Editorial Remarks — "The Balmy Days of January"

1911

Next June we all may long for the balmy days of January.

Possibly the pet in the cat show would enjoy more keenly life in the alley.

Some people can find a typographical error who never find an idea of their own.

We have yet to discover an egg that has been improved by the cold storage treatment.

"Gaseous imbecility" has taken its place in the hall of fame beside "Innocuous desuetude."

Higher education, too, has its dangers. An Illinois girl started for college, but got married on the way.

Chicago is to have grand opera in English next season. If Chief Steward has his way it will also have it in clothing.

In the Boston high schools 3,000 girls are taking the commercial course. The boys will have to go west or south.

A Denver surgeon was stricken with appendicitis while operating on a patient for that disease. Maybe it is catching, after all.

That Jersey architect who failed to provide a stairway for a new schoolhouse must have realized that this is the age of aviation.

Three and a half billions was the value of the foreign trade of the United States last year. Pretty big country this, isn't it?

Russia affords a big market for American typewriters. To judge from the cartoons we see, Russia is not a big market for American safety razors.

Pointed Paragraphs — Carpenters Are Counterfitters

1900

The telescope lens enchantment to the distant view.

An egg in hand is worth more than a hen in the bush.

When a woman is in love it is very apt to increase her sighs.

Woman is the only tyrant that some men are not inclined to resist.

You can always bank on finding a well-filled pocketbook interesting.

Some people evidently go to the opera just to hear themselves talk.

When a man becomes a chronic loafer he begins to prey upon his neighbors.

Every time you avoid doing wrong you increase your inclination to do right.

The police should keep an eye on carpenters; many of them are counterfitters.

It's safer to be ignorant of a secret that's dangerous to keep than it is to know it.

Age is venerable in man — and it would be in woman were she to become old.

Sometimes a man has no confidence in other men because he has none in himself.

Medicine and advice are two things that it is always more pleasant to give than to receive.

Joseph's brethren probably cast him into the pit because they thought it was a good opening for a young man.

Ice cream and bon-bons may be the food of love, but bread and meat occupy important positions on the matrimonial bill of fare.

Intuition is something that tells a woman her husband is lying when he comes home at 2 a.m. and begins to explain the whys and wherefores. — Chicago News.

Madame Melba Loses Control of Her Voice

1914

Great Prima Donna, It Is Feared, May Never Sing Again

BOSTON, March 8. — Madame Nellie Melba, the famous prima donna, has lost her voice and there is danger that she will never be able to sing again. She was scheduled to appear here last night and when she appeared on the stage her voice failed her and she was only able to speak in a whisper. Physicians were called at once, but they have expressed no certainty that she will be able to sing again.

Madame Melba, whose maiden name was Helen Porter Mitchell, was born at Melbourne, Australia, in 1866. Her father was Scotch and her mother of Spanish descent. She received her education at the Presbyterian Ladies' College in Melbourne, and later studied in Paris under Mme. Marchesi. In 1882 she married Charles Armstrong, a son of Sir Andrew Armstrong. She made her debut in Brussels in 1887. She took a part of the name of her native city as her stage name.

Rossini's Lesson to an Organ Grinder

1874

The London Echo should have thought that it would be as easy to teach a cow to dance a minuet as to give an organ grinder any idea of time.

It appears, however, that the composer Rossini was of a different opinion. It is said that when he lived in the Chaussee d'Antin, he came one day upon a man playing "Di Tanti Palpiti" on a hurdy-gurdy. The performer was astonished to hear a voice from the crowd suddenly exclaim, "Faster, faster!" "How faster?" says the organ man. "Turn the handle quicker; it is allegro." "But, sir, I don't know——" "Like this; so—so, and Rossini rushed upon the organ and ground out the tune to the proper time. "Thank you, sir," said the man; "I shall remember the lesson;" and in fact on the next day he was heard in the same place playing "Di Tanti Palpiti" as he had been taught. "Bravo, bravo, bravo!" exclaimed Rossini from a window, and dropped a louis d'or at the man's feet. The Echo scarcely knows whether to admire most the condescension of the composer or the docility of the grinder.

