The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, August 11, 1901, Page 18

15 THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, AUGUST 11, 1901 MARS THE BY GUISARD. PLAYWRIGHT JONES CYNICALLY POETICAL. = POPULAR AUSTRALIAN ACTOR WHO JOINS THE NEILL COM- PANY TO-NIGHT. N | =N :. HATEVER else Henry Arthur Jones may be, and he is many things that are brilllant and fine, he is never for one instant the poet. Each play he pro-| duces more clearly Gefines his lack of vis- | fon, his limitation to the paths of the | purely commonplace, his boundary line of | the bread-and-butterism of life. Things | as they commonly are are Mr. Jones' | theme, sometimes even things uncommon, | but from the ordinary standpoint, and | herein he is undoubted master. For grasp of the commonplace he is unequaled. He | has a “bead” on the middle of the road, | but he never lifts nor lowers his glance 1o the heavens above or yawning hells be- peath him. His is a gospel of the half-{ gods, the hymnal of a second hand Olym- | pus, end he lays his battered deities at| our feet, saying something like this: “You may as well take these, for these are all there are in the market, and they are not at all bad when you get used to | them, take my word for it. True, Cupid’s | nose is out of joint and Venus has lost her arms, but a little plaster of paris and they’ll look as good as new, even if they don’t wear quite so well. Neither 1s Diana all she should be, I own, but put | her in a dark corner and who'll be the | wiser? And this Golden Fleece only | needs touching up here and there to de- ceive even an expert at a little distance, | while any one with a little ingenuity | could tack another wreath on Zeus' brow. | You want the genuine article? Well, I| haven't got i, and between you and me | I don’t believe there is any such thing. | Good-day.” And that, T think, is Mr. Jones’ position. For the brave, beautiful, impossible | thing that sometimes does happen he has | mo ear, for the splendid foolishness that | i the one wisdom of a lifetime no voice, | He is the mouthpiece of the hopeless mean. the deadiy level, a master mechanic | of the commonplace, and sincere only his disbeliefs. He is at once the most tol- erant of men and the most cynical.) Everything is reduced to absurdity. Even his latest and greatest play, for “Mrs. Dané’s Defence” 1s indeed a masterplece, | he styles a comedy, and so it is if the | tragedy of a woman’s honor has aught of | comedy about it. He has even sacrificed | his wonderful sense of construction here to his perverse passion for the reductio | 2d absurdum when he drags in a wholly | peedless scene at the end to suggest Mrs. | Dane’s lover's swift return to his former love as soon as that errant lady’s back | shall be turned. And with what quiet en- | joyment he permits Sir Daiiel to disclose | the hollowness of the one great sacrifice | of his life! i “You have never loved, it is easy to| talk,” rails Sir Danlel's adopted son and | Mrs. Dane’s lover, who has just been ad- | vised of Mrs. Dane’s past and of the con- sequent advisability of dropping her. “My boy,” solemnly says Sir Daniel, after a long pause, “I, too, have suffered. 1 Joved your mother, my lad, and had to give her up, but I met it as a man should, and so you can.” Which would have been all very beauti- ful had not Sir Daniel just confessed to Lady Eastney that he had tried to per- | suade the boy’'s mother to run away fror her husband, and that but for an inop- | portune iliness of her son she would have come to him, but hau vowed a vow that if God would spare the child she would give up her lover. And yet Sir Daniel so thoroughly belleves in his great sacrifice. Rebellious Susan’s lover consoles himself in three weeks with another woman, and she in turn consoles herself with her maimed jdeals and a husband for whom she has lost all respect. Iin “The Liars” the same smashing of idols and ideals goes on, and all the plays Jeave the same unwholesome taste in the mouth despite their undoubted brilllance and genfus of technique. It is a view | basis for a happy marriage. e point, clear-and keen, and as such entitled to respect, but it is open to one to believe that there are others, and looking on a country fairer, cleaner, sweeter than that Mr. Jones has pictured, or his temperate, tolerant sinners have known. - % e There are two distinct novelties in the theatrical bill of the week—'“The Royal Box” at the California and Miss Char- lotte Thompson's new play, “Silver Mounted Harness,” at the Alcazar. Miss Thompson's play has been some time in writing and a hopeful length of time in reheapsal, and from the plot promises a good evening’s entertainment. The story is that of a woman who marries a marn for a home and to free herself from the quas! fast set in which her mother moves. She does not belleve in love, hav- ing seen and heard it travestied and paro- died beyond recognition by her mother's set, and thinks her admiration and re- spect for the man she