Chapter 7

As those who observe Mr. Corbett practising his now abandoned profession of pugilism have remarked, he is characteristically lacking in repose of manner. In this, he is distinctly inferior to Mr. J. Lawrence Sullivan. John L.--on the stage--was all repose. Alas for that word was! How those lines, so simply yet so earnestly spoken, ring yet in the ears of old playgoers:

"To hell with the man that strikes a woman!" [Biff!]

In the more delicate and lightsome passages, Corbett's admirers declare he shines supreme; yet, after all, is he as funny as Terry McGovern? Take his delivery of these lines when he is rebuked by the sub-heroine for using too much slang:

"Oh, I'm onto the slang all right, and I'm going to cut it out!"

When the "Blocks" Went Off.

Mr. Corbett's delivery of these lines is certainly humorous, more humorous than he knows; yet has it the genuine comic force of the acting of James Edward Britt, an artist little known to the stage of the Atlantic coast, when, in his drama, "Jimmie Britt the Frisco Boy," he conquers the comic Chinaman in a burlesque boxing bout by slapping him with the end of his pig-tail?

There is considerable dramatic force in Mr. Corbett's delivery of the lines:

"There's my hand, Ned. If you can take it honestly, here goes--if not, you are no pal of mine!"

Yet, after all, would it not be better if, instead of standing on guard when he delivered them, he accompanied them with a side step and a right shift on the solar plexus, as does Terence McGovern when he delivers that famous climax:

"Unhand her, or I'll knock your block off--see?" [Bing!]

Or by a clinch followed by a short-arm jolt and an uppercut, as does Mr. J. John Jeffries in that most intense of all climaxes in the pugilistic drama:

"Carry the woman away? Not while Davy Crockett has a punch up his sleeve!" [Slap! Thud!]

Conscientious and Two-Handed.

To summarize, therefore, Mr. Sullivan was a conscientious, two-handed actor with a great punch; Mr. Terence McGovern and Mr. J. Edward Britt have a clear delivery and a great straight left; Mr. Robert Fitzsimmons--an artist for whose peculiar intensity there has been no room in this brief and necessarily superficial summary--an awkward stage presence, but a fine short-arm jab that has been known to put the villain to sleep six times in one act; Mr. Jeffries, a left hook to the body which always brings home the money, and Mr. Corbett, a comic intensity and great foot work.

A word about the drama which Mr. Corbett had chosen last season. The author of "Pals" violated all conventionalities by failing to have the hero meet the unknown in the last act. He has, however, done one great service to the drama and to an eminent university. Never before has the atmosphere of Harvard been caught for the stage. The first act of "Pals" takes place at Harvard, and presents a haunting picture of college life. From it we learn that the following are characteristic features of life in the great center of learning at Cambridge:

Solar Plexus for College Etiquette.

The 'varsity football captain and the champion hammer-thrower, who are described as the most popular men in college, and so rich that they can't count it, live in a boarding-house, in which the landlady's daughter dusts off the champagne bottles which they keep on the sideboard and is sought as wife by the star boarders.

When the "lady friends" of the inmates come to visit the rooms they go in to dinner arm in arm with the landlady's daughter.

After the 'varsity game with Yale, in which Harvard has scored a great victory, the 'varsity football captain comes back to the boarding-house for dinner, remarking mildly that he is tired, and, after dusting off the sleeves of his jersey, goes in to dinner with the ladies in his football suit.

The freshmen sports wear silk hats and sack suits to the annual Yale-Harvard game.

These shadowings of dear old college scenes brought tears to the eyes of the many Harvard alumni who made part of the brilliant first night assemblage.

Jeffries's Dramatic Recitals.

For weeks Jersey City had looked forward with a pleasurable thrill to the appearance of that eminent artist, J. John Jeffries, in his series of dramatic recitals. The pleasure had not been without a tinge of jealous triumph totally unbefitting the social season; for Jersey City, that modest home of the arts, was the first community on the Atlantic coast to extend to Mr. Jeffries in "Davy Crockett" the welcome which must have been as new wine to the true artist he is.