Death's Most Active Agent — Worry

1914

Worry, Never Hard Work, Responsible for the Decimation of the Human Races

We hear daily of men and women who are "working themselves to death." But work is as surely the friend of man as worry is his deadliest foe. Unless carking care and sickening foreboding are blent with labor, work never kills. Yet worry slays its tens and hundreds of thousands every year.

The person who wishes to live long and beneficently should cultivate the desire to see others as comfortable as he wishes to be himself. He must not regret that others are better off in what makes living pleasant.

Here is a fact that some so-called philanthropists never learn: there lives not the human creature who is wholly uninteresting. Be on the alert to espy something in those whom you meet that will commend them to your regard. Listlessness and the capacity for being bored bring more old people to the grave than disease or actual sorrow. If you have no other "job" in life, make one by forcing yourself to be interested in the welfare of your associates. — Youth's Companion.


Midnight Inspirations

Many eminent men have done some of their most famous work in bed. Indeed, no small part of the world's literary treasures have been produced between the sheets by physically indolent although mentally active men of genius.

Longfellow's "Wreck of the Hesperus" came to him as he was sitting by his fireside on the night after a violent storm. He went to bed, but could not sleep; the Hesperus would not be denied, and as he lay the verses flowed on without let or hindrance until the poem was completed. Wordsworth used to go to bed after his morning walk, and, while breakfasting there, dictate the lines he had composed while walking. One at least of Rossini's operas was composed in bed. — Manchester Evening News.

The Opera Through the Telephone

1879

Very many persons among the opera audiences at the Academy of Music recently noticed a curious little box on the stage, immediately beside the prompter's box, with a tin funnel opening toward the singers, but probably very few had the slightest idea of what were its uses.

In reality it was a scientific marvel, and played a quite important part in an experiment that was completely successful. The instrument was a Blake's Battery transmitter, made very much like an ordinary Bell telephone, but having, in place of the permanent magnet, a Bhumkorf coil and one cell of battery attached. Its usual function on a telephone line is to increase the volume of sound by the action of an induced current, but at the Academy it was employed to gather in the music of the opera and convey it to distant residences. A private wire led from it to the office of Dr. Alan P. Smith, and to the homes of Mr. A. G. Davis. No. 429 Madison avenue, and A. Wilson, Jr., 162 Mosher street, connecting to telephones at each place.

Listeners at these houses placed an ear to the telephone, and heard all the music of the opera almost as distinctly as if seated in the auditorium of the Academy. The voices and the orchestral music were transmitted perfectly. Even the words of the prompter were audible, as well as the applause from the front of the house. The test was a most interesting one, and was perfectly successful. — Baltimore American.

Picked Personals — "Oscar Wilde Has Grown Thin"

1888

PICKED PERSONALS

The Pope is a careful reader of the daily papers.

Bronson Alcott left a diary that fills fifty-seven large bound volumes.

According to a report the Presbyterian scruples of Mrs. Cleveland prevent her visiting any theatrical entertainment save the opera.

Oscar Wilde has grown thin since he began to edit a woman's magazine. His contributors are all women, and so are his subscribers.

—St. Joseph Herald, St. Joseph, MI, April 14, 1888, p. 4.


Preserving Live Fish

1888

A Discovery of Great Use to Shippers and Sportsmen

A new method of preserving live fish, which seems to depend upon some phenomenon that it is at present difficult to explain, has been patented in America. The discoverer is Mr. W. G. Murphy, of New York City, who found, from numerous experiments, that fish can be kept alive for a long time without either change of air or water, by placing them in a vessel partly filled with water, but hermetically sealed.

Fish so placed in a closed jar were found alive and apparently in good health at the end of three weeks' confinement; while fish placed at the same time in an open jar of water all died within forty-eight hours. It was also found that when the air in the jar containing the fish and water was compressed, their life was still further prolonged. It has been suggested that the reason for these strange results lies in the fact that the water in the jar which is hermetically sealed does not undergo such rapid changes as water left in an open vessel.

