The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, December 2, 1900, Page 9

THE SUNDAY CALL, s seen by ¢ to touch tne most of the beauty st as or - th he public of her ov 1e har e comical Tell Bwyn JFuror That Promises to Take the Country by Storm. “Pretty, Witty Nell”” Soon %o Be Seen in America. as for the smilas of Charles II. so two of England’s best known actresses, Miss Ju- lia Neflson and Miss Marie Tempest, are rivals in their impersonations of the first named plager—Miss Nefladn at the Hay- mar.et and Miss Tempest at the Prince of Wales Theater. America, too, will have an opportunity of seeing and passing on ‘‘the new theat- rical sensation,” and also of paying for the privilege. Ada Rehan, who has for some time been in Europe in search of & play thag suited Jer fancy and talents, now comes home satisfled with “Sweet Nelly of Drury Lane,” with which she will at once pro- ceed to feel the pulse of theater-loving New York, and then. star the other prom- ising cities of the country, She, too, will soon have her followers, others rushing to share favors and galns. It is said that the idea of making Nell Gwyn the heroine of a play w: s suggested to an English theatrical manager on see-* ing the splendid picture lately added to the Tate collection, which was started and sketched out by Landseer to represent Queen Victoria leaving Windsor Castle and finished years after by Millals as Nell Gwyn on horseback. The history of this painting and the favor with which it was fecelved by the public was an evidence of Nell's popularity and an assurance that na noble seneibliities would be burt by the public -reproduction of the -story of her lite. That sufficlent time had elapsed to dim the brightness of the “bar sinister' on the shield of the noble family who owed its line to the peculiar relations which existed between the comedy actress of Drury Lane Theater and England's gay King. Charles 1I: an assuralie too, as it 2, 1651, In the Coalyard, Drury Lane, where up to a few years ago stooa a house called “Nell Gwyn's House,” where her father sold coals for many years after she be- came famous. Nothing s xnown of her childhood ex- cept that she sold strong waters to gen- tlemen, until she made her appearance as an orange girl in the pit of the Drury Lane Theater, standing with her back to the stage and bandying words of wit with the gentlemen libertines of the town. “Who 1= the handsome orange wench?" s asked by the oublic zn | nlayers allke. ES wrote of her sppearancs in the “Indian Emperor”: “I was most infinttely dis- pleased with her being put to act the ‘Emperor's daughter,’ which is a great and serious part, which she does most basely.” In serious characters Nell Gwyn was universally admitted to be a lallure and rarely attempted them. Ier forte was comedy, he took part in very many plays. Tradition states that it was in the epi- logue of Dryden’s “Tyrannic Love™ that she first captivated the roving fancies of King Charles. so that he went behind the curtain after the performance and ecar- ried her off. Her last appearance on the stage was when she spoke the prologue to Dryden's “Almenzar and Almahide,” or “Conquest of Gravada,” when she wore a straw hat as big as a cartwheel and made a tremen- dous hit. The audience went into comvule slons and the very actors giggled, a ¢ cumstance which was never observed be- fore. The postponement of this play, in the spring of 1670, until she was able to ap- pear, confirmed the report of her associa- tion with the King, which had been whis- pered around before. In this ye: 1670, she moved to Pal Mali—the Army and Navy Club now occu pies site—an e year moved ver to the opposite or south side, her ga n adjoined that of the King. Here her second son, Lord James Beau- lerk, who died in Par! was born, Her f Charles Beauclerk, the founder of the noble house of St. Albans. was 8 of ous year, in Lincoln's 1 ell's wit induced the King to De him a e was created B of Burford and i, the King made him Duke Reg d him and the ¢ of his reditary Grar The King 1] ROM AN EARULY TorTRAIY multaneous dis she profits sure to overy of r des by ven e to t different his preparat presentation of an_intere about his stage. basi: minds and vs, of like name but varying ns for ng charact the and on worked out by lines, pl same putting the are rivals for public favor in the British as Nell Gwyn and Moll pital And just fes were ‘rivals for the favor of-the aygoing publie in their own day, as well were, that there would be no killing dis- | approval of making the mistress of one of England’s Kings the heroine of a play. to !he presented before the members of a | court whose head has had littie counte- {rance for such things “at =2ny time t hec long. refgn. ture is- already a great succ land, and will doubtless prove s lin America | “Pretty. witty’ Nell,” as Pepys stvled her. Everybedy