To what end will not managers go in their sordid and squalid zeal for advertising? Evidences of this tendency flamed on every hoarding in Jersey City; flaunted themselves on every fence. For the managers and press representatives had been attempting to create a false and fatuous interest in this eminent artist by advertising him as champion pugilist of the world.

What does it matter to their art that Forbes Robertson loves canaries, that Edwin Booth was fond of waffles? What does it matter how Mr. Jeffries amuses himself in his leisure hours? Yet in the large and fashionable audience which assembled at the Bijou Theater there were evidently many persons who were drawn by no other motive than a curiosity to see the champion pugilist of the world.

These made their presence felt by ejaculating in Mr. Jeffries's tender yet stalwart love passages:

"Uppercut her, Jim!" Or by crying out at that supreme moment when Mr. Jeffries defied the villain:

"Soak him, kid! Soak him!"

It may be said in defense of Jersey City that not all of this was due to the blindness of her citizens toward great art. Some of it may be laid to the incompetence of the Bijou bouncer.

"Davy Crockett," which this robust and sterling young artist had chosen as the medium of introduction to the stage of New York, is a drama which has not been seen of late on the American boards. Mr. Jeffries brings to it a freshness and a style all his own.

The Heroine is Nifty.

Right here is where the gent who has being doing falsetto pulls off his wig, shows the genuine whiskers, and strikes low G on the bass clef to show that he can do it.

You see, the villain is after the bunch of calico. She's certainly nifty. The villain has staked out his nephew to be her steady company, but the minute she trims her luscious lamps on _Crockett_, any dub can see that he's her candy kid.

The orchestra rips off a few yards of the "Flower Song," while Jim sinks his voice down to the solar plexus and puts her wise that she's his'n and he's her'n, only it can never be.

But in the next act _Davy_ rescues her from the wolves by putting his biceps against the door while the property man wiggles three stuffed wolf heads through the chinks in the cabin and the gallery helps out on the howls.

But the villain drops in with the deeds that he's forged on her uncle, and _Davy_ is foiled. And the girl has put him wise to young Lochinvar, so in the next act _Davy_ drops in just when they're going to marry the girl.

Jim rolls up his sleeve and holds out his right and the girl hops up on it like a canary on a perch, and it's all over but the foiling of the villain and the marriage in the last act.

The Lady Takes the Count.

The girl was pretty nearly down and out in the second act, and took the count of nine, but by clinching with _Davy_ she managed to stay the act out. Jim's love-making was great. He never bored in so hard that there wasn't room for a breakaway, and any one could see that he was all ready to break the clinch the minute the girl loosed an uppercut.

When Jim crinkled up his forehead and looked on her with a love smile that reached the remotest boundary of his face, he looked just the way he looked at Ruhlin in the third round. But the girl didn't seem to mind. She knew he was only funning, and she cuddled right up to his solar plexus and said:

"I am your Nell, the same saucy Nell that sported among the daisies when we were a little boy and girl together." That statement made Jim look sincere.

It must be confessed that the epilogue was the most successful part of the piece. The epilogue was a more or less rapid three-round go. Mr. Yank Kennedy, an eminent pugilistic artist from California, was advertised as Mr. Jeffries's support in this scene. But the cordial welcome of New Jersey society had proved too much for the artistic temperament of Mr. Kennedy.

Mr. Hennesy of Princeton University was announced by that eminent impresario Mr. Billy Delany as Mr. Kennedy's understudy. Mr. Hennesy's acting was finished in leading and countering, but sadly deficient in guarding and side-stepping. He was entirely overshadowed by the great artist who played opposite him.

At one period of the performance the shadows grew so thick that Mr. Hennesy went down for the count of nine. It was plain, however, from the cordial, if somewhat unsteady, handshake he gave Mr. Jeffries as the curtain fell that Mr. Hennesy harbored no artistic jealousy.

Little Glimpses of the 19th Century

The Great Events in the History of the Last One Hundred Years, Assembled so as to Present a Nutshell Record of Each Decade.

_Compiled and edited for_ THE SCRAP BOOK.

