TABLE TALK.

Evening Star, Issue 8367, 19 November 1890, Page 4

TABLE TALK.

(Prom Our Special Correspondent.] London, September 26. The papers have not as yet, I see, got hold of an amusing incident which occurred at a well-known West End auction mart last week. This was the sale of a long letter in tho Queen’s own handwriting addressed to her grandson Prince Eddie of Wales, and dated some fifteen years back. H.R.H. seems, like many less distinguished youths, to have suffered from chronic extravagance, inducing a perennial scarcity of pocketmoney. About the period of the epistle he must have written home for some without success, and then resolved on an attempt to tap the Royal and grandmotherly pocket. Her Majesty’s reply is most interesting. It covers five closely-written sheets, and many expressions of affection and adjurations to dear Eddie to cultivate unselfishness and economy. No coin or P. 0.0. was enclosed. This omission, however (a pencilled note on the fly-leaf explains), Master Eddie remedied by selling the letter to a speculative -comrade for 30s. It was, unfortunately, stolen from this youth, and disappeared till the other day, when the epistle was put up to auction amongst a number of other autographs and realised LIO. MORE FIRST NIGHT FISTICUFFS. ‘ The Lyceum 'premiere on Saturday did not pass off without some suggestion of a fracas of the Moore-Whistler sort. These two heroes by the way were both present, and glared at one another from opposite sides of the dress circle; while Mr MortimerMenpea surveyedfirat one enemy and then the other through hia glasses, doubtless wondering which man he loathed tho most. But “to our muttons,” as the humorist observes. The first little difference on Saturday was between obese Oscar’s fat brother, Willie Wilde, and an American gentleman. This pair had, fortunately, the good sense to carry on their altercation outside the Lyceum doors, so its cause remains a secret. The other disturbance was created by a worthy said to belong to the Brett family, who would persist in maintaining a running commentary of a satirical and highly-objeotionable character on the performance in audible tones. This nuisance, annoying enough to average auditors, proved absolutely insufferable to that devout Irving worshipper, “ genial Joe Hatton.” He remonstrated irately, but without effect, with Mr Brett, who merely made rude remarks about the massive journalist’s “ porcine proportions,” recommending him to “try for the cattle show," and so on. Mr Hatton possessed no weapon, save his Gibus’s opera hat, but this he vigorously brought down on his insuiter’s pate with a rosoundfng “ thwack,” which brought half the house to its feet. Mr Brett sought to return the compliment, but Hatton was behind him, and Sam French, the theatrioai publisher, intervening pacifically, the incident, as reporters say, closed. The ‘St. James’s’ suggests that if the present agreeable and gentlemanly custom of caning, and slapping, and punching on fashionable first nights is to be continued, a line might be added to tho programme : ‘ Great Glove Fight in the Foter. Hr Piffles and the Editor of the ‘Goose.’ No Extra Charge. Under the heading of “A New Departure,” a correspondent comments : Time was when men to theatres went Upon tka play alone intent; Concerned with mimic woes upon the stage. They watched tho players (ume, and fret, and rage. Times alter, and there now are signs The thing will run on other lines. The players, seated tranquil on the stage, Will watch the audience fume, and fret, and rage. A FAMOUS ALPUfB GUIDE, The guide Carrel, who was frozen to death or. the Matterhorn a week ago, had for over twenty years been a well-known personage At Zermatt, and is declared by the e?»