marries a sufficlent She after- ward falls in love with a young lawyer, a friend of her husband, and begins then to find her “silver-mounted harness” a gilded fetter, so to speak. A convenient villain, also in love with the harnessed lady (Mrs. Latimer) ruins her husband in order to get her in his power and then offers to save the husband if the wife will suffer his attentions. But the hus- band commits suicide rather-than face the financial disgrace that he foresees, thus leaving Mrs. Latimer in possession of the siiver mountings of the harness, that she probably melts into spoons when she marries the young lawyer, who has come in for the unearned increment of | her affection: ‘ Miss Florenfe Roberts will assume the role of Mrs. Latimer; White Whittlesey, the Wall-street manipulator who ruins Ner husband; Georse Webster,. Hugh Latimer, and Lucius Henderson, the part of the young lawyer, John Darlford. A s “The Royal Box,” at the California Theater, is also a pleasing novelty, the drama being largely played between one of the boxes in the body of the house and the stage. The leading character is one James Clarence, a leading actor of the time, who has captured London. The Countess Felsen is in love with him, and he with her; also George, Prince of Wales. The Countess and the Prince ap- | pear in the royal box together to witness a performance of “Romeo and Juliet,” in which Clarence is playing the leading part, and the actor, realizing that this means disgrace for the woman he loves, publicly denounces the Prince from the stage. Mr. Neill appears as James Clar- ence, Frank MacVicars as the Prince, and Julia Dean as the Countess Felsen. The Countess has a brother, Count Fel- sen, whose part will be played by William Bernard, a member pro tem. of the Neill company. Mr. Bernard has lately arrived here from Australia, after an eighteen months” tour with Narce O'Neill in the land of the kangaroo, and has much that is interesting to tell of the fair Nance. She has had a wonderfully successful tour, with such plays as ‘‘Macbeth,” “School for Scandal,” ‘“Magda” and “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” in her repertoire, | and has also tried Ibsen on the natiyes. They won't stand for “Hedda Gabler” at all down there,. Mr. Bernard tells me, and as he came in time to see the Blanche Bates “Hedda Gabler” here he was agree- ably surprised to see the size of the Ibsen congregation here. Mr. Bernard played the part of George Tesman. I understand the actor is to play the leadink heavies in the new stock company that will shortly begin operations at the Grand Opera- house. —_——— The Old Man—Your love for my daugh- ter seems to have grown very fast since you found out I was worth so much money. The Young Man (admiringly)—No faster, sir, than the subject warranted.—Detroit Free Press, < THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL JOHN D. S>RECKELS, Proprietor. SUNDAY ...... SR veer...AUGUST 11, 1001 Market and Third, S. F. . A MATTER OF ANCESTRY. HE ancestry of a peoplé, the kind of folk from whom they sprang, is a subject of interest always to the student of man and history. _ It has been believed that Americans have no need to blush at a comparison of t'he:.r forebears with these of any other con;qtry. We have our individua]igies, our peculiari- ties, if you please, and so have the people of other nations. These are more or less an expres- sion of our national character, which is the aggregate of individual character. The mosi of us are content with that expression in our case, and have no desire to exchange it for the char- acteristics of others. But there are some among us to whom that expression is so offensive that they desire to efface it altogether, and with it to wipe out their distinct: Americanism and assim- ilate something else which they regard as superior. Mrs. Sherwood, an Americap woman, has become a student of our social imperfections, and blushes for them. She declares that “we can- not compare with our English kindred for perfection of social deportment. The nobility and aristocracy of Great Britain have behind them the education, culture and good form of centu- ries. Their ancestors’ elegancies come down to them as do their ancestral estates. Think what it means-to be born in such a storehouse of luxury as the home of the Duchess of Sutherland. One so born begins life under the most beautiful and tasteful of auspices, unequaled in any palace in the United States. America produces giants of practical mentality, industrial and commer- cial Napoleons, but it is yet too young to produce men like the Duke of Sutherland, who is the epitome of the grace and elegance of a thousand years. Carnegie can pile up millions and dis- pense. them with a prodigality unknown before, but the uttermost heights of social culture lies quite beyond him.” : Poor Carnegie, poor America;too young to have good manners and social form! The lady does not unkindly leave us in the dark as to what is the matter with our