Las Vegas optic., 1912-02-15
FACTS SURP'ASS
THE ANCIENT
ROMANCES
VOGUE OF ARABIAN NIGHTS THE
ETRIcAL PROD cTloNs
LEADS TO CHAOS

AOAhB ICOs 4NGM 1Olf
theater goers apparently wish theil
plays to transport them far from the
metropolis these days. Anything ex
Jotic is received with acclaim. Two
rival Broadway playhouses, a few
blocks apart offer plays representing
scenes from the Arabian Nights and
these are playing to full capacity at
all performances Enthusiastic audi
ences follow keenly the animated ar
abesques of caliphs and clowns, beg.
gars transformed to wealthy mobiles,
ragged revenge stalking its prey,
stabbings and drownings, lovers SNUG
gled into harems, and all the thou
sand and one lively mischances and
grotesqueries of the romantic tale.
The volatile New Yorker has rushed
to this romantic atmosphere to es-
cape the prosaic facts of modern ur-
ban life. But probably only to the
stolid metropolitan is the metropolis
prosaic. AS fact the city's news OF
a single day contains more strange,
romantic incidents than the widest
oriental extravaganza. Were Charles
Dickens, whose centenary Father
Knickerbocker recently observed,
alive, and writing in New York instead
of London, today, he would unques-
tionably rouse the great body of New
Workers to this constant outpouring
of romance at their very doors. Little
glimpses of this romance peer out of
the colums of the newspapers. A re
cent day produced the following items.
A multimillionaire died intestate, and
one of his nephews, who was to re.
ceive two and half millions, was
discovered living in destitution in a
mean tenement. He had Just Dor.
rowed quarter from a neighbor and
his wife was in the workhouse. A
lively millionaire, "A years old, an
athlete and jiu jitsu expert was
found to have married a girl of 20.
A clerk who had his salary raised
went home and hanged
himself. A life insurance company
discovered that a man supposed to
lave died IA years ago, at which time
he company paid his wife a policy of
1850 on his life, was still alive. The
nan had been in the employ of the
company during the IA years and liv-
ID Just a few doors from it's main of |
ice. A wealthy Yukon miner came
o town, engaged suite at a smart
3roadway hotel, washed his only IN
lershlrt, a red flannel affair, and
lung 1t out of the window to dry.
o that several thousand persons
altered to stare and traffic was
locked At a book sale, a bihlio-
lille paid $4,000 for tiny pamphlet
Shakespeare's Venus and
Ddonis." This amounted to $165 a
age, or $1,S00 cubic inch. These
ere but few items picked at ran.
ON from the news columns.
jewelers. Exchange to Go
The jewelers. Exchange building.
ne of the Oldest structures in New :
ork, in the heart of the financial
lstrict, is at last to be torn down
make way for skyscraper. The
lace dates from 1850. It is really a
roup of buildings constructed about
rear courtyard. In the old DAYS 1T
as occupied by lawyers offices. but
le attorneys moved out or died off
ne by one and jewelry trades moved
/ Aaron Burr had an office there.
)out 1872, but the roomy fireplace
here he is said to have brewed a
NOUS hot punch has long since van.
he'd. 1t is also said that the place
as once a hotel and that Washington
'ent night in one of the rooms.
1ere was, at that time, a handsome
PioJ lAS III luG court and
1dges across it connected the front
q rear buildings. Later the origin
Gordon Bennett was tenant and
Is evicted for failure to pay his
Mt. For time one of the cellar
ults was occupied by Scotchman
own as Lord Palmerston" who
Ia a famous brew of ale and still -
IRE famous mutton pies. n
Hard on Your Uncle II
Inc laws against carrying .reyol-
RS In New York have recently been
and now the police de-
rtment and the magistrates have
zen measures which increase tbe
ficulty of pawning ones watch. This
the result of the decree to the eff
t That anyone who has been rob.