In many respects the nineteenth century was the most remarkable in the history of the world. In no corresponding period did science vouchsafe to men so many revelations, or did wars result in such sweeping political changes. It was the age of steam, electricity, and steel; of Napoleon, Wellington, Nelson, Grant, Lee, and Moltke; of Bismarck, Gladstone, and Lincoln; of Garibaldi and Bolivar; of Stephenson, Fulton, Morse, and Edison; of Darwin, Huxley, and Emerson; of Wagner and Verdi; of Byron and Scott, of Tennyson and Victor Hugo, of Dickens and Balzac, of Hawthorne and Poe.

In the nineteenth century were all the glories of the Victorian Era, and in it slavery was abolished in the United States and serfdom in Russia. It saw the liberation of South America, the unification of Italy, and the creation of the kingdoms of Greece, Servia, and Rumania. It saw the United States grow from a small nation to a rich and powerful one; it witnessed the development of Great Britain's scattered colonies into the most extensive empire the world has yet known; and in its latter years it beheld the rise of Germany to commanding military power and great industrial prosperity. The progress made in the field of invention was astounding. The coming of the railroad and the steamship revolutionized the history of civilization. The art, literature, and drama of the world were greatly enriched, and music entered upon what may truly be said to be its golden age.

But, confronted by this great mass of events, how many persons are there who are able to tell the story of the years in which those events occurred? Several histories of the nineteenth century have been written, but none of them has yet succeeded in giving the clear, concise view that the one now published in THE SCRAP BOOK purposes to give. This will be complete in ten instalments, each instalment covering a period of ten years. We begin with the year 1800, the last of the eighteenth century, in order to give the reader a clearer understanding of the situation of affairs at the opening of the nineteenth.

1800

Napoleon, then the dominating figure of the world, continued the work of reorganizing the government, centralizing power in his own hands; subdued the last of the French loyalists, and took the Tuileries as his residence. Only Paul, the imbecile Czar of Russia, returned a favorable answer to the request for friendly relations sent by Napoleon to the powers the previous December.

In Egypt, General Kléber, commander of the French forces, agreed with the English admiral, Sir Sydney Smith, to evacuate the country; treaty rejected by the English Parliament; Kléber drove the grand vizier into Syria; restored French rule in Egypt; assassinated by an Arab; succeeded by General Menou.

War resumed between France and Austria; General Moreau defeated the Germans and Austrians under Kray at Engen and Moeskirch in Baden and at Biberach in Würtemberg; in Bavaria Lecourbe and Ney took Memmingen; Ney defeated General Mack at Ulm; and at Hochstädt Moreau again defeated the Austrians. Finally, at Hohenlinden, the Austrians suffered a crushing defeat, and sued for an armistice.

Meanwhile the French under Masséna were hemmed in in Genoa by an English fleet and an Austrian army. Napoleon started from France with a force of thirty-six thousand men, in four days crossed the Alps into Piedmont, and attacked the Austrians under Melas at Marengo; Napoleon saved from defeat by General Desaix's division, which arrived in time to make a brilliant charge when Napoleon's army was retreating; Desaix killed; Melas sued for an armistice; French masters of Italy. Genoa surrendered, fifteen thousand men having died of starvation, but was returned to the French. England reduced Malta. Russia joined with Denmark and Sweden in an armed neutrality against England. The English stood firm against Napoleon. The English navy grew stronger, and maritime trade increased. The French navy dwindled, and trade was at a standstill. The Irish Parliament met for the last time, one hundred members from Ireland being admitted to the next session of the English Parliament. Bread riots in England.

The United States Congress met for the first time at Washington. Voltaic pile discovered by Volta. Mary Kres, for a straw-weaving device, obtained the first patent granted a woman in America. William Cowper, English poet, died.

=POPULATION--Washington, D.C., 3,210; New York City (with boroughs now forming Greater New York), 79,216; New York (Manhattan), 60,515; London (including Metropolitan District, census 1801), 864,484; London (old city, census 1801), 158,859; United States, 5,308,433; Great Britain (census 1801), 10,942,646.=

=RULERS--United States, John Adams; Great Britain, George III; France, Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul; Spain, Charles IV; Prussia, Frederick William III; Russia, Paul; Germany, including Austria, Francis II; Sweden, Gustavus IV; Portugal, Maria Francesca--eldest son, John, regent; Pope, Pius VII.=

1801

Peace of Lunéville between France and Germany; the Rhine as far as the Dutch frontier made the boundary of France, the Helvetian (Swiss), Cisalpine, and Ligurian republics to be recognized, and the treaty of Campo Formio confirmed. Spain ceded Louisiana to France. Peace between France and Naples closed the ports of Naples to England, and began a continental embargo. Pitt resigned as English prime minister. King George III suffered a recurring attack of insanity; recovered. English defeated the French at Aboukir and Alexandria and captured Cairo. French evacuated Egypt; Turkish rule restored.