spoke weil of her. Even | Evelyn, who hated all others of her class, | spoke kindly of “Mrs. Nellfe.” Nell Gwyn was low in stature, what the French call mignonne, and piquant, well formed, handsome but red headed and rather embonpoint; of the enjoue she ‘was a complete mistress. Alry, fantastic and sprightly, she sang, danced and was ex- actly made for acting light, showy char- acters She had “lively, laughing eyes, | visible when she laughed and a foot the least of any woman in England.” “‘Her merry manner, her natural wit and her corstant good humor enabled her to hold her own at court as well as on the by the people.” Tt was due to her kind, : sympatlhietic heart and persuasive powers with the King that Chelsea Hospital was erected. Her own private liberality ‘was only bounded by the length of her purse, which the King, however, kept fairly well filled. Hereford lays claim to being her birth- place, and the street where she was sup- posed to have been born, formerly Pipe- well lane, s now Gwyn street. and a tab- let on the wall of the Bishop of Here- ford's garden erected in 1883 is said to mark the very spot of her birth. On the other hand, it is sald that she came Into the world in London, February but so small that they were almost in- | stage, while her liberality made her loved | Within a few months she made her first appeardrnce on the stage in Dryden's “In- dian Emperor,” winning much commen- dation. : Pepys, under date of April 3, 1655 records: “All the pleasure of the play was the King and my Lady Castlemalne were there'and pretty witty ‘Nell of the King's house; and the younger Marshal sat next to us, which pleased me A Of her Florinel, . in Love," Pepys wrote to see the like done “I can never hope again.” Later he In 1694 he married the lovely Lady Dfana de Vere, daughter of the twentieth Earl of Oxford, by whom he had eight sens. The ninth Duke of St. Albans was mar- ried fn 1826 to the famous actress Harriet Millon, by the Duke's uncle, Lord Freder- ick Beauclerk, Bishop of Heretf Vell's reputed birthplace. The St. Albans property includes Best- wood Park, Nottingham. w tled on Nell by Charles IL. Burford House, Windsor, on the site of wh the Royal Mews, was also given by the King, and there he spent wit deal of time. was set now s a great Nell Gwyn survived her royal lover two years, and died in the Pall Mall house of apoplexy, November, 1687, and was burfed in the old church of St. Martin's in the Flelds. Dr. Fenison, afterward Archbishop of Canterbury, preached her funeral ser- mon. f ILES OF DIREEATERS. | \/‘(\l' can't convince the coolies of the Y Grenadine Islands, West Indies, that there is any harm in eating | dirt. Their own. diseases ought to | convince them, but they don’t. The rest | of their diet is simple and meager. For the most part they are vegetarians. They } eat rice, peas, curry and ghee, a special- | Iy prepared butter in great use. Most | professing vegetarians do ‘not exclude | frem their diet milk and eggs, but these ccolies will nct touch elther, except when they are in a hospital and are forced to @0 so0. To hard workers in the cane flelds | under a scorching tropical sun such a fru- | gal diet cannot he supposed to be pro- | ductive of health or robustness. ' And when to this sort of food fs added the | luxuries of dirt eating; it is no wonder that these coolies are bloodless and stiff jointed. These llis are characteristic of | the race. Coolie patients in the English hospitals of Carriacou, one of theGrenadine Islands, frequently are found to have gravel hid- den in their clothing. and they cry ahd beg for it, like the morphine eater for his dope. .This stuff which they eat is a soft slate-colored or grayish stone. Some- s times the puilverized dirt is made into cakes. If there fsn’t much of this to be had the coolies eat rags, paper and coke. A coolie w along in the art of dirt eating is swollen all over the body and the muscles of his legs are tense, His face is puffy and he has a distressing look of weariness and premature age. He 13 short of breath and is unable to speak, S0 that he has to make signs to indicate his condition. His tongue is swollen and flabby and lies on the floor of his mouth, from which he cannot raise it from purs weakne It is marked strongly with impressions of the teeth. He has severs headaches, dimness of sight and pains In the abdomen. His skin is thin, flabby and lacking in firmness, and, even in the case of children, feels like the skin of an aged person. The complexion is pasty. But to have the diseases incident to dirt eating it is not necessary to eat dirt ine o 1s we tentionally. ' Laborers in the flelds who rarely wash their hands have been known to take enough dirt into thefr stomachs by handling their food with their unwashed hands to acquire all the fils which affiict those who eat dirt be- cause they like It