The history of the Rosinsky agency is worth narration, for it is now so flourishing that it has replaced, to the advantage of Paris, the engagement market which formerly existed in London.
You can imagine that a man would not open an agency of this kind without first passing through many vicissitudes, and, in fact, R. Rosinsky has had a most checkered life.
He first acquired a taste for the profession through frequenting Barnum’s show in the United States. He has been manager of several American troupes, and proprietor of [p011] a theatre, alternately at St. Louis de Missouri and New York. His affairs prospered, and, with the aid of a partner, Rosinsky opened a circus, which he intended to run during the whole time that the Exhibition at Cincinnati was open, when an unforeseen accident ruined him.
R. ROSINSKY.
One evening his partner’s son, a young man twenty-five years old, but deaf and dumb, almost a brute, yet robust and dangerous, attempted to force an entrance into the dressing-room of an equestrian, who was just changing her dress after rehearsal. A policeman was quickly sent for. The deaf-mute drew a revolver from his pocket, fired at the policeman, and killed him on the spot.
The consequences of this murder may be easily guessed; [p012] the circus was closed. R. Rosinsky was ruined, and he recommenced his wanderings.
M. SARI.
Founder of the Folies-Bergères.
A few months later the famous Brigham Young invited him to undertake the management of the Theatre of the Mormons. I still have a copy of the newspaper—The Salt Lake Daily Herald—in which is found dated “Saturday morning, May 22, 1875,” an advertisement thus worded: