The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, August 7, 1904, Page 19

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, AUGUST 7, 1904. ale as "twas told to me. I we I could—venture to di- ¥ rton fancy from the stern fe should I? Why should st ¥ Mcrton is a too accom- pit spoil a 4 8 stor She impertinent fact. size me then the erved > inter- leading e to believe ement at « 2 r this season to t Cire's own and »w wheth- apli- il v or whether -it Other La s I ne vet that could ney” as this on does not come frc K H careless of me, to be v < Rose Relda could - s better. But I'll ¥ v n A Bit of AS she wants to be ¥ I to stand in her way Morton at home. s perched upon sauntering g he Ge Gate. And there I found why this woman, ncarnate behind the foot- v found at home bent upon am 1, Miss go oet eyes alous, believing you ed an unexpected e charm- . the actress set of it at a prob- There was a bits. ers, and she pout- th ph silk and wool ician that eves—the wool, not w her sle tle wisps of her shin- we loosened by ept through the win- the comfiest, most the hostess that Through the recep- s, with, as I live, the billiard- ts azure glimpse of dining-room, whence cerulean sweep a through & K i, lay below rton attempted an elaborately t as she said, leaning ne must be com- f w Then, her little, sitive 1 s, thin as an egg shell, all a-qu she cried: “Ah, but it's beautif you feel the thing drawing it? Do you wonder Jooking at scenes that one kills oneself be part of it in the hear of it. I used to sit for h: ; it is the same ps because I am waters sang a great song, changing all the time. But—oh,” the voice changed and it was Dorothy Morton of Fischer's that turned round r m the window You don’t want to photograph me,” coaxed the artist. “I hate to be photographed. Fat women should And look at ne be photographed. ime' I'm not going to change my dress. “There! All right, if you must. Look like- & litho, Dolly. Smile. Show your teeth—if T had omly two more inches of neck I should be all right?” J he was, dropped into the window s Miss Morton was “took.” 'Will you look now through the win- =7 from the photographer. he never going to come? She suited the word to as "Alas!” the pose, then asked, “Am I as fat this way?” £he was, but there was no use in say- Alas! ing so. But note when you next see Yer, as 1 did then, her face of strange ‘contrasts. Note the small, sensitive nose, the tiny mouth, with the heavy chin; note the exquisitely arched and mobile eyebrows, the heavy-lidded, ‘sensuous, burnt-hazel eyes; note the ebon hair, the white skin, the avoirdu- pois, the vivacity. It wouldn't be bad to photograph me in the tank, would it?” she asked me. *“I'm a mermalid this week, you “krow. First sceme’s in a tank, } la ‘Rheingoid.” 1 toid Fischer—nice i‘ttle ‘ellow—that it would be a good ad. to have the mermaid fed at 3 o'clock every afternoon.” “Worms or peanuts?”’ I inquired. “Oh, we'll have tea this afternoon,” Miss Morton laughed. As she ordered it from the attendant Jap we talked hired man for a time. Did I think the “Chinese or Japanese the better? She didn’t understand the Oriental. You néver knew what they were thinking abdut. She “could cook anything”—the most hopeless skeptic would grant this to Miss Morton, with her pervading air of . bon vivant—and she liked things cooked her own way. Sometimes she would tell her boy that she wanted this d her way, not his. He aughtily: *I, lady, can *“Oh, can you!" his 1d gnash helpless white When she first got into she had no cook, and I could es about their first dinder fell Miss Morton confrere. “Yes, I fine soubrett the table and we had— it that shouldn’t—a good You haven't met Nora yet? should. She’s as springy as a lit- tle piece of elastic. Funny, no end. Just the same off the stage as on. Every night she stamps past my door” —Miss Morton put every pound she has into the clump! clump! with which she imitated Miss Bayes' stamp across the floor i sings out, ‘Good-night, Dodd You know, I'd miss it awfully { that girl forgot to say that he's very bright,” 1 testify then, d ask: “Are those her own songs, that immortally funny one about going to ‘hunt for beer and not for deer,’ and the rest?” “I don't know,” Miss Morton replied, “ghouldn’t wonder, though. It's like he “I thought so, I said. “Curious Fischer's should get hold in so short time of two such clever minxes as the Bayes and the Au “Sure,” said my neighbor. “Sugar?” as we wandered over to the tea table. “Miss Aug is enormously clever.” “So clever that T don’t know why she is not doing something more than vau- deville specialties.” Shall I tell you?” Miss Morton ke t'’s nerves. That girl is all She thinks twice as fast as she ak, and when the time comes for her to play meost of her vitality is A step was heard here below the open window and the actress laughed as she ticketed it, "“Mr. Conger, my husband.” Very happy?”’ I laughed back. “Oh, Mrs. Conger said. added, “It's all new yet.” How new?"” “Eighteen months,” “Mr. 'r was one of Frohman's men, you know. He was the -original little Billee in “Trilby.’ He's given up rve can sp ves,” She she confessed. Cong the stage now.” 1 did not ask if this were in deference to Mrs. Conger's de- sire, for the gentleman came in here. I fancy not, however. His round, rosy, clear-eyed, clean-shaven face looks rather like that of a person accustomed to decide his own fate. He had just re- turned from a swim. “Every day he goes swimming,” Miss Morton pouted. “I'm beginning to sus- pect things™— Another mermaid?” I suggested. Exactly,” she nodded, but beyond trying on me the dog and the porpoise story Mr. Conger was not to be in- veigled into the interview. With a business-before-pleasure air 1 id then: Now, you will please tell me »ur favorite role, and the rest, and about the Daly times and so on.” Miss Morton put her elbows on the table and her plump cheeks in her hands to the tale. “My favorite role? Oh—Mignon.” “You've done grand opera, then?” “Oh, yes,” she answered. “Santuzza, too. I sang that against Calve in Chi- cago.” “My!"” I exclaimed respectfully. “Yes—show her those notices, Fred- dy,” and “Freddy,” from some corner, cheerfully dug up a St. Louis notice of Miss Morton’s Santuzza, eminently o limentary. St. Louis, “Native,” *“Comparison with the be 1 read, and asked: : en you are from St. Louis?"” am a Southerner,” she put it. “I was singing then with the Schiller Opera Company in ‘The Pirates of Penzance,” and so on. Well, one night Mr. —— came to me—this was in Chicago—and said, ‘I've got an ad. for us.’ ‘Spring it,’ I said. ‘Calve opens next Monday (this was Friday) in “Rusticana”—so, will we!’ I didn't know a line of it then, but we opened all right!” I was in the/b’gosh frame of mind by this. But Miss Morton neglected to show me her Chicago notices. I must remind her. “In light opera”— “Oh, I know,” I interrupted, “ ‘O Mi- mosa San. “Ye she agreed, “I've sung the part 765 times. I like ‘The Fencing Master’ very much, too.” “How long were you with the Dalys?” “Five years,” she—did she sigh? “Just imagine,” she threw in, “Sir William Jardine bought the Ameri- can rights of ‘The Geisha,’ and gets 10 per cent of the gross receipts every time it is played. Wish I had ’em!” “Who taught you to sing, Miss Mor- ton?” “Madame Murio-Celli,” she told me, “in Italy. But the person I learned most from is Mme. Sarah Duff. I've just been with her in Paris this year. She is a Chicago woman who now assists Henry Russell—" “Alice Neilsen's Henry Russell?” The same, and a magnificent teach- Miss Morton heartily testified. n twenty minutes—the man is a voice doctor, not a teacher proper—he will give you an absolutely new un- derstanding of voice production if you are not a feol, a full control over all you've got in the way of voice. He believes—so do I—that the Lord put a voice into every one’s throat, that is, if you can talk you can sing. The ear is another story. I have a queer idea about ears. I have mine thor- oughly cleaned out twice every year— why shouldn’t . we? We clean our nails, our teeth—" “True,” 1 agree, as I am expected, “but—" ““Well, after it you would hardly be- lieve how acute my hearing is. I can tell every shade off pitch in the piafio. Why don’t people think of it?” “You may see the y-ocess going on,” I inform her, “in any barber's shop in Chinatown.” Miss Morton wondered a moment what Ah Sin wanted with his ears sharpened, then reverted to Henry Russell and Alice Neilsen. “She’s doing splendidly in Italy. Her Marguerite—I heard her in Na- ples—was lovely. She's a brick, is Alice. So pretty and slim and grace- ful, too.” ‘It was after this that she told me of Carre and the “Lakme”; how one day she had gone to the Opera Comique in Paris, paid for a five-franc seat and been shown to a box; how afterward ¢he had gone to Mme. Sa- rah Duff's to have her voice tried and Carrg had burst open the door of the room with an offer to her to sing Lakme; but how, relatively, $25 a Yeek at Fisher's is better than $2 a week there. Again, that grand opera disappointments broke a good man hearts. That