was received with much favor. The acting of little Cordelia as Eva and of Mrs. Howard, her mother, as Topsy, accounted partly for the popularity of the play, but the Aiken version must have been one that the people liked in that it had a long life even after the Howards had ceased to act in it.

Occasional songs like "Eva to Her Papa," "I'se so wicked," "St. Clair to Eva in Heaven," all written and composed by G. C. Howard especially for his family, lent color and variety to this version. And after a series of effective and affecting scenes there came always a grand finale in the shape of an "allegorical tableau of Eva in heaven, a spirit of Celestial Light in the Abode of Bliss Eternal." Topsy and Little Eva were adored by their audiences. The former's "Golly, I'se so wicked" and Eva's angelic dying never failed to make a profound impression.

To the readers of to-day Aiken's play seems extremely melodramatic but so, for that matter, does Mrs. Stowe's book. The Aiken version sticks pretty close to the book. Divided into six acts and beginning with the Shelbys in Kentucky, it then takes Tom to New Orleans to St. Clair's plantation and brings him to his death under the persecution of Legree. Eva dies on the stage and is transported bodily by angels to a better world. From the standpoint of literary criticism every possible objection can be made to the story and to the drama. Yet "Uncle Tom's Cabin" in book and play proved itself the most powerful weapon ever forged to combat and conquer an appalling social evil.

CHAPTER XVI

DEALING WITH DRAMA ALONG OUR FRONTIER
AND IN THE THEATRES OF NEW YORK

BECAUSE our early American managers were garrulously inclined and, on retiring from active life, almost invariably indulged in a plump volume of reminiscences, a student of the theatre has ready to hand quite an assortment of colorful memoirs, invaluable for the insight they afford into pioneer stage conditions. One of the most delightful books of this kind is from the pen of Noah Miller Ludlow, who, when he wrote his account1 of early theatrical life in the West and South-particularly in those cities then springing up along the Mississippi valley - had been an actor for thirty-eight years and a manager for thirty-four.

Born in New York City, July 4, 1795, of a mother who was "distinctly religious" and of a father who "found no particular pleasure in the so-called amusements of the day," young Ludow none the less managed to see the pantomime "Cinderella" on the stage of the old Park Theatre at the tender age of twelve. From that time until the year 1853, when he "professionally 1" Dramatic Life As I Found It." G. I. Jones & Company, St. Louis, 1880.

withdrew from histrionic duties," he was an intimate part of the theatre in this country.

The manager with whom he had most to do in his earliest years was Samuel Drake, Senior, who had been stage manager for John Bernard and who, in 1815, collected a company of young stage aspirants to take out West with him.

When this company decided to give Sheridan's romantic play "Pizarro" or "The Virgins of the Sun" in Pittsburg, great difficulty was experienced in providing the necessary complement of virgins; meaning, of course, stage virgins. Such supernumeraries were very difficult to secure in those days, for "seamstresses and shoe-binders would as soon have thought of walking deliberately into Pandemonium as to have appeared on the stage as 'supers' or 'corps de ballet."" On the night of the performance the house, at a dollar a ticket all through (except for children), was crowded to capacity the boxes with dark-skinned but beautiful ladies, and the pit with "foundrymen, keel-boat men, and sundry and divers dark-featured and iron-fisted burghers." And the virgins duly materialized! The first pair, and even the second pair, were quite personable and were received in respectful quiet, but when the third pair, consisting of an old Irish woman who cleaned the dressing room and the property man, a Pennsylvania Dutchman, made their appearance, the audience became unduly vocal.

"Such Virgins!' the pit shouted as these two entered in all solemnity, singing the beautiful chant, ‘Oh, Power

Supreme.' Whereupon Manager Drake, who was at the time standing in front of the altar as high priest of the sun, stepped to the front of the stage and roundly scolded those in front 'for insulting a company of comedians who have traveled hundreds of miles to contribute to their pleasure.'

In those days the theatre was never open to the public more than four nights a week and often only three. So that strolling players had real opportunity to enjoy themselves in their travels if they were temperamentally fitted to make the most of such entertainment as offered. Mr. Ludlow recalls many a pleasant riding trip and tells us that while playing in Nashville, Tennessee, he had ample opportunity to woo "a small black-eyed widow" whom he subsequently married and from whom he was "never separated for more than six months at any time for over forty-five years and who became the mother of eight children, though she was almost constantly, notwithstanding this fact, on the stage."

Confronted with the prospect, as a Benedict, of having two or more to support, instead of one, young Ludlow (aged twenty-two!) now parted from his old manager, Mr. Drake, and, having obtained a set of traveling scenes, a wagon with horses, and saddle horses on which to ride, started out "on his own" as a manager and producer.

The journey that Mr. and Mrs. Ludlow and their fellow players took, soon after this, on a keel boat "purchased for $200 and previously condemned as not strong enough for heavy freight," from Nashville to New Or

leans, via the Cumberland, Ohio and Mississippi rivers, was full of adventures. Natchez was one of the first stops made, and when they had convinced the leading inhabitants of this settlement that theirs was really a company of comedians and not "folks with a lot of niggers to sell," they were cordially urged to give a performance.

Already a nice theatre, which had been built by subscription and in which a band of amateurs had performed twice, was standing on the Natchez bluffs, and here for a fortnight five hundred people crowded in, at a dollar a ticket, while many others witnessed the performances through the windows, refusing to go away because they had traveled some distance from neighboring plantations and were determined to see a play.

New Orleans was ultimately reached on the keel boat and permission obtained from the mayor to give some American presentations in a theatre there which had previously been associated only with French drama. It is interesting to note that, notwithstanding the fact that manager Ludlow was strongly urged to make Sunday night a play-night in New Orleans, because the French theatre had always found that evening their most profitable one, he flatly refused so to desecrate the Sabbath! The training of his "distinctly religious" mother held!

The Ludlow company's performance on Christmas Eve, 1817, appears to have been the first production in the English language ever given in the city by a regularly organized troupe. At this time English was not a welcome tongue in New Orleans, there being a strong antag