The Brooklyn Daily Eagle from Brooklyn, New York • Page 22

THE J5KOOBZJL YK 'DAILY EAGKLE. 'WEW YOEK, STJDAX, SEPTEMBEK 17, 1899. TStsBBsnoaaoBQ V. ill imi tain did not tall until about 11:30 o'clock. The delay was obviated on the second night.

The curtain now rises at 8 o'clock sharp and the play at ends at 11. The audiences at the Fifth avenue have been phenomenal for such a large theater, the house being entirely sold out during the week. The advance sale also Is said to be remarkably heavy, and the management announces that seats may be booked a month ahead. Charles Frohman has secured the dramatic rights of "Richard Carvel," by Churchill, and an American olay of Revolutionary times is to be made from it Mr. Frohman will probably produce this play with a star actor, who will have the title role.

The success of Annie Russell in "Miss Hobbs," at the Lyceum Theater, 's so great that Charles Frohman has tin Hon of producing any other new play at this house, and has decided to keep Honlx" on at that theater until it is time for Miss Russell to go abroad in the spring. Trancis Wilson's annual engagement begins at the Knickerbocker Theaier to morrow night. His appearance in "Cyrano de lier the extremist borders of Africa. These two stories are told of the noble old Shaikh by the translator. "They asked me, of whom didst thou learn manners?" I replied: "From the unmannerly.

Whatever I saw them do which I disapproved of that I abstained from doing." "I never complained of my condition but on a single occasion, when my feet were bare, and I had not money to buy shoes; but I saw a man without feet and became instantly contented with my lot." "The Gulistan" is a collection of anecdoes, proverbs, brief philosophical reasons, wit and wisdom, written in both prose and verse. Old Sa'di put into it concentrated wisdom gathered during his long life of wandering in many lands and his observation among many peoples. His philosophy Is never better, he has become old enough to be tolerant alike of the mistakes and weaknesses of men and while at times he indulges in gentle satire he is never acrid. He finds a good deal in life that is mirthful, much that is good and a great deal that Is humane. He does not say witty things because they are smart or to provoke a laugh.

It is rather the pleasant fountain of the soul bubbling with merriment because life Is good and worth living and men, with all their blunders and mistakes, are human Tellows. Sir Edwin Arnold, in his translation, appears to have preserved the spirit of the original. Certainly there is profit and entertainment in the varied wisdom of old Sa'di. The book is issued by the Harpers as one of the "Odd Number" series. ($1.) of Dreyfus' unpopularity among his comrades of the general staff and the reasons therefor.

It is found that leakages aro occurring, the men really guilty at once conceive the idea of throwing the blame on Dreyfus, simply to protect themselves and get rid of him. He is unpopular and without friends. In accordance with the French army custom the superior officers accept without question the charges the men make who stand between Dreyfus and themselves. The conspiracy proceeds; evidence is forged and trumped up; the victim is hated; racial prejudice further complicates matters; he is condemned. Having passed judgment everyone is interested in maintaining it; the original conspirators to protect themselves; the generals because it is offensive to their pride to confess they have made a mistake, and because furthermore the strange idea that an army judgment once given must not be questioned, as it would be subversive of all principles of discipline to allow it to be suspected that "the army" is not infallible.

The more the world learns of the hideous injustice they have perpetrated the more anxious are they to maintain themselves. "The honor of the army" Is of vastly more importance in their eyes than the sufferings of one man, no matter how great they are or how innocent of wrong he may be. The "system" had always stood, why should it not continue to endure? This, from the author's standpoint, is the why and wherefore of the Dreyfus case. When Lionel Decle joined the colors in 1879 there was a system whereby young men possessing a certain amount of education could volunteer, before the year in which their service would usually begin, and escape with one or two years of service instead of five, which at that period was the regulation term. They were called "volontaires." They were herded in with the rest of the conscripts, without regard to any previous social position, ate the same food and were compelled to associate with the vilest sorts of men, drawn from the slums of Paris.

The German system makes a distinction between the educated young man who vounteers for a year and the average peasant conscript. Our author elected to serve in a certain dragoon regiment, where he had a friend, but, unfortunately, it happened to be under the command of a colonel who hated volunteers and was too narrow and coarse a man not to show his feelings. They were piaced in charge of a sergeant who took his cue from the colonel and the result was a life of misery for all them. Decle was unfortunate, also, in refusing to share in the plot of a certain sergeant who desired he should lie to enable him to secure another man's removal, that he might get his place. Because of his refusal Decle was subjected to all sorts of persecution, with a result that he was given a bad name to his commanding officers and spent a good deal of time in the guard house.

At last he was invalided, through the influence of a surgeon who understood how he was persecuted. Decle seems to have been unskillful in gaining the good will of his superiors and apparently lacked tact. Still that did not excuse the inhumanity and tyranny with which he was treated. He does not condemn the French officer so much as the system under which he operates. "Trooper 3809" is a book of exceptional interest, but it will lessen even the small degree of respect which the world Is beginning to have Tor the French army.

There is a feeling that a system which makes the things described in this book possible is not well calculated to develop a military establishment that can be relied upon when its services may be most needed. (Charles Scribner's Sons. pp. 6 illustrations. $1.25.) Points of Uicw.

A leading exponent of the illustrated lecture has retired to live on a fortune. It is rumored that his annual income for a dozen years or so before retiring was $40,000, and he had five months vacation a year. As he is no longer with us, and as he illustrated not only his lectures, but the rise of the system and the "decline and fall off" thereof, it is now permissible to say that his delivery was faulty, his style rhetorical, even sophomorlc, his advertising of hotels In doubtful taste, and that he was responsible for a shoal of imitators, among whom are a few of his betters. He waa cleverly managed and was popular. As he offered a capital picture show, he deserved to be.

As he said little that was worth saying, did he deserve to be? The increase in the country's theatrical and musical resources, the removal of the religious taboo from innocent amusements, the frequency of art exhibitions, the social functions, the bicycle, the lengthening vacations, the vast output of reading matter, account In some measure for the decline of the Iyceum, and the strain of city life accounts in other measure for the late persistence of the lecture that Is florid and entertaining. Possibly the men who were driven by a sense of duty to stern recitals on "The Dynamic and Static In tcrchangeability in Affinitive Molecular Processes" or to "Critical Reviews of the Hungarian Literature of the Seventeenth Century" had to do with their own disappearance. The photograph lecture pleases, but is rudimentary. The speaker has to speak around his pictures. He Is a kindergartner.

This la not to his disparagement, but to that of the public, which has so long and solemnly approved him as an instructor of adults. Imagine Emerson speaking on "Compensations," with, dissolving views, or Holmes, Whipple, King, Lowell, Phillips, Beecher, Chapin, Curtis any of the stars of the old Iyceum, traveling with, a magic lantern! And it is for the joy of the eye that we forego the deeper joy of thinking. Our institutes shall I say, Brooklyn Institute encourage art and science with many discourses, all practical, all illustrated by pictures, collections and experiments; historic narrations and criticisms, too. But the first voice is never heard. Our Institutes do not foster original expression or original thought.

So. there are mutterings. As in too much of our schooling, the aim is wrong. It is, not to stimulate, but to cram. Facts are endlessly arrayed, but the truths which facts stand for, the poetry they express, their relations to ourselves, those vast beginnings and vast end3 which they shadow to our hope and faith are we through with them? Thousands say, Nol These thousands are beginning to refrain from the stereopticon, blest as that device is to all who attend lectures for the name of the thing, since the comfortable, concealing gloom In which it operates conduces to sleep.

Without prejudice to the traveler's lecture, to the illustrated story, to the lecture on bugs, birds or blossoms; to the free lectures for laborers and their families, to the Sunday school talk, it must be urged that the lantern has had Its day among audiences that aspire to cultivation. During the years In which photography has been perfecting itsell it has had a common interest. We can remember when a ten foot projection on a screen was a thing to talk about; when the pictures were pushed into a single tube, the operator's thumb being often In evidence, and when they were pretty poor pictures, at that. But the photograph Is now an usual and accepted thing. In the hands of an artist, the camera sees like an artist and draws like one.

The million pictures taken every day no longer harry our expectations, however, nor fill our memories. They are matters of course, like the telegraph, telephone, trolley and gas. While inventions astonish us for an hour, nature and humanity never lose their interest. Why, then, dwell so long on the outward and the physical? Lock up the slides, send the gas tanks to the theater, to fizz moonlight over Juliet, and from the platform where glib narrators of overland trips to Columbus, and voyages to Charleston, S. have been expatiating through the waiting years, let us hear again the ringing words of men with messages, men with courage; not men who think or see for you, but do an hundredfold that service; make you think for yourself.

Ah, they were fine days when every man who had risen to greatness accounted for it before our lyceum audiences, not in brag, but in the disclosure of his personal quality, in the giving of his beet self for the inspiration of his fellows. Those lectures held fast in our memories; we were better for them; they were meat and drink and higher life. large village in the North had its lectures then, as every home its Bible and its Shakspeare. The sensational journal had not intruded; the immigration from South Europe had not disturbed or threatened; the railroad did not pass every door; the tramp did not compel us to keep dogs. "We were in a position and a mood to think.

