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| THE ALGERIAN THEATRE - It is said by Clarence
Webster ("Conflagration Jones"), a writer of genius who is now
abroad, that Papa Ganon, of Smyrna, who obtained the right to build
the theatre which is seen in the engraving, had been a
quartermaster-general in the war of the Crimea, an army contractor in
the French war on Tonquin in 1886, and a railroad builder in Asia
Minor. With only a few weeks in which to erect his theatre on frozen
earth inside the Fair Grounds, and among strangers, the great man
went about it with a courage, a good nature, and a true speculative
expectation that made a friend for him in every newspaper man of
Pavilion C, where the reporters had their desks. His troop arrived
on the 25th of April, 1893, and it was not long before nearly all the
leading clubs of the city had seen the pretty Nautch girls, the
terrible Voodoo man who tried to cast spells on colored club-waiters,
and the equally terrible Aissoires who
ate glass and run knives through their tongues, ears and arms. The
theatre here seen was, in its interior arrangements, the best on
Midway Plaisance. The oriental dances, as performed here, were in no
sense disorderly or vulgar, for the dancer scarcely lifted her feet
from the floor, and her flowing skirts were fastened about her
ankles. The music which accompanied the dance was peculiarly weird
to Western ears. |
