The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, March 13, 1898, Page 19

18 THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, MARCH 13, LL the way from New York to | hands start for home,” where they will the all-star |build the bonfire and cremate the mort- | the bones Chicago will tou; ation of Lamb’s Club ac- | tors, who have taken it up on | talents to lift the mort- . from their beloved home end clu Thirteen performances will be given in all, commencing at the Metropolitan Opera-house, New York, | and from there on to Brooklyn, Bos- hing- tinee ton, Philadelphia, Baltimo! W ton, Pittsburg, closing with m end night performances at the Colum- bia Theater, CI , after which all HE greatest caricaturist of if not of the world, M. nuel Poire, or, as he is bet- nown, C: an d’Ache, has set up his he old gods in one of the quietest and prettiest streets of | suburban Passy. There he is not only within a quarter of an hour's drive from the Opera and the center of Paris | is also at a stone's throw of the Boulogne, and on the high road to the beautiful belt of country which lies beyond Sevres and St. Cloud. 0 a number AT Parisians “di i among the great c e ichbors are his intimate | friend van Be whose marvel- ous miniature palace is still the talk of fickle Paris sy, the Hungar genius, whose terrible illness has cast a gloom over a > Bohemia; Henri Rochefort, who must find sunlit Pa a startling chang and Henri Lavedan, the mc of satirists and ' playwrights—to say nothing of a score of other distin- guished people. | | that m | great Corsican’s trusted officers, one of g N ) gage. Even Joe Jefferson’s all-star produc- tion of “The Rivals” will pale beside his combination of Lambs, for it in- rica. The performance will,be on der of the regular Lambs *“gam- which are given in the club every vear and are not unlike in character the Christmas Jinks of the Bohemian Club of this city. The first part will be on the negro | minstrel order, with Nat Goodwin, Wil- 1898. Hnd Ory to Sive the Q{y_yesé Show On aarM.' Chaupcey Olcott De Wolf Hopper e wWm.H MacDonald. H.C.Barnabee. Edgene Cowles. lie Collier and Walter Jones rattling and Stuart Robson, Jeff | D’Angelis and Dan Daly manipulating the tambourines., Long, lean Lamb, De Wolf Hopper, will be the interlocutor, and there is no one in the business who high adjective and steamful oratory. Among the robust tenors, magnetic barytones and prodigious ssos who will soloize are Eugene Cowles, Wil- | liam Philp and our own Harry Gillig. | Gillig is an amateur, but no one will suspect him of the crime when once he opens his throat and pours out his own | musical setting of Kipling's “Manda- |lay,” a story which he first sung at the Bohemian Club and which hasmadehim | famous in the clubs of two continents. | Frank Unger was to have lent himself to the delights of a song and dance nearly every prominent actor in | can cope with Hopper in the details of | specialty, but has since contracted an- ‘other engagement with a beautiful | daughter of Hawaii, and will be unable |to appear. Primrose & West and | other star minstrel shows will not be |in this black face organization either. | The Bostonians have arranged to close | their season two weeks earlier than | | usual in order to be fully represented. | Jerr DAnpgelis. “Lambs” Wil Sambol in ofampb/ac/{* i Beside Cowles and Philp, Barnabee and | esty on Belasco called “The Art of |and Wilton Lackaye, Henry E. Dixey, Macdonald will sing ana dance with a | Maryland,” which has quadruple quartet of Lambs, which in- cludes several singers already men- tioned, and Van Renssler, Wheeler, Fred Robinson, Digby Bell, Edwin Hoff, Edmund Stanley, ~Charles Hopper, Richie Ling, Mark Smith and G. Peru- gini. quent gestures of Joseph Holland and Fritz Williams. been played | Jeff D’Angelis, Harry Conor, Joseph twice before by the Lambs, once at|Grismer, J. E. Dodge and others will their own Gambol, and another time here at the Bohemian Club's Crane, Hopper, Hilliard, Cyril John Kellard and Digby Bell have the supply the acting “Perfect at 10.” There can be no cial success. The Jinks. | Scott, for a travesty called doubt of the finan- Lambs themselves, leading parts, while E. L. Davenport, | conservative financiers, think the re- : Charl it s After the minstrel part will come a | somp gpacnmar, Joseph Herbert, Jo pantomime sketch entitled “L’Affair | Ferdinand @'Une Melodie,” interpreted by the elo- | (he subsidi ceipts will run as Burr Macintosh and | formance, making | gage can be lifted high as $7500 a per- a total of $75,000 for Gottschalk are relegated to | the trip. With this amount the mort- ary roles. higher than a Kkite, In addition to this, Dan Daly, Ignatio | and there will be enough left over for Martinettl, Then comes Augustus Thomas’ trav- | ter Jones will appear as the big four; | ers. ‘Willie Collier and Wal-|a grand triumphal feast for the work- BES The large studio in which he has gradually arranged his many posses- sions lies well away from the pretty, fantastic Louis Quinze “hotel” built from his own design, being separated from Madame Caran d’Ache’s dainty cighteenth-century salon by a corridor " Vined with some fine old First Empire | engravings, dealing for the most part with events connected with the strange career of their present owner's hero, Napoleon I - “I was born and bred in Napoleonic tradition,” he acknowledged, in answer to a question. “Yes, it is quite true grandfather was one of the those chosen to accompany him on the disastrous expedition to Russia. More fortunate than many of his comrades- | in-arms, my forebear was wounded at l.—“What do | see? llL.—The ghosts appear. THE HAUNTED HOUSE. My trousers dancing!” Good Things Done by Caran D’Ache. | the battle of Moscow, and So escap- ed the horrible fate of dying from cold or starvation; insteag, he was carried off the field by some humane Russian officers, and was treated with all honor | as a prisoner of war. as an inmate of one of the grimmest of Russian fortresses that he fell in love with the afterward became n grandmother. At the time the marriage took place the whole face of things in France had completely altered. “The ( e Armee was but a phan- tom memory; my grandfather’s beloved | chief was a heartbroken prisoner in St. Helena, and so, yielding to his bride’s | wishes, he determined to remain among | the aliens who had been so good to | him. He founded at Moscow a femc- | ing school, which soon became famous. “My ‘father died when I was 17, and pite of all that my friends had to say against the idea, I applied at the French Embassy in order to Kknow what would be the best way in which | to fulfill the obligation, which I knew | devolved on every young Frenchman, of serving a certain time in the French army. Once I had obtained this, to me, very important information, Istart- ed gayly for France with very little money in my pocket, but with high hopes and boundless ambitions surging through my brain. “When young I had drawn a little, but only for my own pleasure. One day some one presented me with a book of | French drawings and among them were | some by Detaille. greatly. So when I reached Paris, in in | myself at M. Detaille’s door, a portfolio of sketches under my arm. “Kindly is not the word for the man- ner in which I was received. Edouard | Detaille received me in a fashion that rarer than great genius—a great heart. He looked over my poor little drawings, encouraged me to persevere and then, after I became a private in the French army, he never lost sight of me. “Not till I became attached to the ‘War Office, however, did I find time to do work with a view to publication. To my surprise I found a ready, if humble, market for my wares, and it was then that I first signed my drawings ‘Caran d’Ache,” which,.as you may know, sig- nifies in Russian ‘lead pencil.” ”” “"And did you gradyally make your way? Or, if it is not an impertinent question, to what do you attribute your first great vogue as a caricaturist?” “Nay, I consider that a very legiti- mate question, for theré ‘must be in every artist’s life a moment when he finds himself trembling between ob- scurity. and popular guceess. As for myself, my first great stroke of luck was undoubtedly the production of ‘L’Epopee’ at the Chat Noir.” And as my host uttered these words there suddenly came into my mind the half-forgotten recollection of an even- ing at Montmartre, spent in gazing at the wonderful shadow performance which was at that time the talk, not only of Paris, but of Europe. Many of those to whom “I'Epopee” stands out among their own cherished probably unaware that they owed this rare artistic pleasure to the now fa- mous draughtsman; for at the time when the original performance took place in the strange Bohemian cafe concert, now numbered among the dead glories of vanished Paris, Caran d’Ache was quite unknown, save to a small group of Montmartre Bohemians. “As to Wwhat suggested ‘I’Epopee,’ he added, “that was a very simple mat- ter. A