perienoed Whymper to have been absolutely matchless as a cragsman and climber. He formed one of the ill-starred party which first achieved the ascent of the, till then inaccessible, Matterhorn, fourteen or fifteen years ago, and which met with such a calamitous aooident on the way down. Lord James Douglas and a guide, it will be remembered, then lost their lives. The story of this thrilling adventure—one of the most remarkable in the whole history of mountain climbing—is told with rare power by Mr Whimper in his work on ‘ The Ascent of the Matterhorn.” This book, which teems with tales of Alpine adventures, and may be dipped into with certainty of pleasure by almost anybody, has become rather rare, and cannot be bonght through ordinary channels. Colonials who have copies should keep them carefully. They will be worth money some day, DAVITT’S PAPER. The ‘ Labor World ’ has made its appearance, and is not a wildly exciting or sensational publication, Mr Davitt promises, however, some revelations on the rather stale topic of “ Pigott and his patrons,” which he hopes will wake people up. I doubt it myself. Everybody knows Pigott was a remarkably clever scoundrel, and corresponded with all sorts and conditions of statesmen. The publication of his letters to them, and of theirs to him, may interest a few people perhaps, but it would, thank goodness, take more than that to rake up the dead embers of the Parnell Commission dispute. Mr Davitt’s allegations re the dynamite plots are more serious, yet quite incredible. We can swallow a good deal, but the idea of the Dublin Castle officials conspiring with the English Consul-Oeneral In New York to deliberately foist dynamite plots on perfectly innocent men is absurd. MR o’brien. A brother of the writer’s, a shrewd person, strongly prepossessed in favor of Home Rule, mot Mr and Mrs William O’Brien at Glengariff ten days ago, just before the former’s arrest. He was not at all favorably impressed with the patriot, who seemed incapable of accuracy in conversation oven on trifling subjects and questions of fact well within the cognisance of the entire hotel company. One wondered (an American there observed) whether such an habitually loose talker could under any circumstances make a good party leader. A WARNING TO EXTREMISTS. Enthusiastic temperance lecturers who are in the habit of getting intoxicated with their subject and indulging in verbal extravagances will do well to take warning by the melancholy fate of the Rev. E. S. Savage, of Barrow. This eloquent divine (a son-in-law of Archdeacon Farrar) recently delivered a fiery discourse, in which he denounced the publicans of Barrow as being guilty of keeping brothels, of selling liquor to drunken persons, and of keeping gambling houses. The invective was received with enthusiastic applause by a large meeting. Strange to say, the calumniated publicans were annoyed and proceeded to take out writs against the parson, no fewer than fifteen libel actions being commenced. The collapse of Mr Savage proved ignominious and complete. To avoid ruin the rev. gentleman has had to apologise abjectly to each individual publican, and pay costs to the tune of over L3OO. It may sately be conjectured he will in future keep his tongue within bounds. One rather won ders this mode of correction has not been tried before on some of the numerous extremists who are continually levelling wholesale charges against sects, societies, or tradesfolk, of whom they happen (in their superior righteousness) to disapprove. A lesson like that taught Mr Savage would do many reckless speakers good. MON BOUCICAULT’s DEATH. Dion Bouoicault died—as to some extent he deserved to die—in poverty and alone. His infatuation for the wretched Australian actress who inspired the old man’s villainous attempt to make infamous the name of the woman he had colled wife, and bastardise her children, cost him most things which makes life worth living. Old friends turned from him in disgust, women despised him, while finally the object of his misplaced adoration often laughed at and flouted him. Yet Don Eoucicault had a magnificent dramatic and acting record, and would but for this crowning misdeed have been sincerely mourned by thousands. His life off the stage was full of follies. He managed other people’s affairs splendidly, his own abominably. Half the successful pieces he wrote would have made an ordinary business man wealthy. They did Boucicault hardly any good at all. It is true, of course, dramatists did not make as much in his heyday as they can now. The palmy period of travelling companies had not begun. Now, when a melodrama succeeds, two or three companies are at once started touring in the English provinces, and as many again in America, and these bring in author’s fees steadily for eight or nine months, often much longer. Runs in London, too, are far more profitable now than in the days of ‘ The Colleen Bawn,' which yet made a greater noise in the world than any latter-day sensational play I can think of.

Two melodramas of poor old Boucy’s which stand out conspicuously in my memory are ‘ After Dark ’ and ‘ Formosa.’ In tho first-named there were two great sensations — a music hall in which a real lion-comique sang ‘ Tommy Dodd,’ then very popular, and a scene on the Underground Railway in the course of which rescuers broke through the wall of the tunnel and snatched the bound and gagged hero off the rails just before a full-sized train of several carriages thundered across the stage, loaded with passengers. I was, as a boy, much impressed with this situation train in the distance, rescuers getting nearer and nearer, falling bricks, encouraging shouts, etc., etc.—and went to see ‘ After Dark ’ several times, till one evening we sat at the far side of tho stalls and saw the advancing train stationary at tho wings, waiting quietly and patiently to come on, ‘ Formosa ’ was a notable piece because it for the first time introduced a syren of flexible ethics as one of the prominent characters. Mrs Grundy was outrageously shocked, but a virtuous British public flocked in thousands to Drury Lane, and Chatterton, who had lost a fortune producing Shakespeare at the National Theatre, henceforward awore by Boucicault, The “ Great Dion ” (as his friends used to call him) retained a phenomenally youthful appearance up to comparatively lately. The last time I saw him was after his return from Australia with Mias ITiorndyke in ‘The Jilt,’ and he then played with surprising verve and brightness, and looked barely fifty. When he did grow old it was suddenly, and recent accounts from New Zealand give a depldtable account of the old man’s deep sunken eyes, pallid face, gaunt tljroat, and snow-white hair. For months past ho could do little work of any sort, but Mr A. M, Palmer kindly made some imaginary employment for his old com»ado, so that he might not actually want. Mrs Boucicault (I don’t mean Miss Thorndyke, but Miss Agnes Robertson, the original ‘ Colleen Bawn ') is well known in London, and much respected. Her two sons, Dot and Aubrey, are handsome lads and good actors. The eldest daughter married poor John Clayton, who was “ let in ” more than once by his enterprising father-in-law. Another girl sings well, I see an intimate acquaintance (once upon a time) of Boucicanlt’s says he ran through at least three fortunes. His final extravagance whilst times were good, was a steam yacht, which he fitted up luxuriously, and on which he and Mias Thorndyke received such tag, rag, and bobtail of the profession as <sw»d to call upon them. They were an oddly assorted couple, and in his heart it is probable that lha unhappy old man bitterly repented his conduct to his wifa and children. Let us at least hope so. R.I.P.

THEATRICAL NOTES, Edward Terry has resolved to reopen his theatre next week with ‘ Sweet Lavender,' which was by no means done with last year when he went holiday-making. The cast is of course materially changed, Mr H. Reeves Smith will once again be “Clem, my boy,” and Mr Julian Cross Dr Delaney, but year recent visitor Mr W. H, Vernon joins the company to play Geoffrey Wedderbnrn. Mrs T. 11. Macklin replaces Miss Addison as Ruth Rolf ( Marie Linden will be tho now Minnie ; and Miss Elinore Leyshon the sixth or seventh exponent of the ingenuous Lavvy, originally created by little Miss Norreys. ‘ Dr Bill ’ had a run of 228 night* the

Avenue Theatre, which was not bad considering its trivial character. Daring that period there were three representatives of the genial medico Fred Terry, George Alexander, and James Grahame.

The Grand Theatre, Islington, has been crammed this week with “Johnnies” anxious to witness Lady Dunlo’a fascinating exposition of Venus in the burlesque of that name. _ What, however, made the few people in town gape almost idiotically on Tuesday morning was the spectacle of her ladyship driving Mr Wertheimer in her dogcart down Piccadilly, with her husband and the groom on the back seat. Miss Winifred Emery replaced Miss Calhoun as the starving lady in ‘Judah’ during the last week of the play’s run. MUSIC. At Eastbourne last week the song most in favor with the audiences of the three mysterious musicians, who travel about England with a piano ingeniously slung between two bicycles, and are popularly believed to be noblemen in disguise, was the hackneyed ‘ When the lights are low ’ and Trotere’s ‘ In old Madrid,’ which I had not heard before. One of the trio has a capital baritone voice, and sings with a fervor which touches the pockets of all beholders. On the whole, I should imagine that the mysterious musicians do uncommonly well during the summer months. Nobody dared to tender coppers whilst we were standing there, and I heard after they politely refuse anything less than silver, A lady who goes out a good deal tells me the following waltzes, though not strictly new, are played everywhere. Some of them may possibly be fresh to yon : —Theo Bonbeur’a *La Naiade,’ ErnestßncaloaaVa * Pickwick ’ (on airs from Solomon’s operetta), ‘Old Wherry’ (on Behrend’s popular song), and ‘ Iris,’ and Gwyllm Crowe’s well-known ‘ Fairie Voices,’ and ‘ Rose Queen.’ To families who can manage a little easy part-singing I commend Alfred Scott Gatty’s ‘ Plantation Songs ’ (two volumes, 2s each), first popularised at Lady Folkestone’s amateur concerts. They are “fetching,” to a degree well done, more especially the ‘ Ring-tailed Coon ’ and ‘ De Ole Banjo,’ in volume one, LITERARY NOTES. Mrs Stanley’s book of sketches of London street arabs was published on Friday last by Cassells, and will no doubt command a very large sale. It is a delightful little volume, containing forty pen - and • ink and sepia drawings, some humorous and some pathetic, but all honestly true and unexaggorated. In an interesting introduction the fair authoress dwells enthusiastically on the artistic opportunities of the great metropolis, and asks wonderingly why painters in search of character studies go abroad when every day and every hour there are pictures worth doing, and doing well, to bo found in London.

