THINGS THAT CAUSE ILLTIMED MIRTH IN THEATRES.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 1578, 25 February 1887, Page 3

THINGS THAT CAUSE ILLTIMED MIRTH IN THEATRES.

A few years aj;o, when an amateur dramatic company ware giving a performance in a provincial town, quite a series of absnrd hitches arose. Perhaps the most amusing one waß that which occurred in the chambers of the princess ia the second act. She has married the prince, and is livng in his castle. Her children—twins but a few months old—are brought in to her. She kneels over them, surrounded by the courtiers and Udiee, and all the other brilliant retainers of the prince, and attempts to caress the twins, when they suddeyly turn into black ravens and fly away out of the cradle. The ravens should have flown out of the door, but the wires which worked them became tangled at the critical moment. They were jarked from the cradle and swung over to the door. The crowd on the stage dashed after them, expecting that they would swing out of Bight, and they hung there dejected and unhappy, within the reach

of everybody and in full view of the audience. One of the actors spoke a a piece in which he described them as flying tar away in the cistauce, and the people on the stage shaded their eyes and tried to look as though they were followiugjthe ravens towards the horizon. Meanwhile grulf words could be heard from the roof, and the panting of the man in the flies, as he tugged the wires, was audible. Then the long arm of the scene shifter ; carrying a heavy lath, suddenly protruded into the princess' chambers and made a wild strike at the ravens. Ha missed. Then the gas man took the pole with which they sometimes light the ; chandeliers around the balcony, and, springing into the princess' chambers in a check jersey and a pair of overalls, swung back his pole, as though playing a game of lacrosse, and made a frightful whack at the ravens. He struck them, but they only dangled about. Instead of leaving the stage, the gas man looked aloft at the scene shifter, who was pulling the wire, and dared him to come down. The scene shifter who was growing weak, evidently made up his mind to come down and have it out with the gas man, for as that functionary left the stage, the wire above suddenly relaxed, as though the shifter had dropped them to go down and fight it out. Upon thip, the ravens, which tha actors were ttill describing in the dim distance, flopped incontinently down on the stage, and lay their mutely. A SHARP YOUNGSTER. A nice little boy, reared in the intellectual and heterodox atincsphere of Boston, happened to be a witness in a case at Cincinnati, and the question arose as to his being old enough to understand the nature of an oath, so the judge investigated him. " Well, Wendall," he said, kindly, "do you know where bad liitlo boya go when they die ? " "No, sir," replied the boy with confidence. " Goodness gracious! " exclaimed the judge in shocked surprise ; " don't you know they will go to hell ? " " No, sir; do you ? " "Of course I do." " How do you know it ? " " The Bible says so." "Is it true ?" " Certainly it is." " Can jou prove it?" " No, not positively ; but we take it on faith," explained the judge. " Do you accept that kind of testimony in this court ?" inquired the fcov, coolly. But the judge didn't answer; he held up his hands, and begged the lawyers to take the witness.— Washington Critic.