manners. It is a sin of ‘our parents that is to stick im our bark to the tenth generation. She says our trouble is that: “We Americans, without exception, spring from more or less rusticity. Most of our mothers baked their own beans and made their own apple pies. My father was a man of wealth and leisure and my mother a very beautiful and élegant woman; but when a person like Hon. Mrs. Wellesley comes to lunch we cannot escape the consciousness of her superiority. Such women never speak nor act amiss. Whether they eat or drink, or whatsoeyer they do, they do all beati- tifully. Their conduct suggests a strain of music.” There, brethren and sisters, you are. You can’t act like a strain of music because your mother baked beans and made apple pies! It does not séem to occur to these folks who fee! so painfully their social inferiority while lunching \with the Hon. Mrs. This or That, that good breeding, as we call the method of social intercourse, has a common source, which is subject to the use of all, gentle and simple. It is genuine kindness of heart, sincere regard for the rights and feelings of others, and a generous measure of self-effacement, by transformation of selfishness into an unaffected interest in the pleasure and welfare of those with whom we 4re associated. These are the sources of good breeding, and there are no others. No pedigree is re- quired. The means are possessed by all. In the homes of the blessed and transfigured and glo- rified mothers who baked.beans and made apple pies, there were better manners and better breeding than in the palace of a Duke, because they sprang from this natural source and were not affected and artificial. Heaven bless the rusticity from which we sprang. Tt is the patent of American nobility, and the world’s best genius in every land has sprung from its loins. The child nurtured on the lap of those “rustic” mothers, is now, as ever, the world’s hope. His lineage is more ancient than any Duke’s, and his ancestry furnished heroes and made history when royalty was a sapling. Compared to him the caste of Vere de Vere is junior, artificial, excréscent. Over the lintel of the American home is written the legend of the Laureate: “Kind hearts are more than coronets, and simple faith than Norman blood.” J . b COMPOUNDING A CRIME. OHN WINTERS, arrested for the robbery of the Selby Smelting Works, has con- fessed the crime and has pointed out where the stolen bullion was hidden. It is now re- ported that he made the confession under a promise that he would not be severely punished and would receive a reward. The exact nature of the means used to obtain a confession may be known only to the parties concerned in the agreement, but if the reports be true there has been committed in this case a second offense against the law; and the second is not less menacing to society than the first. It is a necessity to civilized communities that criminals be not permitted to escape un- whipped of justice, and accordingly statutes have been enacted against compounding crimes. _The statute of California on the subject says: “Every person who, having knowledge of the actual commission of a crime, takes money or property of another, or any gratuity or reward, or any engagement or promise thereof, upon any agreement or understanding to compound or conceal such a crime, or to abstain from any prosecution thereof, or to withhold any evidence thereof, ex- cept in the cases provided for by law in which crimes may be compromised by leave of the court, is punishable as follows.” The statute then sets forth the. various degrees of punishment pro- vided in proportion to the magnitude of the crime compounded. In this case as Winters has not been held before any court there has been no possibility of compromising his offense by “leave of the court.” Thus if the reports be true there appears a clear case of the violation of the statute. The officers of the law should not™permit a matter of this grave importance to pass over without investigation. If the crime of Winters has been compounded, if he is to go with a nom- inal sentence, with or without reward, the men who grant him that freedom should be prosecuted in his place. s Compounding crime is the most dangerous of all forms of encouraging cfime. The crim- inal who escapes justice is almost sure to commit other crimes. That the Selby Company may gain much by agreeing to let Winters go free may be conceded, but they have no right -to make that profit for themselves by turning loose upon society a confessed robber. Winters has not violated ajaw of the Selby Company, but a law of California, and to that law is answer- able. The rights of the community are at stake in this matter, and it is the duty of the authorities to see to it that the law is“enforced. s AN EXAMPLE FROM TEXAS. ¢ * e A WA ROM Texas cGmes the report that a large area of timber land in that State has been leased to a lumber company upon terms that will conserve instead of destroy -the forest. The parties to