GEO. C. MILN,
Of International Fame.
It is a matter of much interest both North and South that Geo. C. Miln, the great orator-actor, after many years of absence from America, will make a tour of the United States next season, presenting his great lecture, “The Story of a Strolling Player.” Mr. Miln has played the plays of Shakespeare in almost every civilized country under the sun. He will be remembered by Americans as the brilliant orator who succeeded Robert Collyer in the pulpit of Unity Church, Chicago. His oration on the death of Garfield is considered one of the modern classics.
A Great Lecturer.
By Opie Read.
I wonder whether many of the people of Nashville remember a newspaper printed in that city in 1876? To the few it was known as the Evening Mail. To the many it was not known at all. We had not advocated municipal ownership, we who conducted the enterprise, but the sheriff somehow took it into his head that we did; and as he could not turn the property over to the city, he kept it for the county. I don’t know what was finally done with it. I suppose it became but an echo of dust.
The paper was “established” by a number of printers and newspaper men who had nothing else to do. As we were to share alike in the profits we went alike to the free lunch counter. It was a pure democracy and the man who owned fifteen shares of stock received no more than the man who owned one. The paper was edited with longing and printed with hope. We were all of us optimists. If a cloud arose in our sky we looked upon it as a balloon ascension. I remember but one day of reproof and censure. The foreman came into the “sanctum” and said to the editor-in-chief: “There is trouble in the composing room, sir.”
The editor, an old gentleman who loved to write and who vaguely believed that eventually one of his editorials might be read from beginning to end, looked up and sighed.
“Trouble?”
“Ah, and serious trouble, sir.”
“What is it?”