There are a great many other ludicrous things that have happened behind the scenes, and but few of which have reached the public. The legend about Atkins Lawrence's lion skin, which he wears when he plays Ingomar, and which was so heavily sprinkled with snuff as a preservative against moths that when Parthenia began to woo the barbarian chief and leant lovingly upon his shoulder she almost sneezed her head off before the alarmed audience, is told of Mary Anderson. The Milwaukee Sun printed something about the same actress, that whether true or false is equally good. The writer says:—"It is well known that Miss Anderson is addicted to the gum-chewing habit, and that when she goes upon the stage she sticks her chew of gum on an old castle painted on the scenery. There was a wicked young man playing a minor part in the play who had been treated scornfully by Mary, as he thought, and he had been heard to say he would make her sick. He did. He took her chew of gum and spread it out so it was as thin as paper, then placed a chew of tobacco inside, neatly wrapped it up, and stuck it back on the old castle. Mary came off, when the curtain went down, and going up to the castle she bit like a bass. Putting the gum, which she had no idea was loaded, into her mouth, she mashed it between her ivories and rolled it as a sweet morsel under her tongue. It is said by those who happened to be behind the scenes, that when the tobacco began to get in its work there was the worst transformation scene that ever appeared on the stage. The air, one supe said, seemed to be full of fine cut tobacco and spruce gum, and Mary stood there and leaned against a painted rock, a picture of homesickness. She was pale about the gills, and trembled like an aspen leaf shaken by the wind. She was calm as a summer's morning, and while concealment like a worm in an apple, gnawed at her stomach, and tore her corset strings, she did not upbraid the wretch who had smuggled the vile pill into her countenance. All she said, as she turned her pale face to the painted ivy on the rock, and grasped a painted mantel piece with her left hand, as her right hand rested on her heaving stomach, was, 'I die by the hand of an assassin.' Women can't be too careful where they put their gum."
SOBERING A COMEDIAN.
Actors are not fonder of or indulge more in liquor than any other class. Occasionally you will find a member of the profession whose passion for the ardent will lead him far enough to disappoint the public. Joe Emmet's indiscretions in this direction gave him world-wide notoriety, and for this reason only do I mention them here. He is a favorite everywhere and for that reason the entire public regretted his one fault among so many agreeable virtues. But Joe has occasioned many comical situations in the side scenes while actors and manager were plying him with seltzer, bromide of potassium and other soberatives in order to get him to begin or finish a play, when there was a jammed house waiting to applaud him at every turn in "Fritz." But Emmet has crossed the Rubicon again and once more his worldful of friends rejoice in his happiness and growing fortune. He is not the only one in the profession who has been addicted to the cup that cheers and inebriates at the same time. I have heard that a pretty and popular soubrette must have her glass of brandy between the acts, and that an actor already at the top of the ladder is succumbing to the seductive and rosy liquid. Still liquor has not made nearly the number of victims in the ranks of the theatrical class that it has in other professions, and it is only alluded to here to illustrate a comical incident that once occurred during the engagement of a burlesque combination in Kansas City. It was not known until six o'clock at night that the comedian of the comedy was in a sad state of intoxication somewhere through the town. Parties were sent out at once to look him up. They did not succeed in finding him until 7:30 when they hurried him to the theatre. It was a terrible job to get him into his stage-clothes and to keep his head steady and his eyes open long enough to allow his friends to make him up for his part. By the time this had been done the impatient audience shouted and whistled and stamped so violently that at last the manager was obliged to ring the curtain up. Mr. Comedian was in the wings reluctantly accepting the remedies provided by his friends, while they waited for his cue to go on. He was fairly sober when he reached the presence of the audience and although he betrayed his condition slightly, few in the house knew enough about the trouble that had been taken with him in order that the manager might keep his word with the public. It is needless to add that Mr. Comedian was very sorry, and sick when he got sober.
M'CULLOUGH AS "VIRGINIUS."
CHAPTER IX.
STAGE CHARMS AND OMENS.
The night the Southern Hotel burned down in St. Louis, I was standing at the ladies' entrance when Kate Claxton, whose presence is now always regarded in a city as ominous of a conflagration, came down through the fire and smoke in her night dress and was hurried across the street and out of danger by a gentleman who lent her his overcoat while she made her way to another hotel. There were seventeen lives lost that terrible night, and a young and beautiful actress—Frankie McLellan—in a frantic effort to escape the flames, jumped from a three story window and had her face marked for life by the fall. Just as soon as people got over the horror of the first news of the catastrophe, gossip turned to theorizing and from that diversant stories were told concerning the prominent people who figured in the calamity. Then it became known that Milton Nobles had lost a brand new pair of lavender trousers, in the pockets of which were several hundred dollars that "The Phœnix" had brought him that same evening. Then too, the narrow escape of Rose Osborne, of the Olympic stock company, was recited; but prominent above all, Miss Kate Claxton's presence in the hotel was dwelt upon, and, as she had already fairly earned the unanimous reputation that has since followed her, her name became part of the history of the conflagration, as it has been associated with every conflagration that occurred in her vicinage since. She is rather ungallantly and untruly styled the "Fire Fiend," and all sorts of predictions are made about the theatre she plays in, the hotel she has her rooms at, and the very town and county in which she is temporarily domiciled. But Kate Claxton, who by the way is Mrs. Stevenson, is not the first person in her profession to have acquired such an unenviable reputation. Thomas S. Hamblin, an actor and manager of the early half of the present century, who came from England in 1825 to star in "Shakespeare," was followed by fire even more relentlessly than Miss Claxton has been. No less than four theatres burned under his management, and it was generally said when he undertook to open or run a place of amusement that from that moment it was fated to the flames. Hamblin figures conspicuously in the history of the Bowery. He died in 1854.