Have we not gained enough, materially, to lie fallow for a while, to grow a resting crop, not of dollars, but of ideas and ideals? Come back to us, you of the gravely smiling faces, you who touched what was tender and noble In us, you who inspired us for liberty and justice, you whose tones chorded with divine harmonies, you who helped us to he Americans, you who persuaded us to be ourselves. As to you others, who have tickled our ears and spoken to our eyes, there is still a place for you, but not there not where Starr King stood; not where we heard Emerson. C. M. S.

CABLE LINES OF THE WORLD. French Government Leads in Length, Norwegian in Number. The various governments of the world own together SS0 cables, having a total length of 14,480 miles and containing 21,560 miles ot conductors. The French government, which takes the lead as to the length of cables, has 3,460 miles in fifty four cables. As to number, the Norwegian government comes first, with 255 cables having a total length of 24S miles.

Finally, as to length of conductors, the English government comes first, with 5,468 miles of conductors, divided among 115 cables, having a total length of 1.5S8 miles. Private companies to the number of twenty eight own 2SS cables, having a length 126,864 miles and containing 127,632 miles ot conductors. The French companies, only two in number, the Compagnie Francaise du Tele graphe de Paris a New York and the Societe Francaise des Telegraphes Sous Marins, have 18 cables with a total length of 7,249 nautical miles. The most Important of the private companies is the Eastern Telegraph Company, which operates 75 cables, with a total length of 25,347 miles. The total number of cables in the world la 1,168, with a total length of 140,344 miles and 149,193 miles of conductors.

This is not sufficient to reach the moon, but would extend more than half way there. Cleveland Leader. Amusements in Brooklyn Sol Smith Russoll's role in Charles Klein's new comedy. "The lion. John Grigsby," which will be presented at the Montauk to morrow evening.

i. in be anothtr of the tlelifihi. ful character stndie.s which have been so cleverly and deliearely handled by th's ator during recent years. A really lovable character is the Moim; a worthy companion ro those others whom Mr. Uns.st'Il' art has made famous.

The comedy is to hi1 bright and clean, laid on a srrioiir. ha ground to give color and ro the wirk. The iday admits of many beati.iful and novel stage effects in the way of scenery. E. U.

I of the Lyceum Theater. Manhattan, was employed by Mr. Russell for part of the work, which has been carried out and in good taste. The supporting company is the largest Sol Smith Russell. ho Aj'nPrirH I is Xew Play.

and the best that Russeji has over brought, to Brooklyn. Charles Frohman will bring a new Gillette play to Brooklyn rn morroiv evening, wnen the farce She I.ovod Him So' will begin an engagement of two weeks at the Columbia Theater. Tc production comes direct from Power. Theater, Chicago, where it has been pre semef! to crowded houses for the past fourteen weeks. 1 1 was taken to Chicago from the Madison Square Theater, where it ran for nearly 00 performances last season to uniformly crowded houses.

Mr. Frohman has declared that "Because She Loved Him So" is the most successful and satisfactory farce he has ever handled. It certainly pleased the large audiences at the Madison Square that witnessed Its performances, for they were enthusiastic In applauding its scenes and praising its fun and cleverness. The exquisite vein in which the piece Is written has caused it to be called "The Little Minister" of farce. Notwithstanding the necessary exaggerated quality of its Characters and Incidents the whole work is re BUsd and finished, and it has the polish and A SCENE FROM "BECAUSE The Opening Attraction at perfection of a poem.

The farce is in William Gillette's best strain and it has a liner sentimental atmosphere than any of liis other works. There are lour distinct lnve stories In "Because She Loved Him So" and the romantic phases of the play appeal strongly to all classes of theater goers. The company which Mr. Frohman has selected is one of unusual strength, and it makes a delightful presentation of the many excellent points in Gillette play. J.

15. Uodson who is an aetor of versatile ability, is co spicuous in the ea. c. The other members of the company are KranoU Carlisle. Arnold Daly.

William li. Smith. Tully W. J. Who will Constantino, fh.

irb. Annie Iri' lt, Maggie Firldin Comsioek and A f'njip'dians. which he re are few better i o.r people on the vaudeville' tagc, i. I'm booking this wed: at the Adams street theater. This company hn been played so often at this theater that the name itself may be said to be a guarantee it kUm iisipl Miss Coghlan, I pp.

"T'." at th; I Uoy Fairchiid, 'k. I Krabam, ir.ii''''. ranees a i i I a a an be a that an excellent bill will be provided. Miss Helenc Mora has been so long affiliated with Mr. Hyde's company that her absence will be the first thing noticed by all.