the deal are the Houston Oil Company, which owns the land, a tract of upward " of a million acres, and the Kirby Lumber Company, which is to cut the wood and manu- facture it into merchantable lumber. By the terms of the contract the lumbermen are to cut no tree that is less than a foot in diameter, and care is to be taken that saplings are not to be in- jured. It is believed that by the eqforcement of the terms the value of the forest will be con- tinued indefinitely. This step toward the preservation of the forest, it is to be noted, has been taken not by the State but by a private corporation. It may be many years before Texas, through her Legis- lature, will be able to take so wise a step toward the conservation of her woods, and accordingly it is a good thing that this particular timbered tract is in the hands of men who have business sagacity and the energy and the power to act upon it. : Even in the hands of a corporation it is a new thing to have that much done in the way 5 of preventing the wholesale waste of our woods. That a corporation should at last have reached that degree of good sense shows what has been accomplished by the persistent efforts of the ad- - vocates of forest preservation, In times past corporations have not been so far-sighted. They have wasted their timber as ruthlessly as prodigal heirs waste their fortunes. Had all owners of large timber areas been as thoughtful as are the directors of the Houston Oil Company they would now have been much richer than they are. B The Texas example comes late, but it is none the less timely. It will draw attention to the value of timber lands and impress upon the public mind the importance of preserving the forests that remain\ By and by the people will be wise enough to act through governmental authority for the protedtion of the woods, but until that time comes it is good to have something done by the corporations. - : The summer school at Berkeley has. the satisfaction of knowing that it gave rise to more “discussion this summer than any other thing of the sort on the continent. It will be noted that in not a single State this year do the Democratic managers show any desire to have Bryan come-and take the stump for them. o o e 4 7 Address Communications to W. S. LEAKE, Manager MUSIC FOR THE DEAF IS PRODUCED BY A NEW INVENTION. BY BLANCHE PARTINGTON. o N invention apparently destined completely to revolutionize the education of the deaf is one just made by a young scientist named Hutchison of New York. The New York Sun of July 21 has a de- tailed account of Mr. Hutchison’s mar- velous machine that reads like nothing so much as a fairy tale. Men and women deaf from birth are made to hear; those who have become deaf through fllness or accident have their hearing restored, and the stories of their experiences are full both of pathos and humor. The principle of the invention is a sim- ple intensifying of the volume of sound by means of electrical intruments som?~ what on the order of the telephone. No Jess than seventeen different kinds of in- struments have been perfected by the in- ventor, ranging from one that can be used by one person at a dinner party or opera to one that is designed for the simultane- ous use of a teacher and a half-dozen pu- pils. Not only has Mr. Hutchison proved that his instruments can make the deaf hear, but that their use has a tendency to increase the actual hearing power of the sufferers. On the ordinary ear the effect, as Mr. Hutchison proves in his own case, is simply to make the hearing rather more normally acute, though on the sur- face it would appear it should be other- wise. Says Mr. Hutchison: “The deaf person has a receiver of varying form, according to the degree of his deafne: One style looks much like the receivers worn by telephone girls. Let a person with normal ears put on one of these receivers and sounds are intensified to such a degree that the louder ones are almost unbearable. A guitar, for ex- ample, sounds almost like a pipe organ. Music is not spoiled by the instrument.” The inventor has many photographs of deaf people who for the first time in their lives are hearing. Amang these are soma pictures of deaf mutes at the New York Institution for the Deaf listening to a concert given for their benefit by Scotti, Plancon, Suzanne, Adams and other sing- ers. “It's wonderfully interesting to see how they take it,” says Mr. Hutchison. “Some of them are simply thunderstruck at first. Others cry. Oh, yes! Cry the way you have seen people cry with joy. Others are like this fat man here (pointing to one of the pictures), simply in a rapture of delight. Others faint. I studied medi- cine for a year so as to get a good knowl- edge of the ear, and 1 bring the fainters around all right.” Mr. Hutchison's instruments are- al- ready In use at the New York Institution for the Deaf and In many other kindred institutions throughout the country. For- elgn institutions have also taken advan- tage of the invention. and letters of