The discovery is one which will be of very great use in the carriage and transportation of fish. Sportsmen, too, will appreciate a method which will permit them to carry live bait for an indefinite period. — Chambers' Journal.

Must Dress Spanish To Be in Style Now

1916

Last Season The Fashion Trend was To Chinese — Now It's Changed
By Margaret Mason.

NEW YORK. Feb. 11. — Sing ho! for the Spanish main, for anything Spanish is the main thing in the new trend of Fashion. Last season we were all to the Chinese and goodness knows where we will be season after next. At the pace they are going it looks as if the designers would soon be sitting around on their haunches and weeping a la Alexander the Great for more worlds to copy.

Personally it strikes me Borneo fashions might be smart for the summer season, but the designers are probably holding them in reserve for the winter months. But to return to Spain; even as a Spanish omelet the fashion designers are undoubtedly being egged on to the Spanish mode by the recent production of that much-heralded Spanish opera, "Goyesca," at the Metropolitan opera house. Incidents in the life of Goya and his paintings inspired the opera, the opera inspired our present fashions and so Mr. Goya is really the responsible party.

Goya was the father of twenty children, one of the most favored lovers of the duchess of Alba and a great artist. Not for these achievements, however, is he now known to fame, but as the designer of these feminine frocks and frills for 1916.

Quantities of Spanish lace, both white and black, are used in flounces on the new old Spanish gowns which are copied outright from old portraits by Goya and Vesasquez. One of the French houses offers a gown which is a replica of that worn by the infants in Velasquez's most famous portrait. The gown is dubbed Velasquez, and it is wired out over the hips in the same exaggerated manner as the portrait. In fact, almost all of the frocks with Hispanic tendencies show this wiring over the hips, and the bodices are tight-boned and pointed.

Crude, strong tones of yellow, red, green and orange are used to get the true Spanish effects and mantillas, scarves and sashes of gay hues, high back combs and gaudy fans are accessories after the fact. Stunning evening wraps and negligees are fashioned out of the gorgeously embroidered Spanish shawls, and in some instants they are even made into evening gowns verily reeking of Carmen and bull fights.

Indeed all the Spanish fashions are bully.

Considering the shortage of dyes and the fact that all the real blue-blooded senoritas are raven-tressed, this is bound to be a closed season for blondes, and peroxide peaches will all stop trying to conceal their dark pasts.

With our characteristic whole-souled manner of entering entirely into the spirit and atmosphere of a new mode I have no doubt that even our diet will now smack of the Spanish tendency toward onions, omelettes, mackerel and sweet peppers. Our fox-trots and one-steps will give way to the fandango, our national sport become throwing the bull and our Irene Castle go around looking like a castle in Spain.

—Fort Wayne News, Fort Wayne, IN, Feb. 11, 1916, p. 4.

A Prima Donna's Triumph

1878

Patti had a stirring time of it at Naples. When she arrived they declined to receive her at the Hotel Royal, and she had to go to the Nobile.

She was in high dudgeon, refused to rehearse, and in consequence found an audience as cold as stone. In less than an hour she sang the whole house into warmth, enthusiasm, frantic delight — it was the "Traviata" — and the next morning the papers made positive excuses. Nay more, the committee of the theater came to pay her the unusual honor of a visit in state. She refused to see them.

Expectation was on tiptoe as to her reception the next night. It was feared she would be hissed. Not at all. She sang the "Barbier," and with the same effect as before, her voice acting on their premeditated sulkiness like the rising sun on mists. In the scene in which she has to spell the name of Rosina she kept one high note so long that the unhappy baritone who accompanied her — and not a bad one either — had to stop three times for breath, she mocking him with a look the while.

Naples gave up all idea of resistance and took up its old position at her feet. She received $1,900 a night, with a right to half the surplus when the receipts exceed $3,900. On the night of the "Barbier" they took $5,700 at the doors; she therefore received an extra $950, or a total of about $2,850 for the night's work, not counting her bonus of revenge!

Movie Theater Orchestras Developing Taste for Classical Music

1926

GOOD MUSIC IS MORE POPULAR

MOVIE THEATER ORCHESTRAS HAVE TENDED TO DEVELOP TASTE FOR BETTER CLASS OF MUSIC

Chicago. — Disguised as hand maiden of the cinema, classical music is becoming popular.

