The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1918-09-08
British Sporting and
Theatrical Memories
~ W many interests Great Britain

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L and the United States had in COM
mon in the theatrical, operate and racing
worlds, how much real Glands across the
sea" spirit existed between the two coun-
tries in these fields of sport and the theatre
in the three decades Immediately preced-
ing the outbreak of the war, we are re-
minded in reading the delightful gossipy
pages of Alfred f. T. watson's A Sport
ing and Dramatic Career.
All readers of racing books know Mr..
Watson as the assistant editor and CON
tributor to the famous Badminton Lii
brary, and in addition to this he was the
editor of the section devoted to sports in
the Encyclopedia Britannica and the
author of seven volumesaen racing and
hunting in England. Together with
these literary activities lie has been
for nearly forty years a working news
paper man in London, adding dramatic
and operate criticisms to his labors in the
sporting field, SO that the title of his in
teresting volume of memoirs is no mis-
homer.
Mr.. Watson began writing for the Lon
don papers as staff member in 1872 and
is still at it. While many of his reminis-
cences are purely parochial and touch on
worlds with which we have little in COM
mon, whenever he devotes himself to the
theatre, the opera and racing then we find
that We can share his memories with him
If our tastes run in all or any of these
three paths.
The writer was, and still is, profound
admirer Of Sir Henry Irving and tells
many interesting anecdotes of him not only
as an actor but as a kind friend. 1t was
Irving, indeed, who suggested the nom de
plume of "Rapier' to Watson, pen name
he used for forty years. Watson had
great admiration for the Bancrofts,
Charles Coghlan, Jefferson's Rip Van
Winkle ("one of those realizations Of
character which can never fade in the
memory'') and for w. S. Gilbert, to
whom he devotes many pages, not blink
ing Gilbert's faults. He reproduces one
of Gilbert's sketches for a magazine en-
titled Actors, Authors and audiences that
Watson admired but which we find in
ordinately dull.
Among the opera singers he recalls with
profound admiration are Patti, Christine
Nilsson, Titiens In Fidelio, Faure, the
great French singing actor, and Maurel
(who is still remembered here). One does
not have to be much of a graybeard to
recall the singer at our own Metropolitan
whom Watson thus describes: "And there
was a wonderful understudy, Nine. Bauer
meister, who seemed to know all the
operas that had ever been written, and to
go on for any part a. moments notice"
At our opera house Nine. Bauermeister
is still well remembered for her versatility;
no one is ever likely to forget her Martha
in Faust" nor her general charm and
ability. His memories of his first visit to
Bayreuth are amusing and characteristic
cally British, and in the course of them
he tells that rare thing, an ungracious
action by List. He is frank in his dis
regard for Salvini but has more than the
average Engllshman's appreciation. OF
visiting French actors and actresses, such
as Bernhardt, Chaumont and the other
artists of the Coincide Franchise, who
used to come to London.
1t is in the pages devoted to the thor
oughbred and racing that memories with
the most vivid thrill are awakened by
these "reminiscences of Mr.. Watson's.
Those were really great days when James
. r. Keene won the Derby with Foxhall and
when Sloan and Sims and other great
American jockeys astonished English race
goers with the american seat" Watson
says fatty that Sloan's style of Coming
through" which "Tod" was credited with
inventing, was really originated by Tom
Cannon, the English jockey. Later in the
volume, in describing Racing in tie Nine
ties, Watson says -