in- quiry from all parts of the clvilized world have been received by the inventor. A million dollar organization has taken up the invention and is turning out the instru- ments as fast as possible, but is as yet unable to meet the demand. Applications are recefved from all over from deaf suf- ferers, for every class and kind of deaf- ness. From the West Indies and South America came in one day two typieal in- quiries; from South America for a lady 28 years old who had lost her hearing aft- er she grew up. The West Indian case ‘was that of a boy who had lost his hear- ing through fright at the age of three. For the lady, as she already “knew sound,” one kind of instrument, ‘“an op- era,” was recommended; for the boy, the “‘teacher and pupfl” instrument, through which the patlent is taught the meaning of that which he hears right from the be-, gioning. : The Sun Is my authority for the above remarkable statements that certainly on the face of them bear all the earmarks of the yellowest of journalism. Quite as much, in fact, as did the first accounts of the Roentgen ray wonders! L Mancinelll will not be among the con- ductors in Mr. Grau's organization dur- ing the forthcoming season. He is at work on his new opera, “Paolo and Fran- cesca,” the libretto of which is by Boito. The Musical Courler hints at other rea- sons for his non-appearance this season, but does not specify. It will be a matter of much regret here. Mancinelli is one of the greatest conductors of the day and is probably unequaled in Italian + - [ THE TIVOLI'S NEW STAR WHO WILL APPEAR IN “FA- VORITA.” L & . opera. Seppelli, Damrosch and Flon will be the season’'s directors. Ly e Not since Gustav Hinrichs" wife, Mrs. Katherine Fleming Hinrichs, sang the part of Azucena in “Il Trovatore,” some four or five years ago, at the Tivoll, have we had so good a gypsy as Collamarint has given us this week. Vocally the singer Is, of course, much more than Mrs. Hinrichs’ equal, but she shows the same genius in her dramatic conception of the part and the same self-sacrificing excel- lence of make-up. Of the four roles im which we have so far heard Collamarini— Carmen, Amneris, Mignon and Azucena— the last named comes nearest to her Car- men in point of worth and is so far ona ¥ of the roles of the season. Signor Russo’s Edgardo fis another notably good effort. He permits himself here none of the liberties with the text, or rather none of the Interpolations— “lazzi,” as the Itallans indulgently term it—for which he i{s somewhat notorious, but gives a serfous and almost dignifled rendering of the part. He Is singing very well this season and has gained more no- ticeably than any member of the company during the year in poise and vocal round- ness and breadth. His voice seems to be golng the vocal way of dramatie tenors, losing somewhat its lyric quality. He may possibly be springing a Lohengrin on us next year. . ‘This week the new tenor, Agostini, will appear in the quaint old Donizett! opera “La Pavorita,” not heard here for some ten years before this season. He is, of course, cast as Ferdinand. The new prima donna soprano, Linda Montanart, is also to make her first appearnce this week as Desdemona in Verdl's “Otello,” in which also we shall have Salassa at his best as Iago. Curiously enough, “Otello” seems to have met with more favor here than in any other city of its production, mostly, indeed, through Salas- sa’s fine Iago. We were to have had the “Falstaff” als® last year, with Salassa In the tifle role, but it never came off, though it was rebéarsed a number of | timed, and I fear me much will not mate- rialize this year either. Too bad; but the “Meflstofele” is a certalnty and “Andrea Chenler” and “Fedora” the likeliest of probabilities. A SalvaMon Army artist wrote on a bill- board in letters a foot high: “What shall I do to be saved?’ A patent medicine Ppainter answered it by putting underneath it: “Take Blank’s little liver pills.” The Salvationist saw the joke and again used his brush effectively under the cruel joke of the medicine taker by painting, “And prepare to meet thy God.”"—Gliroy Tele- gram. . — Cholce candies, Townsend's, Palace Hotel® —_— ee——— Cal. glace fruit 50c per lv at Townsend’s.® ——————————— Special information supplied dafly to business houses and public men by the Press Clipping Bureau (Allen’s), 519 Mont- gomery street. Telephone Main 1042. ¢ —_————————— . The early cucumber joke may be laugh- able, but when it comes to doubling a man up it isn't in it with the real thing. ——— . Are You “Of the 01d World”? Everything pertaining to the New World may be easily and cheaply seen at the Pan- American Exposition, and the best way to get to Buffalo is by the comfortable trains of the Nickel Plate Road, carrying Nicksl Plate Dining Caws, in which are served Amer- jcan Club meals from 35c to §I each. B-ou’ free, showing pictures of exposition bulldings, Hotel accommodations reserved JAY W, ADAMS, P. C. P. A, ¥ Crocker bullding, San Francisco, Cal — . /