She is now on her way from the other side, and it was expected that she would be here in time to open in Brooklyn with the aggregation, but owing to delays she has been unable to reach America. As a consequence Bobby fiaylor. probably known better as Sport McAllister, is the he.i.lliner. lie will he seen and "heard in his many clever impersonations of the Celtic character. As a special attraction.

Manager eh man has secured Al Leech, who. with his trio of blossoms, as he calls the three charming young girls who accompany him and assist him in his act, will undoubtedly repeat his former hits. Arthur Dunn and Clara B. Jerome appear well up on the bill and the little man in said to be just as amusing as he has ever been. Simms and Graham follow with their mimicry of people we see every day.

Others on the bill are Charles Galletti and his barber monkeys; the three Ronay sisters in a clean bright musical act; the four Fortu ni brothers in acrobatic comedy and Jordan and Welch Yiddish eccentricities. One of the most important successes of recent years Is the London Drury Lane melodrama, "The White Heather," which ran for several months at the Academy of Music in New York. This season the management has secured Rose Coghlan as the star and she will be seen at the Grand Opera House to morrow night in her impersonation of Lady Janet, a part in which she does good work. In addition to Miss Coghlan. the cast will include score of well known actors and actresses.

The play is a most interesting one and tells graphic story of love and hate. It is elaborately staged and the scene showing the descent of two heavily armored divers to the bottom of the sea, and a sensational fight with is a thrilling episode which never fails to arouse the enthusiasm of an audience. The "White Heather" is well worth seeing. H. A.

Du Souchet's new musical farce comedy, "An Easy Mark." will be the attraction at the Bijou Theater this week. It is said to be bright and original, and to serve to introduce music which is catchy and tuneful. A number of specialties is introduced, so that the production is a combination of comedy, opera and vaudeville. It is well staged, and has met with consistent success since it was sent on the road. "A Grip of Steel," the melodrama which filled the Grand Opera House every night last week, moves over to the Gayety to morrow.

Eastern District theater goers who care for melodrama of the London Adelphi Theater variety, will be more than satisfied with "A Grip of Steel," which is full of intrigue, murder and sudden death, and is presented by a capable company. The Jaxon Opera Company has returned to Brooklyn, and will play a week's engagement at the Amphion Theater, commencing to morrow. On Monday. Tuesday and Wed nesday "The Mikado" will be presented, and on Thursday. Friday and Saturday, "The Bohemian Girl." Matinees will be given on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, and popular prices will prevail.

Mile. Fat mah Diarci and Miss Daisy Thorn will alternate in the leading soprano roles, Miro Delamotta and Harry Xelson will sing baritone parts, H. W. Tre Denick will be the SHE LOVED HIM SO." the Columbia Theater. basso and Edward Webb will appear as the comedian of the company Phil Sheridan's "Xew City Sports" will begin their first engagement this season at the Star Theater, commencing at to morrow's matinee.

The company is composed the following: Joseph Flynn, "the man who wrote the Brothers Lowell, acrobats; McLoyed and Carr, musicians; Phil Mills and Billy Hart, comedians; Xelson and Milledge, comedy couple; Alice Leslie and Fannie Lewis, vocalists. The imps ballet will serve to introduce the Maccarri sisters, clever dancers, and Miss Orissie Sheridan. The Brooklyn Music Hall, at the corner of Fulton street and Alabama avenue, will open for the season to morrow. Since the closing last spring the house has been redecorated, renovated and its interior improved in many ways. The palm garden has also undergone a course of refurnishing, making it even more attractive cafe than it was last season.

A full bill of vaudeville will presented, among whom are Mile. Lottie, European premier and Remington, the eccentric comedy duo, in the "Road Queen;" Cook and Sonora, the recognized headliners in their comedy sketch. "In the Vaudevilles;" the Stewart sisters, seriocomic singers; Blanche Ring, the Western comedienne; Romalo brothers, acrobats and head to head balancers; Howard Thurston, the clever card manipulator; Fred Roberts, English eomic singer: and Joe and Nellie Doner, character sketch artists. Sunday concerts will be given as usual. Regular matinee days are Monday, Thursday and Satur day.

A good programme is to be presented at. the Novelty this week, commencing with the usual Monthly matinee. The principal attractions are Eugene OTtourke and Truly Sbiittuek, a former dramatic star and the burle: 'iue queen, in the one act comedy. "Af jer the Fretn Ball;" George Evans, the honey boy; the Donovans, famous Irish duo; liree liio brother gymnasts from the Virion; roof Vain. ore.

the instrument al man Gertie Gilson, the favorite sirring romc diecne; Henry Siebaeh, champion bag puncher of Anient I'i. and Egbert, in illustrated songs, and Mi', and Mrs. Augustin Neti vjlle. in their streaming I'aree, "An Inter rupted Rehearsal." Theaters in Manhattan. On the first night of "Becky Sharp" at the Fifth Avenue Theater the performance was slightly delayed, as is usually consequent upon a heavy production, and the final cur I life in the French.

