The Waterbury Democrat., 1934-03-03
In New York
By PAUL HARRISON

New York-Corse Payton died. and Broadway scarcely noticed. No crowds filed by his bier to honor the memory of the theatrical pi- oneer. Only a few old-timers fell to telling anecdotes beginnings: T knew him when-". No public tributes came from the folk, now famous, who served apprentice ships in his companies.
 And so maybe it is just as well that the old mans body went back for burial to his boyhood town of Centerville, Iowa. For Corse Pay ton belonged to the suburbs and the hinterland and the village op'ry house. There must be many who remember him as a stock company matinee idol, a producer of melo- drama, and as "America's best bad actor". For something like fifteen years, beginning with a play called "Dora, or a Farmers Iron Will" he trouped the middle west. At the turn of the century he started a repertory company in Brooklyn, and originated the "ten-twent' thirt'" scale of prices and the. ex- pression that become synonymous with low-priced melodrama.
 
 Glimpse of the Past
 Those were the great days. Po- lice reserves were required to handle the crowds storming Pay tons box office and the throngs of women waiting at the stage door. His income was $100,000 year. Racehorses and babies were named after him ,and everybody on Broadway knew his tall. distin- guished figure. Dorothy and Lillian Gish, Fay Bainter, Mary Miles Minter, Richard Bennett, Bert Ly- tell, Ernest Truex and Ed Wynn were some of the people who ap- peared at various times in his shows, which ranged all the way from Ibsen to "Charley's Aunt. The movies ruined him, but he took defeat stubbornly, par rying ridicule with wlsecracks, moving to smaller and poorer tlheaters. In 1881, his fortune ! gone. he was found presiding
 as master of ceremonies in a
 cheap Second Avenue night club.
 Tinkling Star
 | For twelve years now, MT. Wes- ley Ossman has been going around tapping glasses. Even in restaur- ants and at banquets he can't re- sist a stemmed, empty glass; leans over and gives it an experimental ping, and listens attentively. If no. body stops him, thinking he is crazy. MT Ossman will go all along a table doing this. Beg pardon he will say, T would like to lister to your glass"
 The reason is that Mir Ossmar makes his living playing on musi' cal glasses, and he Is always on the lookout for any that have q perfect tone. You can't order an E-fia' glass as you would fiddle string he explains; nobody can blow ol mold a glass and know beforehand
 how it is going to vibrate. After it Is made you can put water in I
 and change the tone, but the tone
 isn't so pure.
 MT Ossman performs in vaude vile, and at events such as thu
 wine and liquor exposition. A small patient man, he now uses 27 glass es which he has collected in thu twelve years, but he would like some more for the upper and lower registers. Plays anything iron
 classical music to fast jazz, using
 both hands and stroking the edge'
 of the glasses with dampened fin
 gers. He is very proud of thu glasses he has now, and can tel you a story about each one O.
 them. The especially mellow low
 G glass was discovered in a speak
 easy on Fifty-second street jus
 before the place was raided. H.
 had hard time getting 1t out in
 tact. Several others were found il
 restaurants here about, one oi
 shipboard, one in dining car.