The detective and myself had been watching the pseudo manager for over two hours from a room across the street, and, of course, knew there was no truth in the measure he placed upon the time he was watching and waiting for victims that never came. He was not a theatrical man, but some dirty scamp.
Some time ago an advertisement of the same character as the "Personal" quoted above, appeared in the Chicago papers, and many young ladies, anxious to adopt the stage as a profession, applied for positions. They obtained admission to the quasi manager, who, when no resistance was made by the applicants, shipped them to Texas and other Southern points, where they found themselves perhaps penniless in the midst of a life of uncertainties, into which they had been duped and to which they had been sold. Many of these had been, and would still be, respectable young girls and ornaments to their respective home circles, were it not for the serpent with the fascinating eyes that peeped out at them from under the three or four lines in the advertising columns of that Chicago paper. Discoveries of the same kind were made in several cities of the East, and it is dreadful to contemplate the havoc which must have been wrought by this means, for surely many of the hundreds of really good girls, who are always sure to answer such an advertisement in the innocent belief that it may be the means of making Neilsons, Cushmans, Morrises or some other equally firmamentary individual in the galaxy of the stage of them, and who refused to be debauched, were sorely disappointed in the result of their apparent good fortune in obtaining the recognition of the "manager."
The following letter from a band of stage-struck young men of color is an extraordinary document, and may be taken as a sample of the letters received every day by theatrical managers:—
Kansas City, 1789 [1879], January 14. Mr. De Bar, Dear Sir, I take thes opportunity of witring you theas few lines to ask you for an engagement at the Orepry [Opera] house if you can as we would like to get it if we can. i and my trop can do a great meny performence on the stage. W. H. Terrell he can do the Iron Joyrl [iron jaw] performence and do a Jig Dance and a Clog and Double Song and Dance and other tricks. Mr. Benjermer Frankler [Benjamin Franklin] waltz With a pail of water on his head and plays the frence harp the sanetime on the stage and laying down with it on his head and roal all over the floor and Jump 6 feet hiagh in the air on hand and feet. allso and we have the Best french harp players in the world that ever plaid on one. and leaping through a hoop of fire same as a circus. If you can git it for me pleas write soon and let me know. Sam Chrisman is one of my atcters. yours Truly, B. Franklin.
Excuse writing and paper. This is a Cold trop.
ROSE EYTINGE.
It is hardly necessary for me to say Ben de Bar did not give the "Cold trop" an engagement. Poor old Ben was dead at that time.