Army. A somber light is thrown upon the French army system by a new book Just published by the Scribners with the title "Trooper with the sub title, "A Private Soldier of the Third Republic." The author is Lionel Decle, a Frenchman, who narrates in this volume his personal experiences when serving his time in the ranks, as every Frenchman, with certain exceptions, is obliged to do, under the compulsory military service laws of the country. We are accustomed to hear a great deal about the compulsory military service exacted in Germany, and the spectacle of youths sent out of the country by their parents before they reach the age which requires them to enter the ranks is not unusual. Of the French army we have not heard much, save the frantic glorification of the institution by a certain class of French newspapers and politicians, and by the army officers themselves. We are asked to believe that the French people are passionately devoted to the army and that there is an esprit de corps existing in its ranks which Insures its solidarity "for France." The Dreyfus affair has revealed to an indignant world the existence there of a solidarity for evil that is sufficiently potent to have accomplished one of the most cruel and flagrant travesties upon justice that the history of the world has ever witnessed.

Wre are asked to believe that an institution, many of whose leaders are so utterly lost to every sentiment of honor and justice as this has been shown to be. is a bulwark which will protect France in the day of peril. The Dreyfus case is also responsible for "Trooper 3,809," in that it has prompted a revelation as to what the life in the ranks really is, and how utterly helpless the soldier is when any question of justice or fair dealing is concerned. Our author makes out a pretty bad case, and while it may be claimed his personal experience of suffering brutality and injustice was in some considerable degree due to his own shortcomings of temperament and conduct, still it cannot be questioned that a system which makes such things even possible is rotten to the core. The faults are the natural result of the system and of the decadence of French character: such abuses as are chronicled In this book would simply be impossible in either the American or the British armies.

In the first place American or British officers, whatever might be their other faults, would not tolerate such a system of. injustice, knowing that it would result in wholesal demoralization and mutiny, that it would be productive of anything else than a fighting machine that could be trusted It seems to produce a machine which the French believe can be relied upon; perhaps in actual service conditions might be bettered, certainly in barracks the life narrated by our author is well calculated to produce the reverse of the true soldier. The story narrated by "Trooper 3.8011" pertains to a period nearly twenty years ago, and in some respects there have been improvements in the soldier's material condition. General Bou langer is credited with a number of reforms in this direction, but the animating spirit remains the same the same spirit of callous indifference on the part of the officers, the same opportunity to inflict injustice without any hope of redress; the same effort to make of the men mere automatons, who shall accept every condition impose no matter how cruel or heartless or unjust all this is to day much the same as it was in the day of the events narrated iu this book. The author, M.

Lionel Decle, is a traveler and an explorer; evidently a man of means. The publishers state that the book did not have the advantage of his final revision, as be started upon a mission of African exploration before such revision could be made. Iu his introduction he refers to the Drey case declaring that "trusting to unworthy subordinates the highest officers of the general staff made of Dreyfus' guilt a matter on which they utaked their own honor and reputation, and when they discovered that they had been deceived, they found themselves in the position of having either to acknowledge that they had been befooled, or else of having to stand by those who had led them into their awkward predicament. They chose the latter alternative, and their friends and supporters played into the hands of those who fiercely attacked the army by refusing to admit, that there could be a single black sheep in it, thus linking together the whole body of French officers and making their colled ive honor dependent on the honor of every individual member." He notes the remarkable fact that the one man who maintained implicit trust in the good faith of his worst enemies was Dreyfus himself. He declares that ease is only a greatly magnified example of what daily happens throughout the French army and that he is the victim not so much of the malice of individuals as of a faulty system, and when the reader follows the author through his narrative, he will understand how this is possible.

In fact, one of the valuable features of the book is the light it rellects on the Dreyfus and the manner in which it indirectly affords an elucidation of the mystery. Instead of a deeply involved conspiracy conceived to shield some cue high iu authority, it is made apparent that the French army system which makes the superior officer accept without question the character given a soldier by subordinate officers is really responsible for the first condemnation of Dreyfus. There is a slavish principle in the army which demands the upholding of a judgment that has been passed no matter how wrong or unjust, and any appeal agair.t a it is regarded by superiors as equally offensive with the original offense. One author tells how on one occasion he appealed to the colonel of his regiment against a punishment imposed through malice and for an offense of which he was entirely innocent and how the only result was the doubling by the colonel of the unjust punishment. Nor was his an isolated case.