friend asked me to desjgn an il- lustrated cover for a comic song. I at- tempted to carry out my idea by an ette. Suddenly it struck me that my initial idea was capable of unending developments. I threw myself with ar- dor into the work, and as the result of hundreds of experiments finally pro- duced the leading scenes of the great Napoleonic drama, carefully divided into thirty tableaux. The whole was engineered, as it were, with the help of four thousand figures and horses, In fact, it was | roung Rusian lady who | They impressed me | my forlorn condition, I boldly presented | proved him to possess what is perhaps | recollections of a visit to Paris are | application of the old-fashioned silhou- | | each of which was entirely evolved and produced by me, being first drawn, then cut out and pasted on a zinc leaf, which, when once more silhouetted, produced a sentient member of my large dramatic company. I may add that | the whole work from beginning to end | was entirely carried out by me. “The whole action took place across a comparatively small white screen. I | attended every performance and stage managed the whole affair myself. I think I may say,” he added, modestly, “that 1 succeeded in creating a very vivid impression of life and movement. Each detail of every little figure was as carefully studied as were those of Na- poleon I himself, and I made many ex- periments before I felt even half-satis- fled with the result. The most striking, and also the most popular, tableau was undoubtedly ‘The Retreat from Rus- sia,” for, a curiously impressive effect was produced by the slow passage in single file of countless men, horses, wagons and carriages across the great snowbound plains.” But the artist was too modest to allude to the extraordinary impression produced by this strange work of gen- fus. From all parts of the continent ar- tists, eager to make acquaintance with this extraordinary noveity, crowded to the Chat Noir. Among those who made their way up the steep streets of old Montmartre were celebrities as strangely different as the Prinece of ‘Wales, General Boulanger and the then President of the French republic. Meis- sonier, the great military painter, de- | clared himself astonished at the ex- traordinary accuracy of the costumes and uniforms as indicated in the sil- houette. Drawings of I'Epopee were | sent “by request” to the late Czar, who | to the end of his life was one of Caran | d'Ache’s most constant patrons. In- | deed, much of his best work even now | goes to Russla. “Strange as you may think it,” he continued, “I have always been ex- tremely anxious to do serious work. For years I have cherished the scheme of some day devoting my life to com- pleting a great series of military pie- tures taken from every perfod of his- tory. One of my heroes, by the way, is the great Marlborough. But all bril- liant deeds of arms attract me, and even as a boy I began a collection of military relics.” “And as to your methods of work?” “Well, I work very slowly, and so far T have preferred to dfaw in line. Of course, from my point of view artists should be able to draw anything. As to myself,” he added, laughing, “I leave one branch of art severely alone; that is portrait painting. Friends have | often asked me to draw them, if ever | I attempt to carry out their wishes | they are anything but pleased with the | result. You see, the worst of it is.I really see people in line, and often, | when I have produced a group which I consider almost photographic in its | accuracy, I am informed that I have rarely made a better caricature!” | “And where do you find your sub- Jects?* Caran d’Ache made a vague gesture. “How can I tell? Here, there and ev- erywhere; at a smart wedding; at any one and at all of the funerals, which, alas! play so great a part in our so- cial life; when riding on top of an om- ! nibus; walking, riding, cycling, impres- | sions are stamped as it were on my | brain. I do not entrely rely on mem- ory, for-I am fond of jotting down notes in a small rhemorandum book if I hear a funny or original phrase, a Jjoke that strikes me as really new, or anything that will suggest a new com- position. I make use of a kind of ar- | tistic shorthand, which I will defy any- one but myself to understand; the signs are made very quickly, they over- lap one another; to me each is instinct with meaning, and even with form. But when it comes to the finisheddraw- ing”—he paused a moment and took a long breath—“that is a very different