Life — December 10, 1896 — page 15: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

> LIFE: from the commercial spirit introduced into it by the hard- working Hebrew, that its morality is not calculated to pro- duce the best results, and that, instead of amusing and instructing, it tends rather to disgust and alienate the decent people, who have some remote conception of what they really desire in a dramatic performance. But this is a stilted and narrow-minded view, and is only held by a few gentlemen and ladies who really have no voice in the matter. For themselves they claim that they should prefer when they go to the theatre to see something decent. They are not especially interested in a continuous and universal display of the human form. They do not care to pay their money to see some poor creature who, upon her reputation for ribald songs or some other indecent accomplishment, is heralded from the other side with a blast of trumpets. Because she is advertised as drawing more salary than has ever been paid before is no reason to them why she is a desirable person to amuse them. They are tired of cheap humbug, clap-trap, and imported third-rate talent, and they turn away from this sort of thing when it is presented on the stage in precisely the same way that they would not soil their hands with the Wor/d, But these people, as has been said,are com- paratively fewand an unimportant part of the com- munity, That is, THE AMERICAN WOMAN. according to those AS REPRESENTED ON THE NEW YORK STAGE. engaged in the theatrical business, and they ought to know, because they in turn have the dramatic critics for a guide, and what more fitting guide to public decency, morals, and the highest expression of art could there be than the dramatic critic of an average New York newspaper? DONALD MACSLUSHEY. T HIS popular dialect writer, the author of Aly Wee, Wee Galoot, Senti- mental Sooste, Me Bonnie Prafits, and O'Scots Wha’ Whiskey! is about to avail himself of the present popularity of Scoth dialect in this country, and, before it gets into the ash barrel, will visitthe United States and favor us with his views on Americans. It is confidently expected that we, as a nation, will turn out and pay this august visitor the usual hysterical honors. Incidentally, he will amass more lucre by well advertised lectures than he could gather in Scotland during a lifetime. T isa satisfaction to record that Harvard and Yale seem to be on the point of resuming the competitive relations which were interrupted two years ago. The representatives of these two universities had squabbled so persistently over their sports that an intermission in the contests between them seemed decidedly advisable, and occasioned little regret when it came. Absence seems to have made their hearts grow fonder, and the undergrad- uates of both universities are understood to desire now a resumption of play. It is probable that they will have their wish, and that there will be Yale- Harvard baseball games again next spring, and a boat-race in which the value of the instructions of Harvard's altruistic and sportsmanlike British THE USUAL HERO IN A MILITARY DRAMA, coach will find its first test. comicbooks.com