It was a well understood principle in the command and he was warned by his comrades against making the anp but smarting under the injustice and brutality of hi condemnation, he would not accept the warning and suffered for it. Some queer and ini xplica iile notions about discipline which the' Anglo Saxon mind cannot ur.d' tand seems to be responsible for this horid system. The French officers claim tl'tii oust depend for their knowledge of the charaeier of the privates on what the r.ergcanis nn i corporals say of them, and seem lo think thai icese. the blunders they make and the inju tiee they inflict. An American or a Bri'ish ollierr would simply stand aghast at such a notion.

If he does not know his men per onnlly and from his own observation he knows he is grossly derelict in his duty toward them. Apply the French principle to the Dreyfus case and note how according to our author it clarilies and explains the primary situation. Julian Ralph has recently told the Eagle readers something gerac" will virtually open the light opera 'Bobby" Gaylor, Who Heads the 13111 at Hyde Behman's This Week. season in New York. Six weeks of careful rehearsals, in conjunction with a week's performance out of town, warrants managerial promise of a smooth and even representation.

Although the opera is in three acts, the original story is closely followed. The material changes are the entrance of Cyrano in the first act in the guise of a countryman, a combination of the battle and balcony scenes in the last act and the throwing over of Christian for Cyrano by Roxane at the conclusion. The cast of "Die Meistersinger," which will be given for the first time in "English in America by the Castle Square Opera Company at the American Theater on Monday, October 2. has been arranged as follows: Hans Sachs. William MerteDS; Pogner, E.

N. Knight: Bockmesser. Homer Lind; Kothner, Harry Luckstone: Walter. Barron Berthald; David. Harry Davies, Watchman, Percy Wall The Chapelle Sisters, Who Will Be Seen at the Bijou in "An ETasy Mark" ing: Eva.

Yvonne de Treville; Marie Mattfeld. During the eeries of performances, O. P. Regneas will alternate as Hans Sachs, H. L.

Butler as Pogner, Joseph Sheehan as Walter and Miss Cecilc Hardy as Eva. The sale of subscription scans for the third season of opera in English will open at the box office of the theater on Thursday, September 21, at It o'clock. Seats may be secured at the same time for "We Uns of Tennessee," which will be revived on Monday, September for one week with Wednesday and Saturday matinees. This interesting Southern character drama will constitute an especially appropriate attraction for Dewey week, as the development of the plot involves the exciting military operations that occurred during the spring of Prominent in the cast, of actors engaged for the production are Elmer Grandin, Aflie Warner. Lee Arthur, Grace Sherwood and Gertrude Liddy.

Music lovers continue to flock to the St. Nicholas Garden, Manhattan, where the Kal tenborn concerts maintain the high standards set earlier in the season. Xext Tuesday, symphony night, Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony will be played in response to numerous requests. At the concert to night, Mr. Kal tenborn will contribute a violin solo and R.

K. Colville, baritone, will sing. The programme will be as follows: Festival March f. k. Hndlev Overture "Merry Wives of Windsor" Hustle suite vr.

W. Lowitz iolm solo "Romance" Mr. I Caltenborn. Andante Fifth Symphony Heelhov March Tschalkowskv Prelude and "Tristan und Isolde" iiKner Aria from "Ernani" Verdi Mr. Coville.

irpin's Prayer Massenc Scherzo Koehl. Allet retto EiRlith Symphony Ik ethi.vi Overture Weher "Ride of the Valkyries" Wasner John Drew and his production of Haddon Chambers' comedy of temperament, "The Tyranny of Tears," have taken immediate hold of the popular fancy at the Empire Theater. The first Wednesday matinee of the play will be given September 27. Charles Frohman has arranged with Mrs. Langtry to open at the Garden Theater, Xew York, on January in, for a season of five weeks, presenting Sydney Grundy's "The Degenerates." as now being played at the Hay market Theater.

London. Mrs. Langtry, after her engagement at the Garden Theater, will visit the principal cities, a tour of which is now being arranged. Miss Maude Adams, whose season in "The Lillle Minister" was to have begun October 2, will not open her season until October IS, giv Crissie Sheridan, Who Heads the ''empany Which Will Appear at tlie Star Theat' r. ing her an extra two weeks' vacation.

This time she will utilize rehearsing the new play which J. M. Barrie lias written for her. General Stage Notes. "Quo Vadis" is to be dramatized, Stanislaus Stange having undertaken the work of adapting popular novel.