she didn’t want hers broken. Her story of Mary Garden, Mme. Duff’s star pupil, who one day on the failure (through illness) of Renauld in the part of Louise, in Messager’s opera of the name, walked on the stage from the audience in street gown and sang the second act, fascinating. So successful was Garden that she has since been antly identified with the role. She's as thin as this,” Miss Morton t it, picking up the butter knife, “and without much volume of voice. But how she sings and acts! I think she’s the greatest living artist to-day, as great an actre: Bernhardt.” Miss Morton’s reminiscences of London, where she has recently been singing in the immortal “Florodora,” gladden some. The Lord Mayor's lit- tle red cap tickles her sense of fun. She claims, too, only one Duke in her re- tinue, the Duke of Cambridge, “who wpuld run errands for me.” “Have you ever heard and Dill?” I ask her finally. “Do I ever, ever, ever hear of any one else—only Maude Amber?” Miss Morton helplessly Teplied. - BILLS AT THE LOCAL PLAYHOUSES HOLD PLENTY OF PROMISE The chief event of the week dramatic will be the American premiere of “Joseph Entangled.” the latest comedy of the distinguished English dramatist, Henry Arthur Jones, that will bhe pre- sented at the Columbia Theater to- morrow evening by Henry Miller and his company. of—Kolb R e Brighter with every performance grows the Tivoli's all-star performance of “The Toreador.” With the judicious cutting that has been done the piece has developed into one of the prettiest of its class. & iy The Alcazar returns this week to comedy with “Sheridan” or the “Maid of Bath” for bill, to be produced for the first time here. White Whittlesey will appear in the title role. CRRE e Hoyt's “A Bunch of Keys” will be put on at the Central this week and will, as always, gladden its hundreds. & . e At the Grand Opera-house this after- noon James Neill and his company will begin a week of “A Parisian Romance,” always a favorite with the Neill fol- lowing. & Sy Uiy The California tramp, Elmer Wal- ters, will become a millionaire at this afternoon’s matinee in “A Millionaire Tramp.” The engagement is proving very popular. o oec “The Whirl of the Town” begins ifs second week to-morrow at Fischer's. ora Bayes is again to the fore with a good song, “Mdlle. New York.” « s = The Five Madcaps, who dnced them- selves into favor here a :eason or so ago, and Charles Guyer and Nellie O'Neill, eccentric danv«s from the 19 + | DOROTHY MORTON, SOUBRETTE, WHO IS SOMETHING OF 4 RACONTE famqus “Babes in Toyland,” will be among the Orpheum stars. Leslie’s trained pigs are starring at the Chutes this week. RS A R ACTOR FOLK ARE ALL PREPARING FOR THE _WINTER'S HARD WORK Henry Ainley, leading man for Miss Maude Adams last season, and Suzanne Sheldon sailed last week for Londop to join Charles Frohman's Duke of York's Theater company. sl ety On August 22 at the Garrick Theater, New York, Rich and Harris will pro- duce a new farce by Leo Ditrichstein called “Military Mad.” The cast will include the author, Thomas A. Wise, Ida Conquest and Henry V. Donnelly. s s s Marie Welsh, the Nellie of Henry W. Savage’s “Prince of Pilsen” company that will tour the United States, has a repertoire of twenty-seven operas. She left the Tivoli Theater, San Francisco, to join Mr. Savage's forces. s s e “San Toy,” one of the Daly operas that has made several attempts to get here, is booked for an early appearance. The opera, has all of the elements es- sential to success, is tuneful, witty, clean and original and gives besides almost unlimited scope for handsome pictorial embellishment. This season’s “San Toy” is being presented under the direction of John C. Fisher, with James * T. Powers in the role he originated in this country, as well as others who were prominently identified with the play during its first American season. CEERTERE Following ‘‘Resurrection,” which Blanche Walsh will present the darly pdrt of the coming season, she will ap- pear in a new play by Clyde: Fitch. Her managers, Messrs. Wagenhals and Kemper, have also procured for her ~ssihe new play by Richepin and Henri Cain which Madame Bernhardt is to produce in Paris in the near future. « s e Ignatio Martinetti, who will have the leading comedy role in “Babes in Toy- land” this season, is a lineal descend- ant of the Martinetti family of panto- mimists. They toured this country for many years before and after wartime in conjunction with the famous Ravel troupe. Besides being an accomplished pantomist Mr. Martinetti is an