Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1911-12-10

when they read over there about the riot
Gus proceedings in New York over me
Playboy.' You'd have thought l was
going to be murthered.' Nes, 1t was
"murthered'' she said. not murdered ,
- Come home'-that was the g1st or all
of these cablegrams. They advised me
not to continue my ddventurlnS anna
pack of wild folk-the Americans. the
New Workers. YOU know; wild folk in
deed, | wish they could see some OF
these wild folk dining and gyrating about
in their Babylonian magnifcence: Inc
idea over there still is, you know nate
to say it. but it is the truth-that Amerl-
cans are not much advanced beyond the
cave-dwelling period. And so my good
people over the sea dlsclalmed all re-
sponsibilty for me if ] did not return 10
Great Britain by the very first steamer.
One cablegram | found extremely mys-
FERROUS. 1t took me some time to solve
the meaning OF it 1t read simply: Re-
member Macready.
"iNow who in Killarney or out OF IT Is
Macready?' thought I. I could not for
the life of me imagine. At first ! Thought
perhaps il was some deep, subtle JOKE
whereof | had not the key, and came
near cabling the sender OF the cablegram'
asking him to furnish me with the cipher
so that | could get to the point of his
message. Before doing that. though,
met up with one of your dramatic crltlcs
(clever lot of lads your dramatic critics
as why shouldn't they be, seeing that
extraction?), and he put me right about
the queer message 1t seems that away
back in the forties tor was II the thirues ,
the English tragedian .Macready came 10
New York and there were dreadful riots
over his appearance on the New York
stage 1t was ! was told, at the time
of the beginning of the know-nothlhg
movement in New York, which was leVei-
ed as | understand it, at all foreigners,
but mainly at folk from the British Isles.
1t appears that Edwin Forrest, the
American tragedian. had made a tour of
England the year before, a highly unsuc-
cessful tour, and Forrest. upon his re-
turn TO the United States, had attributed
the lack of success of his tour of Eng
land to the hatred of all things Ameri-
can by the British: which made the
New Workers ready for Macready when
ne made his first appearance on the New
York stage. The dramatic critic told
mel really had never heard of the bust
ness before. and it quite amazed me
that they sacked the theater in which
Macready was playing, and that the
troops were called upon to suppress the
rioters, ana that great many people
were shot to death. Very dreadful,
thought, and still think, but what Ill the
WOEiT hdd MdCtedGE ana HIS IIotS 10 no
with me- And here was a friend of
nine on the yon side of the go
ing back seventy or eighty years to ind
a reason why | should seek the water
front of New York. IN the dead of night
mayhap, and take the very ilrst steamer
1 could get home, w asn't II amazing?
Seriously. though, il did surprise me
that there could be any IRISH folk III the
world deficient in comprehension as
not TO take our Offering in the spirit in
which the play was written. OF course.
the great majority of the Irish people OF
New York who attended the plays did SO
understand the plays. did accept them
and appreciate them for Their poetic
beauty ana, better, for their pure sym
boIism. Christy Mahon, the character
the roughlins in the audiences seemed to
object TO in The Playboy.' is age
old type: one of the oldest types in all
the world, the sentimental bragsart. The
heroes of all the ancient sages were
Christy Mahons. Peer Gynt was
Christy Mahon, a Scandinavian. Cy-
rano de Bergerac was the French Christy
Mahon. Christy is recrudescence, in
Irish form, of the ancient type, the man
with winning-I was gong to say win
some-qualities and who nevertheless is,
besides a sentimentalist bragsart, a
victim of his own imagination and ex-
pansiveness
II make allowances. of course. for the
fact, too obvious, that "e Irish are a su-