Mrs Stanley naturally records some of her experiences in ragamuffin land. Some of the definitions she quotes are especially funny. I asked a little girl how she would define love ? Unhesitatingly, she replied “ It’s going errands.” I asked a little boy the meaning of the word ijuilt. “It means telling on another boy.” I asked Harry Sullivan to define a gentleman. Ho replied (not without some fervor) : “ Oh, a fellow who has a watch and chain.” I suppose he read disappointment in my face, for he hastily added: “And loves Jesus.” This same boy had a very hazy idea of Old Testament history. He had heard of Adam and Eve: “They stole apples, and were turned out of the garden ; and then they had to work for their living till the sweat poured down.” A girl of eleven told me how she wished to live in the country, “ because then I shouldn’t see a lot of people having a lot of things I can’t have.” George Meredith’s novel ‘ One of the Conquerors ’ will run through the ‘ Fortnightly,’ commencing with the October number. He is at present in deep grief, as his eldest son died the other day. It seems to be generally conceded that in his absurdly theatrical attack on Augustus Moore, Whistler succeeded to perfection in the ‘ gentle art of making a goose of himself.’ Of the newspaper men present at Drury Lane not one has bad a word to say for the little artist, save Mr Herbert Vivian, of the ‘ Whirlwind,’ and his approval even “genial James’ 1 must consider a doubtful boon. I hear, by-the-way, some person with more money than brains has been induced to refill the Hon. Stuart Erakine’a emptying purse, and that the ‘Whirlwind’ will consequently last a few months longer for certain. Marie Corelli is writing a novel on a subject alleged never before to have been treated in fiction, and Mrs Farr has a story nearly ready, called by the unromantic name of ‘ Dumps.’ Miss Braddon has rechristened ‘ Whose was the Hand ? ’ which will appear in three volumes next week as ‘One Love, One Life.’ I told you the plot sometime ago.

Sir William Butler’s ‘ Napier,’ in the admirable ‘ Men of Action ’ series, comes out next week. Let us hope it may equal his ‘ Gordon.

