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| CHINESE BEAUTY - The picture at the left is
a photograph of the "Display of China" in the International Dress and
Costume Exhibit, or World's Congress of Beauties, on Midway
Plaisance. It is not know whether Mr. Knox and Mr. Hyde, the
promoters of the Beauty Show, chose this lady, or engaged experts
from the Flowery Kingdom to feast their eyes on the loveliness of
Asia and select the fairest; but it is certain that the little person
took small interest in the business, for she was often seen fast
asleep in her chair, oblivious of the indifference with which the
male generation of Caucasians passed her on their way to Fatma's
Sultanic bower at the north end of the room.
CHINESE FEMALE IMPERSONATOR - Although there were many
female actors in the Chinese Theatre, it still remains that the stage
of China, like our own negro minstrel boards, retains the influences
of a time when the histrionic art was in so low esteem that women
were not allowed to take part as actors. The man photographed at the
[right] impersonated a woman in the gong-pounding play of "God in
Heaven," at the Midway Temple, and by the shaking of the flaps on his
cap, and the imitation of the shrill Chinese female voice, drove
sorrow away from its customary haunts in the laundries of South Clark
street. The music of the Chinese, however, hurled them into
bankruptcy. |