Andrew Mack will bring his new play "The Last oi the to the Gayety Theater later in the season. Edward Esmond, who is well known to the theatergoers ol' Brooklyn for exeellreitj work with the Park Taeater Stock Company during the season of 1S17 and k'lts, has been engaged to appear at Hyde v. Ber.nian's Theater during the eek of St pteinijer 2D, in a new sketch by Sydney Wiliner, which he calls "The Foolish Mr. Mr. Es is assisted til sketch his wie, herself a Brooklyn woman well known in musical circles, who sin.L'e sivenii sehernns during the piece.

Among them is one. "Baby's Crossing Dreamland's Border," the words of which are by Robert Donnelly of this and the music by William Slafer. leader of the orchestra at the Adorns street house The End of Trilogy. Admirers of Charles Dudley Warner's stories will be sorry to learn that he has decided to close the story of "That Fortune," which figured so largely in "A Little Journey in the World," and in "The Golden House." His latest book disposes of the accumulation, and though it ends happily there Is genuine regret In the passing of the characters. In Evelyn Mavlck we have another true American girl of the type of which America may well be proud.

The subtlety of Mr. Warner's delineation is the great charm of this book. Evelyn Is so whole souled and yet so charmingly naive in spite of restraints and conventionalities to which, she has been subjected, that the character is interesting as a study. Philip Burnett Is more familiar, for who does not know the sensitive, ambitious, sterling New England boy who makes his way in spite of every difficulty and lives happily whether he be rich or poor, because he has established himself in the Mecca of his boyhood, the great city where he can mix with men? The maid, McDonald, is' a sketch, the cleverness of which may escape readers who have not met such a woman. There are hundreds of them in America and in England the type Is as common as Alice is here.

The plot Is made intricate bv the enterprise of Brad, the newspaper correspondent, whose original may be found twenty times in half that number of minutes along Park row. Altogether, "That Fortune" winds up the series agreeably and now the public ask "Xext?" from their general favorite. (Harper Bros. $1.50.) A Pleasant Novel. "Sun Beetles," by Thomas Pinkerton, is a story of English life "at the foothills of the aristocracy," which the author tells us might well be called "Nickname land." The plot is simple.

A self made man who differs from the usual type represented by novelists, in that he is possessor of taste as well as of enoney and is not arrogant or snobbish to an offensive degree, has become a philanthropist, to the undisguised terror of his near relatives. He has given a town an institute and a park to the village, and is contemplating bearing the expense of a bridge which is needed. An impecunious nobleman, Lord i Coldwitte, and his friend, a major, are con sulted by Mr. liarpwell sister ana nephew as to how such benefactions can be stopped. Lord Coldwitte suggests that the philanthropist be inviegled into polities, and, by very clever strategy, succeeds in persuading him that he is the choice of a grateful constituency, who insist upon being represented by him in Parliament.

He stands as a Liberal and in so doing jeopardizes the chances of Lord Hastie, who is a favored suitor of his daughter, Violet. Of course the object of the plot is to set the village by the ears, get Mr. Harpwell roundly abused and thus disgust him with trying to benefit his fellow townsmen. How the plan is carried out and its result, form the interest of the story. It would he hard to say which character Is most delightful.

One cannot exactly approve of the Baskers, the sporty editor and his pretty, though coarse wife, yet they are splendidly drawn. Then there is Lady Susie Slackwater, whom one would not have cared to know, hut who is a good friend to Mr. Harpwell and Violet at critical junctures. "Tubbie" Is a type. He is fat, lazy, good for nothing son of a rich mother, and spends his time and intellect in reckoning how his rich relatives will "cut up" for his benefit.

By "cut up" he means how much they will leave him in their wills. Lord Coldwitte fizzles out in the course of the st ry, though one is grateful to him for having suggested that plot. Prince, the dog. Is a right good fellow as real as the men and women. "Sun Beetles" is a good novel, full of clever repartee and mild cynicism.

John Lane; the Bodley Head.) Plant Relations. Books of popular science multiply In such a fashion that one must think there is a demand for them, and It Is a healthy demand, surely. Whateverwill open the eyes of the people to the things of interest and beauty in the world around them in the air they breathe, in the waters beneath the earth and in the vastness of space revealed in the night sky tends to make their lives richer and happier; it tends to modify their ignorant cruelty toward lesser creatures, and to look instead of striking, or at least before striking. In respect of plants, the attitude of the untaught is often like that of the hoodlum and hunter toward animals, for it appears to gratify the human fondness for destruction "when one may walk along a country road and rip hand fuls of vegetation out of the earth, or strip the trees and herbs of their blossoms. He who looks with a better understanding at the humbler forms of life, whether animal or vegetal, takes a higher and keener pleasure in studying them as they live.