Popular, "that is, compared with the classical taste in this country ten years ago. In Chicago, the change is perceptible in all the larger picture houses. One company for instance, which operates six of the largest houses, has announced it has already spent more for music this year than for pictures.

Boon For Good Music

Adolphe Dumont, former Chicago grand opera conductor now directing music in one of the theatres, evaluated this changing public taste as a boon not only for good music but also for good musicians. His own orchestra, he said, has just been increased to more than fifty pieces.

"More grand opera music is played in the large motion picture houses each day," he said, "than played by grand opera orchestras in week. We play grand opera four times a day, week days, and five times Sunday. The grand opera orchestras and Symphony orchestras hardly ever play a program more than three times a week.

Opera Interprets Emotions

"A public demand for more and better music has been recognized. Eight years of patient work, interpreting the emotions of the movies, as only grand opera music can do, created the demand.

"Day after day, showing sometimes slapstick comedy to the tune of the Ride of the Valkyries; love scenes to strains from Tristran and Isolde and Charlie Chaplin's antics to Debussy's 'Girl of the Flaxen Hair,' the moving picture orchestras have given audiences a taste for classical music that many of them would have formerly disavowed. Great music consequently has found a new significance, and importance. It gives motion pictures dramatic intensity."

—Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune, Wisconsin Rapids, WI, Aug. 12, 1926, p. 12.

Sleepwalking Tragedy Inspired Bellini Opera

1914

TRAGIC SLEEPWALKING.

Incident Upon Which Bellini Based His Celebrated Opera.

Somnambulists can maintain their footing in the most perilous places so long as they remain in a state of somnambulism, but if suddenly awakened they instantly lose their self possession and balance.

On one occasion a young woman living in Dresden was seen at midnight walking on the edge of the roof of her house. Her family were immediately told of her plight, but were afraid to go near her. The neighbors gathered about the house and placed mattresses and blankets along the street in hopes that they might save her in case she fell.

She danced for over an hour on the slanting roof, apparently retaining in balance without difficulty, and every now and then she would advance to the edge and bow to the silent crowd standing many feet below her.

At last she climbed down on to the wide gutter which ran in front of the window through which she had come, with the evident intention of re-entering the house. The crowd watching her so intently drew a sigh of relief. But, unfortunately, her terrified relatives, thinking to assist her, had placed two lighted candles in the room near the window, and as she approached the light fell directly in her eyes.

Instantly the shock awakened her. and she swayed back and forth in her perilous position: then, with a frightful scream, she fell headlong to the ground. She was fatally hurt and died in a few hours. It was on this tragedy that Bellini wrote his celebrated opera "La Sonnambula."

Cleo de Merode and La Belle Otero — A Great Rivalry

1907

Will She Wed Just To Show Rival She Can?

The Bitter Rivalry Between the Two Famous Dancers, La Belle Otero and Cleo de Merode.

Has Long Been a Source of Amusement to Paris.

La Belle Otero wills to wed. All Paris is betting that Cleo de Merode must follow suit. The rivalry between these two beauties of the Parisian stage is so great that one never permits the other to enjoy an achievement without immediately attempting to eclipse it.

It has long been a favorite joke of the gay French capital that if Merode got a hat worth 500 francs, Otero would immediately spend twice that sum for a hat of similar design, only manifestly finer in quality and mere luxurious.

If Otero got a dress, Merode drew from her enormous profits in the Congo ventures of King Leopold of Belgium enough money to enable her to cast the creation of Otero's modiste into the shade.

Some years ago an admirer of Otero presented her, says a Paris correspondent to an eastern contemporary, with an automobile worth 25,000 francs. Shortly after Merode startled Paris by appearing with two automobiles. The first of these was an exact counterpart of the one Otero had recently acquired. It was the identical make, colored the same and furnished in every detail so as to be a perfect reproduction.

In this rode Merode's maid and dog.

A few yards back, in an infinitely finer machine, in fact in what has been said to be the costliest one Paris had at that time turned out, rode Merode.

