SCENE V.
THE LOCAL NEW YORK DRAMA.
“Like boys unto a muss.”
Antony and Cleopatra, Act iii. Sc. 13.
The number of plays based upon life in New York, all of which are strangely similar in title and in plot, or what must pass for plot, and all of which have been seen upon the New York stage since the first appearance of Mose, will surprise even those most familiar with our theatrical literature. Taken almost at random from various files of old play-bills, and from Mr. Ireland’s Records, there were A Glance at New York; or New York in 1848; New York As it Is; First of May in New York; The Mysteries and Miseries of New York; Burton’s New York Directory; The New York Fireman; Fast Young Men of New York; Young New York; The Poor of New York; New York by Gaslight; New York in Slices; The Streets of New York; The New York Merchant and his Clerks; The Ship-carpenter of New York; The Seamstress of New York; The New York Printer; The Drygoods Clerk of New York, and many more, including Adelle, the New York Saleslady, which last was seen on the Bowery side of the town as late as 1879.
These were nearly all spectacular plays, and they were usually realistic to a degree in their representation of men and things in the lower walks of life. Rich merchants, lovely daughters, wealthy but designing villains, comic waiter-men, and pert chamber-maids with song and dance accompaniment, were placed in impossible uptown parlors; but the poor but honest printer set actual type from actual cases, and cruelly wronged but humble maidens met disinterested detectives by real lamp-posts and real ash-barrels, in front of what really looked like real saloons.
F. S. CHANFRAU AS MOSE.