exceed- ingly versatile comedian. Perhaps his best hit wés as Zeu-Zou in “Trilby,” with the memorable exclamation, Oh, la-la! $iiie cta Frederick Warde -declares that his forthcoming tour with Wagenhals and per's spectacular production of “Salammbo,” in which he will be asso- ciated with Miss Kathryn Kidder, will be his farewell to the regular stage. This will not mean,that he is _to retire from public life, howeyer, as he is to adopt the lecture platform with Shake- speare and the other great dramatic classics as his theme. e William Lamp, the young gentleman whose beauty made so lasting impres- sion at the Alcazar awhile ago, will play the role of Tilford Wheeler, the young lover, in the Western *“County Chairman” company this season. PR Arthur Dunn, the comedian star of “The Runaways,” who measures a lit- tle more than four feet, was recently asked why he is so small. He remarked: “Well, I will tell you. I got married recently and settled down.” 8w The following stars appear umder Charles Frohman's management this season: Ellen Terry, Julia Marlowe. Maude Adams, Mrs. Patrick Camp- bell, Annie Russell, Ethel Barrymore, Elaiine Terriss, Mrs. Gilbert, Mrs. Bloodgood, Marie Tempegt, Virginia Harned, Fay Davis, Irene Vanbrugh, Edna May, John Drew, E. H. Sothern. Willilam Gillette, John Hare, Francis ‘Wilson, William Crane, William Faver- sham, Henry Miller, Weedon Gros- smith, William Collier, Sam Bernard, Seymour Hicks and Henry Irving. ot et INCIDENTAL MUSIC A FEATURE OF INTEREST IN NEW PRODUCTION A feature of especial interest in the production of “Salammbo,” in which Frederick Warde and Kathryn Kidder will” star this season, will be the in- cidental music, composed by Henry K. Hadley. Mr. Hadley is among the most cultured and original of Ameri- can composers and wil undoubtedly take full advantage of the magnificent color and movement of Flaubert’s im- perial story. i e Fannie Francisca — Michelson by birth, “Francisca” by quaint honoring of her native town—will shortly make her appearance here in concert. Great things one hears of Miss Francisca, triumphs in the critical centers, Berlin and Vienna, in which latter city she was recently decorated by R-r-royalty for the pleasure afforded its royal ear by her “superb singing.” In September Miss Francisca comes, and her pro- grammes will include scenes . from “Manon,"” “Hamlet,” “Pagliacel,” “Herodiade” I:lfl “. om.eo and Juliet.” De Pachmann, dubbed wittily “the Chopinzee” for his combination of magnificent Chopin and gesture, has been thus ably defended from the charge of doing nothing else by the critic of the St, James Gazette of Lon- don. “It struck me, at Bechstein Hall on Saturday afternoon, that Mr. de Pach- mann has been somewhat unjustly saddled with the reputation, among the concert-going public, of being ex- clusively a Chopin player. In so doing people omit to do full justice to the thorough musicianship of Mr. de Pach- mapa i respect to & much wider range than that afforded by a poser. Certainly will I admit that he is able to throw himself heart and soul into the interpretation of those wc derful piano romances which Cho; has given us, but he is equally able to identify himself with the spirit of the other great masters of musical compo- sition. ' For instance, his rendering of Bach and Mozart at Saturday’s recital was so admirable and appreciative that I cannot think of any executant in Eu- rope who could have given more intel- Tigent and spirited reading of the pieces selected.” single com- A et Madam Kirkby Lunn, who has been engaged by Henry W. Savage to create the role of Kundry in the first produe- tion of “Parsifal” in English, has been a feature of the performances of the “Ring of the Nibelun: given at the Royal Opera-house, Covent Garden, in London, this summer under the direc- tion of Hans Richter. Madam Lunn sang the role of Erda in “Das Rhein- gold” and in “Slegfried,” and was also heard as Ortrud in “Lohengrin,” Bran- gaene in “Tristan and Isolde” and Amneris in “Aida.” Madam Lunn was born in Manchester, England, and studied at the Royal College of Music in London, where she gained the na- tional scholarship. In addition to being one of the leading concert and oratorio singers in England, she has also won success as an interpreter of Wagnerian roles at Covent Garden, London, and at the Metropolitan Opera-house in New York. Madam Lunn has already sung the role of Kundry on the concert stage, and she will attend the perform- ance of “Parsifal” at Bayreuth this summer to perfect herself in the part. —_——— REMARKABLE DEFECTS FOUND IN SOME ENGLISH CHILDREN London School Board Physician Dis- covers Many Cases of Strange Mental Feebleness. LONDON, Aug. 6.