Tho demand for the works of John Strange Winter continues unabated, though, in my humble opinion, the lady has written nothing really good and much absolute trash since ‘ Houp La.’ At the present time Mrs Stannard is running stories in three London papers—viz, ‘Other People’s Children’ in the ‘Gentlewoman,’ ‘He Went for a Soldier ’ in ‘ Tit Bits,’ and ‘ The Other Man’s Wife ’ in the ‘ Weekly Times,’ and a whole host of provincial publications. The experiment of publishing a halfpenny and penny edition of ‘ Short Cuts ’ has not answered, and the name of the latter will therefore he changed to something fetching, and new features added. It is a fact distinctly discreditable to the lower middle classes that ‘ Modern Society, 1 which makes a feature of railing at the Queen and the Royal family, and resurrects from the American papers all the scandalous inventions of professional Ananiases about our aristocracy, should have incomparably the largest circulation (bar ‘Tit Bits’) of the penny weeklies, It shows, too, the absurd gullibility of the masses with regard to anything that affects the classes. No person moving amongst gentlefolks could be imposed upon by the sort of stuff promulgated by ‘ Modern Society.’ The stories are too obviously made up, and made up by persons tota'ly unacquainted with the manners and customs of the folks of whom they write. At Eastbourne Railway Station the other day I watched, out of curiosity, the sort of people who helped themselves to copies of ‘ Modern Society ’ from a huge heap of that edifying publication which had just arrived. I suppose I stood there quite ten minutes, and can positively assert that none of tho thirty odd purchasers during that time could by any stretch of imagination be called gentle-folk. Servants, shopgirls and boys, and small tpades-folk, with a smattering of Socialist and Anarchist working men, seem to feed eagerly on ‘ Modern Society’s ’ garbage, and probably imagine they are obtaining an insight into the wicked ways of tho f‘ upper ten.” In the colonies I hope this paper is not liked at present by any class. The habitual reader of its malicious tales is, indeed, almost as bad as the writer of them, Miss Gertrude Warden’s stories are always excellent for serial purposes ; in fact, country editors find she moves up their paper’s circulation better than any other lady writer, except Dora Russell. Mias Warden has just sold a large syndicate a novel called ‘ The Dark Arches ’ for LI,OOO (serial rights only), and is writing the Christmas number for ‘Bow Bells,’or rather ‘ Dicks’s Annual,’ a tale to be called ‘ The Murder on the Moor.’ Mr H, F. Wood, author of ‘The Passenger from Scotland Yard,’ has just concluded a new tale called ‘The Night of the 3rd Ulto.’ FOR TEN THOUSAND POUNDS,

Despite the prognostications of Tom Cannon and little Loatea, who declared that the scrimmage daring the race for the Leger cost St. Serf the second place, if not the victory itself, neither that colt nor Memoir could make a race with Amphion for the LIO,OOO Lancashire Plate at Manchester last Saturday, There were nine runners altogether, and General Byrnes’s four-year-old, which looked magnificent in the paddock, finished up a red-hot favorite at II to 8, 4 to 1 being offered Memoir, 7 to 1 agst the two-year-old Orion (much fancied by the “sharps”), 10 to 1 St. Serf, 100 to 7 a dark filly by Foxhall Chopette, 20 to X Orvieto, and 33 to 1 Gold, Marlagon, ahd Simonetta. The race was r,nn at a terrific pace, the lightly-weighted two-year-qlds being sent along in the hope

that Amphion’s lOst 21b would tell. Instead, 1 fancy they rather helped the great leathering colt. Memoir compounded a quarter of a mile from home, and then the favorite had simply to canter home in front of Murtagon, the Chopette filly, and Orion, and won easily by a couple of lengths from the first-named, heads dividing the other three. The result was naturally very popular. With Amphion out of the way, the Duke of Westminster’s Orion (by Bend Or —Shotover) would have won, but Barrett pulled him up when pursuit was hopeless. St. Serf must have been “ off color,” as it never showed prominently at any time. NEWMARKET. The racing at Newmarket First October meeting (which is in progress this week) calls for little comment, being made up in the main of two-year-old sprints and nurseries. On Tuesday Mr Milner introduced us to a handsome brother to Riviera and Seabreeze in Yalauris, which won the Boscawen Stakes comfortably, oversetting a big pot in the Duke of Beaufort’s Simonetta. The Great Foal Stakes resulted in a match between Morion and Blue Green, which Lord Hartington’a crack just won, though it was palpably stopping, and in another bundredyards would have been easily beaten. Ten runners contested the Great Eastern Railway Handicap of six furlongs on the Bretby Stakes course, Semolina (with 7et 101b on her small back) starting favorite. The issue, however, lay between Mr C. D. Rose’s Bel Demonic (3 yrs, fiat 101b) and Mr Mann's L’Abbe Morin (3 yrs, fiat 101b), who drew away from the rest, and ultimately could not be separated, the judge declaring ev dead. - heat. L’Abbesse de Jouarre (4 yrs, 9at 71b) was third. Betting : 8 to 1 against each of the dead-heaters. Stakes divided. On Thursday the second of the three handicaps of 1,000 sovs apiece, presented by Mr C. D. Rose, was run over the last mile and three-quarters of the Cesarewitch course, and fell to the favorite Queen’s Birthday—which won in a common canter from Chevy Chase, Padua, and seven others.