Otero was so angered by this incident that she sold her automobile for only half what it cost, and with the proceeds bought a dog of the same breed as Merode's only a much finer specimen.

These instances are fair illustrations of how the two beauties have vied to outdo each other.

It is not difficult to understand how in the first place the contention began. Both made the same bid for popular favor, being dancers and famous beauties. Otero was the first to flash into brilliancy, and she was the adored of the Paris jeunesse doree before Merode had quit the obscurity of a minor ballet place in the Grand Opera house.

But though Merode arrived a little bit late, her activities soon atoned for lost time.

Her curious style of hairdressing — the arrangements of her lovely locks by bands, so that they encircled her face, but kept the ears completely covered, piqued curiosity. Some of her critics whispered that she had been born without ears, and produced photographs to show that even at the age of 10, long before she had dreamed of going on the stage, she dressed her hair in the same bandeaux.

La Belle Otero, then in the zenith of her glory, is given credit for spreading the report that the closely bound tresses of the younger woman concealed a horrible deformity, which, if revealed, would immediately dispel any claim that the new dancer had to beauty.

This bit of criticism, whether true or false, naturally did not have the effect of endearing Otero to Merode, and from that time an unceasing rivalry has existed.

A great artist pictured Otero as the spirit of "Terpsichore." It was a masterpiece of art, and immediately Merode felt a tingling to have her beauties reproduced.

Two famous artists obliged. Alfred Grevin put her in his group, arranged for the waxworks, "Behind the Scenes at the Opera," in company with such celebrities as Gounod, Rose Caron, Felix Faure and other great ones.

The sensation this picture made was nothing to what followed when a few years later, the eminent sculptor, Falguierre, almost raised a riot with his life-sized nude of Merode, in pink marble, which was exhibited at the Paris salon.

This was a notable triumph for Merode, which she enjoyed to the full, and the point of it was in no sense spoiled by the saying of Otero's that she too might be similarly presented, but that her decency was too great for her to consent.

While Merode, though famous, was still struggling along on a comparatively small income, Otero revelled in wealth, and her wonderful toilettes were the despair of the younger woman.

Merode had admirers, but none who could maintain her on the luxurious scale in which Otero lived.

None — until the King of Belgium came along.

The venerable monarch was quickly attracted by the slender dancer of the Grand Opera, and by a still greater marvel continued to show an abiding interest in her, even after his visit to Paris had ended.

Merode revelled to the full in her opportunity to pay back with interest all the slights she had suffered at the hands of Otero.

The king, recognizing her genuine business ability, gave her liberal interests in his infamous rubber ventures in the Congo Free State, and Cleo managed these with such consummate financial skill that they doubled in value, until it is said she is somewhere near being a millionaire in her own right.

Cleo has handled this wealth with excellent prudence, and has refrained from any prodigality.

Only in matters involving her undying dislike of Otero has she cut loose from caution, and with malicious joy she has made it a point to duplicate every purchase of Otero, and add just enough additional to go her rival one better. But then some admiring masculine has usually paid the bill, Cleo's fortune has not suffered. It must be admitted that Cleo, worsted at first, had reached a few weeks ago a point where she had clearly the better of the battle. She is younger than Otero, and her fortune is greater; therefore her chances for future popularity better. Moreover, the prestige of her connection with the King of Belgium has ever been a thorn in the side of Otero.

But now the situation has undergone a sudden change.

Otero has made a new and unexpected play that temporarily puts Merode in the shade.

The older woman is going to have a husband.

Moreover, he is an enormously wealthy husband, one Rene Webb, an Englishman.

Otero was a long while making up her mind to play her last card and give her hand to this British suitor, for, as she frankly admits, the humdrum of being an English matron does not attract her.

But Webb's importunities won the day, and now Otero is scornfully asking what man ever wanted to marry Merode, especially a man who was fitting in every particular, a gentleman and a man of wealth and taste?

Mr. Webb has already spent a fortune on Otero in jewels, help for her family, contributions to charities in which she is interested, and in a magnificent palace which the pair will inhabit.

