The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1913-03-29

It was twenty-six years ago to-day, March 29, 1887, that American and European society was startled by the professional stage debut of Cora Ur- Quhart Potter, daughter of a promin- ent citizen of New Orleans and wife of one of the wealthiest scions of New York plutocracy. It was on the stage of the Haymarket Theatre, in London, that Mrs. Potter first appeared as a professional actress, in play called Man and Wife, As the bride of the millionaire James Brown Potter, the beautiful girl who had been the belle of New Orleans had been given cor dial welcome into the inner circle of metropolitan society, and her social triumph extended to Europe. She was gancet of her costumes, and was in a fair way to become an arbiter of fashion when she suddenly abandon ed her predestined career for that of an actress. A long experience in amateur theatricals had paved the way that first night at the Haymarket Theatre Mrs. Potter was a success Her adoption of the stage alienated her husband and many of her friends. Early in her professional career she and her wealthy husband reached the parting of the ways, although it was not until ten years ago that the mar riage was legally dissolved, the GUS tody of their one child being given to MT. Potter.
 Mrs. Potter's greatest fame as an actress was gained with the late Kyr1e Bel1ew, who was born in England ff- ty-eight years ago yesterday and died in 1911. For eleven years Mrs. Pot ter and MT BeIlew toured the world, playing in England, the United States, Canada and Australia, their repertory including shakespearean dramas, "Ca- ni11e,'' La Tosca,' and other plays. Fifteen years ago Mrs. Potter Joined Beerbohm Tree, and later starred in the British provinces and South Afri- ca and played in vaudeville. For sew eraI years she has lived principally at Staines, England, where she has a pretty villa, and has devoted much of her time to the study of. Hindu lore, ancient Egyptian mysteries and the occult generally.
 Mrs. Potter was largely respon- sibIe for the great social vogue re- gently enjoyed in England by Fred erick Thurston, who claims to be a re- incarnation of Sethi l., the father of RameseS the Great. Thurston lives a secluded life in a houseboat on the Thames, but holds weekly meetings in London which are attended by scores of titled ladies, who listen eag- erly to his weird lectures. Mrs. Pot ter is his most devoted disciple and she
 
 has abandoned all stage work and de- votes herself to studying and ex- pounding to others the fesoteric- truths which Dr. ThaddeuS Burr Wakeman irreverentIy called ttAsiat- ic mental mi1dew.''
 Those who have read Harry Leon Wilson's latest novel, His Majesty Bunker Bean," have enjoyed much laughter at the expense of the youth full hero who imagined himself to be a reincarnation of Ramtam, an Egyp- tian monarch, and who paid a, large sum to a charletan for the mummy of tured in Hartford, Conn. Thurston, the EngIishman, holds a similar delusion, and in his houseboat on the Thames has the alleged mummy of Sethi I. Humorous as this may seem, the claim is accepted seriously by dozens of ti- tied Eng1ishwomen and by American women who reside in England.
 Thurston is no mere fakir of the fortune-tel1ing school. He is Cam bridge man, and won a gold medal for poetry at that institution. He has visited places in India and Thibet never before reached by white men, and spent years in studying the lore of the Indian adopts. The ambition of his life is to found a sacred city, in Egypt, to be peopled by students of the occult from all parts of the globe. That he may accomplish that dream seems probable, for he has enlisted the interest of many people of wealth and influence besides Mrs. Potter.
 Poplins, a combination of silk and wool, will be very popular. It is of softer and more supple make than