matter, no pains can be too great; and I can truly say that at no time, even when I was very poor, did I allow the | block; my editors, however, do not see‘ eve to eye with me necessities of the moment, use such an expression, to control my output. I am a believer in very care; ful and conscientjous work. People imagine that my drawings are ‘dashed off.” I bow down before those who can produce easily; alas! I cannot claim to imitate their example. Take one com- paratively simple matter, that of cos- tume. Tell me what a man wears, and ‘I will tell you what manner of man he “Then it is true, Monsieur, that you attach _an immense importance to clothes?” “Yes, indeed.” “And is there any special work now occupying your attention?” “Well, in one sense, I always have more to do than I seem able to ac- complish, and once a week I contrib- ute half a page of political sketches to the Figaro; but at present I am devoting a great deal of thought, to say nothing of time, to working out a scheme which will probably first see the light in a completed shape at the forthcoming exhibition of 1900. I am thinking of calling it ‘La Rue de Cent Ans,’ ‘The Street During a Century,’ and it will be a kind of panorama em- bodying the life, movement and poetry of the typical Paris thoroughfare dur- ing the last hundred years. Among other things will be shown the many modifications undergone by traffic from the days of the post chaise to those which have ushered in the motor car. Perhaps you will hardly believe me when I tell you that I have found working up this subject a matter of absorbing interest. 1 have literally hundreds of authorities, and the more I go on. the more absorbed I be- come. Of course, there will be many glimpses at the great revolution, and the first and second empire will also play their part, and then there will be the grim siege of Paris. T am avoid- ing any element of melodrama; but picturesque incidents are of course wel- come, and one of the most important features of the scheme will be a re- construction of the historical review held by Napoleon I on the Place du Carousel.” “By the way, surely when compos- ing this kind of work you find it ne- cessary to make use of modeis?” “No, indeed. I have very strong views congerning the professional model, and in this matter I disagree with many of my most talented com- rades. To my mind, no professional sitter can give a true impression of life and movement. That a man or woman should be suddenly able to slip into the skin, as it were, of an- other character would argue on his or her part a very notable dramatic gift. Why should we eXpect to find a great actor or aetress in every pro- fessional model? Now, animals make very good sitters, and every dog lover will admit’ that no one can be a bet- ter poseur than our intelligent four- footed friend when he has a mind that way. Still, from my point of view, beasts are quite as interesting as human beings. Whenever I can spare the time I enjoy an hour in the Jardin d’'Acclimitation as much as any of the children whom I see there. Horees have always remained my fa- vorites, but there are many creatures precious to the artist; elephants, for instance. are peculiarly picturesque, and lend themselves most happily to pen and pencil.” “By the way, do you yourself gen- erally work with a pen or with a pen- cil?” ‘At the present moment ost of my drawings are done with pen and ink, or, which in some ways I like better, with a very fine brush. T have thou- my original conception that these gen- erally become very useful .o me after- ward. When whatever drawing I am engaged on approaches its final stage I fasten it by its edges upon a large sheet of glass; this enables me to change or add such details as I think fit. Of course, as regards reprodue- tion, I prefer the old-fashioned wood ’ if I may | By have néver consented to work to order, the wa; . : - ‘thnt is to say, I must be quite free to | choose my own subject.” ‘ No less than 917 of the London cab | drivers are between 60 and 70 years of | age, 157 between 70 and 80: while one | venerable patriarch, who is going on for 90, still holds a in this matter. | he, added quickly, license. There are also 118 omnibus drivers over 60, and of these 18 are over 70. “1 | tains 15,011 cab drivers and 65# omni- | bus and tramcar drivers. Londen con- LIEUTENANT: A 'STENTORIAN VOICE. I CORPORAL : “Attention! Shoulder Arms!!" “That won't do at all. Lauder, Corporal, I “Shoulder A-R-R-U-M-§II LIEUTENANT: Like this." ‘