Otero will not withdraw from the footlights. This might give Merode a chance to say that the charms of the older woman have waned so that the public no longer want to see her. She will continue to dance, but in the future she will be known as Mrs. Webb, her husband having insisted on this deference to his name.

Merode faces the most critical stage of the long rivalry. Otero is giving out all details of the magnificence of the new life into which she will pass, and insinuating that in the future she will only appear in public when she pleases, and that the receipts of her performances she will give to charity. "An act of generosity which other dancers are either too poor or too selfish to perform," as she puts it.

Half a dozen suitors, who have long vainly wooed the beautiful Cleo, are hoping that to get even she will likewise take a life partner. Paris thinks she will.

—Oakland Tribune, Oakland, CA, Jan. 6, 1907, page 9, back section.

Old Time Jokes and Something Unreadable on Beetles

1915

A Sad Case.

"This milk is blue," said the customer angrily.
"I know it, and I'm very sorry," replied the milkman, "but the weather we've been having lately has given the cows melancholia, and it shows up in the milk." — Brooklyn Citizen.


Helped Her Up.

Orchestra Leader — I never heard the prima donna do that high note as well as she did last night. Stage Manager — Nor I. You see, just as she reached it she saw a mouse in the wings.—Yonkers Statesman.


Leze Majesty.

Ann — You don't tell me that that gem of a cook left Mrs. Dust! Flo — Yes. You see, Mrs. Dust refused to change grocers when the cook and the delivery boy fell out. — Puck.


France has the best highways in Europe, Russia and Spain the worst.


How Beetles Defend Themselves.

Beetles have other defenses than their cuirass, such as nauseous or caustic liquids, which they expel on provocation, and, strange to say, certain beetles actually exude their blood, charged with noxious products. The practice is confined to the chrysomelidae, some of the timarchae and adamonia, the coccinelidae and the meloidae. The blood of the coccinelidae has a strong, disagreeable odor like that of the whole insect. That of the timarchae is odorless, but has an astringent flavor, and in the case of the timarchae primeliodes is venomous. The blood of the meloidae contains much cantharidine.

Local Man, A. H. Milner, Sings in Many Operas in Germany

Wisconsin, 1921

SINGS IN MANY OPERAS

Dr. A. H. Milner, Now Visiting in This City

BUSY YEAR IN BERLIN

Finds Student Life in Germany Means Plenty of Work and Constant Self-Denial

If anyone thinks the life of musician is one long dream of pleasure, he would better try studying music in Germany.

This is the opinion, expressed with great emphasis, by Dr. Augustus H. Milner, who has just returned from a year's work in Berlin, under the instruction of Madam Schoen-Rene.

The life of a student who has real ambitions and looks forward to a career of serious work in art, means constant labor, incessant self-denial, moderate living in all ways, according to Dr. Milner.

"If you want to do society singing, that is another matter," says Dr. Milner, with a German shrug. "But if you want to be a real musician—" And then he recounted some of the many qualities that are necessary for a musician, besides the ownership of a voice. You must be first of all really musical in character and have that something that we call temperament. You must have the capacity for work and more work. You must be able to keep at it even when you feel that it isn't any use. You must be able to give up all dissipations and most pleasures, to eat and sleep in such manner and degree as will keep your physical condition at its best. In a word you must be able always to put your music first and everything else second.

Dr. Milner has been having excellent success in this his first year's work abroad. He thinks himself the luckiest of men to have become a pupil of Schoen-Rene, who he says is considered the greatest vocal teacher in the world. Madam Schoen-Rene was a pupil of Manual Garcia, the greatest vocal teacher who ever lived, who had pupils when he was 98 years old and who lived to be 102. Schoen-Rene was at first an interpreter of music and seemed destined to a great career, when she became ill. She came to Minneapolis to visit a sister and, incidentally, to die. Being disappointed in this, she took pupils, among them "Gus" Milner, then studying medicine. When her health was restored she returned to Berlin. Dr. Milner, for he had by that time secured his degree, followed her to Berlin and has been under her instruction ever since.