Paul, Czar of Russia, struck down by Prince Zubov and strangled by the prince's followers. Alexander I, his successor, favorable to the English; Denmark and Sweden continued armed neutrality, and on Denmark's refusing terms offered by England, a fleet under Parker, Nelson second in command, prepared to attack Copenhagen. Nelson commanded the attack; seemed to fail; was signaled to retreat; put his blind eye to the telescope and said, "I really do not see the signal," and then "Damn the signal! Keep mine for closer action flying." Continued the attack, took or destroyed eighteen vessels out of the Danish fleet of twenty-three, and summarily ended the dispute.

In San Domingo, Toussaint L'Ouverture led an unsuccessful revolt against the French. Exhausted resources necessitated a cessation of hostilities between France and England, October 1. Catholic Church, under state supervision, restored in France. Robert Fulton offered to build steam vessels for Napoleon, who rejected the idea as visionary.

In the United States, Congress decided the tie vote of the previous year between Jefferson and Burr in Jefferson's favor; Burr Vice-President; Jefferson inaugurated March 4, first President to be inaugurated in Washington; wore long trousers and aroused a storm of protest, many considering them a dangerous innovation. Open conflict between America and the Barbary pirates. Jacquard weaving-loom invented. Lavater, physiognomist, died.

=RULERS--The same as in the previous year, except that Thomas Jefferson became President of the United States March 4, and Alexander I succeeded Paul as Czar of Russia.=

1802

General destitution prevailed in England; governmental expenses reduced. The Italian Republic succeeded the Cisalpine Republic, and Napoleon was elected President. The Peace of Amiens between England and France, Holland and Spain; France, Spain, and Holland received back all colonies except Trinidad and Ceylon, retained by England, and England to have an open port at the Cape of Good Hope; Malta to be restored by England to the Knights of St. John; France to leave Elba, Rome, and Naples; integrity of the Turkish Empire to be maintained. Napoleon permitted all but one thousand French loyalists to return; a portion of their lands was restored, but all hereditary privileges were denied.

Napoleon reformed the French educational system, established the Legion of Honor, and restored slavery in the West Indies. Toussaint, after a short and horrible war, was treacherously captured in Hayti, taken to France, and died in a French dungeon the year following. Turkey allowed France access to the Black Sea. English embassy reestablished in Paris. Switzerland invaded by the French, and Napoleon's course in Italy caused friction with the English; in reply to protests, Napoleon declared Italy, Switzerland, and Holland were at the absolute disposal of France. In carrying out the terms of the Peace of Lunéville France began a systematic encroachment on German territory. British naval mutiny in Bantry Bay, Ireland, quelled and six leaders hanged. Hortense, daughter of Josephine, married Louis, brother of Napoleon.

Humphry Davy produced light by using two carbon points and an electric current--the forerunner of the arc light, and entered on studies that led to photography. One thousand persons drowned in Lorca, Spain, by a bursting reservoir. West Point Military Academy founded. Ohio admitted to the Union.

=RULERS--The same as in the previous year.=

1803

April 30, the American commissioners, Monroe and Livingston, signed the transfer treaty whereby France ceded Louisiana for sum of fifteen million dollars. The United States ship Philadelphia captured by pirates in the harbor of Tripoli, and three hundred American sailors sold into slavery; Stephen Decatur entered the harbor, blew up the Philadelphia, and escaped. Emmet rebellion in Ireland suppressed; Emmet hanged. Active work on the Code Napoléon begun, and part of the civil code promulgated. English travelers in France declared prisoners; Napoleon announced that England, alone, was powerless against him; a feint made of invading England; war declared by England May 13; French commerce almost destroyed. French driven out of Hayti, having suffered from disease, and lost heavily in a war in which atrocities were practised by both sides.

