A number of supes were employed in Youngstown, husky young rolling mill men of muscle and grit. Alfred, at the head of his Indian braves, attacked the wagon train of emigrants; instead of the supes falling back, as rehearsed, then charging forward, led by the star, they pitched into Alfred and his Indians at the first rush. Alfred to save the scene, fought valiantly to stem the tide of strength and sturdy determination. But the supe pale-faces were too muscular for the copper tinted braves whom Alfred led. In fact, at the first onslaught of the whites the Indians, with the exception of one or two, fled and left Alfred to battle alone.
Alfred was overpowered, completely vanquished—a blow between the eyes laid him low. The Youngstown supes not only wiped up the stage with him but they wiped their feet on him. The gallery howled, the down-stairs applauded, the company laughed. The curtain fell amid loud applause.
Alfred was anxious to continue the conflict after the curtain dropped; the supes were agreeable. But the stage manager, the stars and others of the company interfered. The matter was amicably adjusted.
Alfred, although badly maimed, played his parts during the week's run in Pittsburgh, although the war club he carried was not the imitation one he wielded in Youngstown. However, there was no recurrence of the Youngstown scene.
The play did not meet with success. After the Pittsburgh engagement it was carefully laid away and thus Alfred was preserved to minstrelsy.
It is a curious fact that the only play Bartley Campbell ever wrote, a play with the theme of which he was not in sympathy, written for commercial purposes only, has lived longer and earned more money than his most meritorious creations. We refer to "The White Slave." Who is not familiar with those thrilling lines:
"Rags are royal raiment
When worn for virtue's sake."
Bartley Campbell was a self made man—from laboring in a brick-yard to journalism, then a dramatist. He was a noble boy, a manly man. He toiled patiently all the days of his only too brief life for those he loved.
It was in the early days of the beginning of that race for wealth that has made Pittsburgh both famous and infamous. Jared M. Brush had been elected mayor; Hostetter Stomach Bitters had become famous in all dry sections of the country; Jimmy Hammill had won the single sculling championship of the world; the Red Lion Hotel had painted the lion out and painted St. Clair Hotel in gilt letters to attract trade from Sewickley, which community, so near the Economites, had imbibed a sort of religious fervor exhibited outwardly only. It was argued by the proprietor that when the residents of Sewickley drove by on their way to market to dispose of their garden truck, butter and eggs, they would be attracted by the word "Saint." The St. Nicholas Hotel on Grant Street always boarded the court jurors. The St. Charles on Wood Street had the patronage of the Democrats of Fayette County. Brownsville people always stopped at the Monongahela House.