"Musical affairs are managed this way in Germany," said Dr. Milner. "Every city has a court theatre, under the patronage of a royal duke or some other dignitary. These theatres each have what we call stock companies attached to them, accomplished singers who give every winter a repertory of opera.

"At the head of the system is a gentleman, known as the Hofrath, or court adviser, before whom all persons desiring to sing in the court theatres must present themselves. This official, Carl Harder, is necessarily the dictator in musical affairs.

"When you sing before him and satisfy him that you have musical possibilities, he will provide that you receive an invitation to sing in some of the court theatres. These so-called 'guest performances' mean that the new singer is the guest. He must have prepared his roles and will be given a chance to sing one of them in the regular company attached to the theatre. If, in several guest performances, he makes good he may be engaged as a member of the company and thereafter his career lies ahead of him."

Dr. Milner sang in several guest performances during the past winter, one of his appearances at Prague having been noticed in the columns of this paper. He will sing at other guest performances next winter. That he has been busy during the summer is indicated by the fact that he is now prepared to sing in fourteen operas, and in some of them has committed two roles. He has also changed his voice from a bass to a baritone, on the advice of Mr. Harder.

The list of his operas is as follows: Wagner—Lohengrin and Tannhauser; Beethoven—Fidelio; Weber—Freischutz; Bizet—Carmen; Puccini— Butterfly; Mascagni—Cavalleria; Leoncavallo —Pagliacci; Flotow—Martha; Lortzing—Waffenschmeid; Gounod— Faust; Verdi—Trovatore, Traviata, Masked Ball.

Dr. Milner expects to remain several months in this country and will give a series of concerts at St. Louis, Minneapolis, Indianapolis and Chicago. He will also give a concert in this city before his return.

—The Waukesha Freeman, Waukesha, Wisconsin, November 23, 1911, page 1.

Americans Want Opera, Not Jazz or Tin Pan Alley

1920--

OPERA IN SIOUX FALLS

From 43 towns special trains brought cattlemen and their and families to Sioux Falls, S.D., one November night, to hear Grand Opera. Sheep herders, farmers, Indians joined the procession moving toward the hall where the music was to be given. Flivvers and big cars added their occupants to the happy crowd.

And they were happy, and they enjoy their feast of song. For months intensive preparation had been going on for the great day. Lectures were given. Boys and in school studied the stories of operas. Phonographs were bought or rented, records were purchased and listened to with attention. Do Americans like good music? They do. Would they rather have it than cheap, vulgar stuff, jazzy, tinpanny, and ear-wearing? They would.

There are people who are bored by heavy music. That is but natural. But much music which has been foisted upon audiences as "classical" in years past has not been very good music. It has not been human. Just as instinctively will people steer clear of ponderous books and problem plays, which may have their merits for the intellectual few, but are not food for the uncultured many.

When was Shakespeare, well presented, given to an empty house, an unappreciative one? The untutored man may not get so much out of his Shakespeare as the cultured one, but his mind goes straight as a homing bird to the great humanity of the greatest poet.

As the music-managers learn this vital truth about all art, and begin to apply it to music, they find that the composers and opera-builders who understand humanity, its emotions, its springs of action, reach human heart in the same way. Give people tuneful, human music, and they will come, as in this case, 450 miles to hear it.

--Olean Evening Herald, Olean, New York, December 1, 1920, page 2, editorial.

Missouri Corncob Pipe Smokers in Debt

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Twenty-five million persons smoked Missouri corncob pipes last year, and half of them borrowed the tobacco.
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Along with taxing bachelors why not give away a marriage license deluxe and a first payment on a parlor set.
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At the same time we are forced to admire the bravery of those young women who walk abroad in harem skirts.
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"Love is love," opines an expert on heartology, name unknown. Likewise pigs is pigs and prunes is prunes.
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We see by the papers that France is facing a crisis. It strikes us that facing crisis is a chronic disease in France.
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We are told that Russia has hurled another ultimatum at China. If the czar keeps on he won't have any ultimatums left.
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Wagner in English is promised for next season. We can't understand why. The words are always unintelligible, anyhow.

--The Ellis Review-Headlight, Ellis, Kansas, 1911.