Mahratta War in India; natives in some cases incited and led by French officers; Sir Arthur Wellesley, afterward Duke of Wellington, distinguished himself; much of northern India came under British rule. English troops massacred in Colombo, Ceylon. Treaty between France and America; Bank of France founded; censorship of the press in France, English papers excluded from the country. Robert Fulton failed in his steamboat experiments on the Seine. Mme. de Staël again exiled from France.

United States made grants of land to colleges. September 30, corner-stone of New York City Hall laid. Malthus published his "Essay on Population." The first printing press in New South Wales set up. Alfieri, Italian poet, and Sir William Hamilton, British diplomat, died.

=RULERS--The same as in the previous year.=

1804

England recalled Pitt to power. Napoleon made costly and futile preparations to invade England. Moreau and Pichegru conspiracy against Napoleon; Pichegru found strangled in prison; Moreau exiled; Duc d'Enghien captured and shot; twenty persons guillotined. France ordered German states to expel French loyalists and English subjects. French Senate urged Napoleon to found a hereditary monarchy, succession to be in the male line, or, in default of issue, the crown to go to Joseph, and, if he died, to Louis Bonaparte. May 18, Napoleon accepted, and December 2 he and Josephine were crowned; when Pius VII went to place the crown on Napoleon's head, the latter snatched it and crowned himself. Napoleon created a new nobility and eight marshals. Prussia and Austria recognized him as Emperor of France. Dessalines, a Haytian negro, followed Bonaparte's example, and created himself Emperor Jean Jacques I.

Lewis and Clark set out on their trip across the American continent. Burr killed Hamilton in a duel. America continued a running fight with the Barbary pirates. Shaft sunk for a Thames tunnel; work later abandoned. England captured Spanish ships bearing ten million dollars' tribute to Napoleon; Spain declared war. English Bible Society founded. Immanuel Kant, German philosopher, died.

=RULERS--The same as in the previous year, except that Napoleon Bonaparte became Emperor of France, and Francis II of Germany assumed the title of Emperor Francis I of Austria.=

1805

Russia and Sweden joined in the coalition against Napoleon. Active war preparations in France; grand review of the French army on the field of Marengo; Genoa annexed by France; Napoleon crowned King of Italy. France, Spain, and South German states pitted against England, Russia, Austria, and Sweden. Admiral Villeneuve moved against the British fleet; bottled up in Cadiz by Admiral Collingwood; threats of disgrace caused Villeneuve to make a desperate rush; met near Cape Trafalgar by Nelson and Collingwood, October 21; in the ensuing battle the French and Spanish fleet was practically destroyed. Nelson was fatally shot in the hour of victory; Villeneuve was captured, and later committed suicide.

Abandoning his plan to invade England, Napoleon marched into Germany, threw the badly battered Austrian forces under General Mack into Ulm, and captured the city with twenty-three thousand men. In Italy, Masséna, French commander, inflicted heavy losses on Archduke Charles, and forced him to sue for an armistice. Vienna captured by Murat. Prussian prime minister demanded reparation for French violation of Prussian territory, but was temporized with in negotiations by Talleyrand while Napoleon prepared to move against the Russians and Austrians. On December 2 he inflicted a crushing defeat on the allies at Austerlitz, and the Russian army withdrew. Austria forced to grant all demands. Dalmatia and Venice taken from Austria and given to Italy; alliance against France temporarily broken; England left to fight alone.

Jefferson began his second term as President of the United States. The Barbary pirates beaten by an American force under General Eaton and forced to relinquish their claims to tribute. Agitation in the United States strong for a war with Spain and for the annexation of Texas and part of Mexico; the agitation subsided when the French ambassador declared France would side with Spain. Aaron Burr went West, and began planning for the invasion of Texas. Jerome Bonaparte married Miss Eliza Patterson, an American.

Five thousand persons killed by an earthquake near Naples. Schiller, German poet, historian, and dramatist; Paley, English theologian; and Mungo Park, Scottish traveler, died.

=RULERS--The same as in the previous year.=

1806