tried to substitute the correct phrase. but without avail, and "The Heather Chinee" has persisted in it's original form through number
 knighted Actors.
 It Is an odd fact that of the English actors knighted all but one had first to legalize the names under which they had won fame. The question arose with the first proposition to confer knlghthood on a gypsy. It would be absurd so to honor one John Henry Brodrihb. Yet legally no such person as Henry Irving" existed. No such obstacle had to be overcome when. on the occasion of victoria's diamond jubilee. Squire Bancroft knelt before his queen and arose sir squire. How ever. the three actors knighted by King Edward bore cognomens of their own invention. Sir Charles Wyndham was born Culverwell, and Sir John Hare. Fairs. As for Sir Herbert Beer bohm Tree. his brilliant wife once put 1t "'Tree' is a fantastic thing we just lacked on. We're all plain Beerbohms -piaip as brother Max"-Argonaut.