—Word deafness and word blindness are two remarkable defects which are dealt with in the an- nual report to the L. C. C. of the medi- cal officer of the late School Board for London. The need for special schools for de- fective children, where speech of as normal a kind as possible is taught and clear articulation insisted opn, are clearly shown by the following remark- able statements: “To a considerable number of chil- dren reading and writing beyond the most rudimentary attempts seem al- most impossible of acquirement. Many of these have marked mental feeble- ness; others seem scarcely amiss in many respects. R “The want of literary ability is prob- ably more general than is supposed. There are many cases of inability to recognize words or to spell anything like the words dictated, while at the same time the child has fair to good faculties in other respects, such as mental arithmetic.” Some typical cases are given. The BLZANCIIE. RTINGION i — following lines were dictated to a boy who can do any ordinary arithmetic, but is totally word blind: “The drinks were ale and mead, drinks which were made in dark English forests with fer- mented hon 3 The boy wrote as follows: “Ia hase us erans and krsut erans was locts boath in hast Enitsh louss ins harest lacnt.” Three years later, when earn- ing 18 shillings a week, this boy cor- rectly wrote in arabic figures the sum of £ 121 2s 11%d from dictation. ‘When asked to write the sum in words he wrote: “Soed oein dnuted edhoth snita ane- rount,” and signed his name, “Ted Smith.” Another reads, ‘It has three birds In it” as “To see—best into.” He mistakes the letters C and S constantly. He quickly and correctly does difficult sums in mental arithmetic, and can de- scribe with great minuteness any scene he has witnessed; hsi memory is only bad for word symbols. His intellectual processes are carried on entirely in pie- tures, and the visual word center seems entirely wanting. Ancther boy, who does his , school work well and can draw, Is “letter blind” and cannot tell a sipgle letter in his name. A fourth has a wondegful faculty of observation and excellent reasoning powers, but cannot remember how to make the signs 1, p, 7 and 9. P e s 5 s i 1 RS RIDER HAGGARD DISCUSSES MENTAL MAKE-UP OF DOGS Novelist Declares That Some Canines Possess the Facuulty of Communi- cating With Their Masters. LONDON, Aug. 6.—Rider Hagsgard, the novelist, has raised the interesting question of telepathic communication between men and animals in a long letter to the Times. He describes how on the night of July 9 his wife roused him from a nightmare, a dream that a black retriever dog belonging to his eldest daughter was lying dead in wa- ter beside some brushwood. The dog was trying to speak to him, and, fail- ing, transmitted to his mind in some undefined fashion it was dying. The next night the dog was missed. Four days later it was discovered in a river a mile away. It evidently had been killed by a train on a railway bridge. Other evidence shows that it was killed at exactly the hour of his nightmare. Rider Haggard does not attempt to explain the phenomenon, which i§ being considered by the So- clety for Psychical Research. Another novelist, Mrs. Campbell Praed, is also puzzling the occultists by averring that her latest novel, “Nyria,” is a revelation of a young un- married woman who remembers her previous existence, near 2000 years ago, as a martyr under Domitlan. Sitting together in a hotel in a foreign coun- try, Mrs. Praed held the girl's hand. Then the girl would go into a sort of dream existence. She assumed a differ- ent identity, and spoke of scenes and events of which she had not the slight- est recollection when she returned to normal consciousness. By chance during one of these dreams the conversation turned on old Rome, and the girl, sinking back in the chair, with her eyes closed, told an amazing tale about experiences in a former existence. “The girl,” says Mrs. Campbell Praed, “was Nyria, and the story is Nyria’s, not mine. I could not have invented it, could not have supplied the detail and local color, which ex- perts pronounce perfect. > “She knows no language but English, yet she gave with absolute accuracy the titles of various Princes and fune- tionaries about the court—titles which, so far as 1 know, have only appeared in a book which never has been trans- lated into English.” ~