He finds their grace, their beauty, their color, their intelligence, of deepest interest. Among the books recently printed which tend to awaken the reader to the beauty of the vegetable world is John M. Coulter's "Plant Relations," which makes a volume in Appleton's Twentieth Century Series. Dr. Coulter is professor of botany in Chicago University.

His book is scientific, but It is not so In the dull and deadly sense. Botanical terms are used, yet not for their own sake, as too often appears to be the case among botanical writers, who might as well put their thoughts into Chinese, so far as their ready understanding is concerned by the English reading public. The author is less occupied with the anatomy than with the physiology of plants. He states hia case and then shows why things are thus and so. He shows why leaves grow in a certain way, for it is that they may not shade the leaves of the same plant below them.

Function, structure, protection, shoots, roots, reproductive organs, flowers, insects, the struggle for existence, nutrition, plant societies and other matters are considered, and the clearness of the descriptions gains from the excellence of the plates that accompany them, most of the pictures being photographic. The "Nuggets" Series. Fords, Howard Hulbert have recently made two additions to the Nuggets series as the little volumes of extracts from the words or the writings of famous men are called. One devoted to patriotic nuggets includes, extracts from Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Webster, Lincoln and Beech er. It has for a frontispiece a reproduction of Stuart's portrait of Washington.

The other volume Is devoted to "Educational Xuggets" and has a portrait of Plato. Extracts arc given from Plato, Aristotle. Rousseau, Herbart, Harrlss, Butler and Eliot. Both volumes are collated by John R. Howard.

Their size Is a little over three by five inches, and they are uniform In style. (40 cents). A New Edition of "Prue and It is forty three years since George William Curtis published "Prue and and now a new edition has been issued by the Harpers, with a portrait of the author as a frontispiece and with three or four illustrations. There is no occasion at this late day to speak of the literary excellence and artistic charm of this book, which has become almost a classic in American imaginative literature. Its dainty and fascinating grace is as perfect to day as it was in the day when the fathers and mothers of the present generation were first delighted with its wit and fancy.

To the old New Yorker who reads it in this new dress it will seem like a chapter from the golden book of youth, for it will bring back the city of 'his earlier time, when there were no big apartment houses or elevated roads when New York was a home city and not a world metropolis. It is a good deal bigger now than it was when "Prue and first saw light, but It is questionable whether it is a pleasanter place to live in. The publishers have given the new edition a modest and tasteful garb such a dress as Prue, careful and thrifty woman that she was, would have chosen. (Harper 50 cents.) The Eose Garden of Shaikh Sa'di. The results of Sir Edwin Arnold's recent literary labors are before the reading world In the form of a translation of the famous Persian classic.

"The Gulistan," which for over six hundred years has been considered one of the masterpieces of the world's literature. The author was a Persian sage. Shaikh Sa'di of Shiraz. who was born about 11S4 A. D.

and died in 1294, according to the legend, at the age of 108 years, having devoted almost his entire life to philosophy, poetry and traveling. Leaving home when only 12 years old he pursued his education at. the famous madrasah of Bagdad, where he remained for over thirty years. Then at the age of 42 he entered upon the period of bio wanderings, and traveled through India, Arabia and Africa for twenty five years, until with full knowledge of men and affairs he returned to Shiraz, where he retired to a charming garden outside the gates of the city, and devoted himself to the composition of his tales and verses. "The Gulistan" is a collection of proverbial tales interspersed with verses and anecdotes illustrative of the general theme.

The version that we have here is devoted to the first four gateways of the rose garden, the front bearing the title, "The Manners of Kings." the second "Concerning Durweeshes," the third treating of "The Excellency of Moderation," and the fourth considering "The Benefits of Taciturnity." The preface contributed by the translator is reproduced from the pages of "Literature" of November 12 of last year, in which Sir Edwin Arnold gives seme account of ihe sage, his wanderings and his writings. He calls him the "Horace and Marco Polo of the Far East combined into one rich and gracious nature." He quotes Vambery, who declares that Sa'di is an object of veneration not only to the people of Persia, but to every Mohammedan in the Asiatic world. His "Gulistan" Is still read, we are told, with admiration and rapture in the middle of China as well as oa, i i HOW TO WRITE A COON SONG. First you take a Southern coon. So he's black he'll do; Then you find a yaller gal, Name her Sal or Lou; They must have a falling out, Else be very thick; She must follow with the "dough" When he's living high on Don't forget his bill of fare, Wine and chicken wing; And when the song Is finished through Just add the ragtime swing.

Now, you've done the best you can; Choose a name for It Something silly, lacking sense And It will make a hit. Chicago Nw.