A JEWISH IDOL

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 2123, 15 April 1914, Page 9

A JEWISH IDOL

DEATH OF SIGMUND MOGULESKO. Sigmund Mogulesko, known as "Prince of Jewisn comedians," was buried on Friday, February 6, from the Thomashefsky Theatre,. New York, where for a quarter of a century he had amused the great lower East Side. During all those years, through his funmaking and his genial' temperament, Mogulesk'o had,, says an exchange, becoino a popular idol both on and off the stage, and. the mighty tribute paid him 'at his death is .perhaps unprecedented anywhere- in Fully-.10(0,0.00,. men,, wome'hV"anc£' eh^drai his".bier to take.a : , last,.look at the face ,whioh had become so familiar and so them,,...... .'.

.Other popular players have been ac'corded i great honours at their deaths. Irving's funeral was solemnised in stately pomp at Westminster Abbey. Recognition was paid by. a sorrowing public to Jqseph-Jefferson and Richard Mansfield.. But theso tributes, however, sincere, were,carefully planned and organised. It was different with Signmnd Mogulesko. . His whole race poured spontaneously out of their sweat shops: aud little homes with drawn blinds to weep because their favourite player, had died. On the day of his funeral the streets in that, part of the city were so choked,by a mourning humanity that scores rrere injured, and with difficulty extricated from- under tramping feet, and police reserves were called out to. hold the crowd in check. It was the most spectacular funeral ever witnessed on tho East Side, and measured by tho number of sincere mourners crushed about the cortege, Sigmund Mogulesko's fame was greater than that of-any actor who ever lived. The. casket, borne .on the shoulders of the pall-bearers,- all wellknown Yiddish ' actors and friends of the comedian, was carried to the theatre from the Hebrew Actors' Club, where the body had laid in state. It was preceded by a massed choir of men chanting, but the crowd of spectators was so great-ono could hardly distinguish the solemn procession from the rest. An extraordinary and almost startling feature was that the chanting of solemn Jewish dirges with sobbing breaks in the voices, alternated with snatches of the comic songs which had so endeared the actor to them.

So the bare-Leaded throng crept on, , mingling sobs and songs, and doing their best to obey the stem orders of the police who were exerting every fort to protect the pall-bearers and keep the procession intact. Many spectators, in token of their grief, rent their garments, wailing "Oy, Gevold, Mogulesko, a rnoloch 1" (Alas, Mogulesko, an angel.) Thousands of others, packed upon the roofs and balconies above, rained flowers upon the bier. It was with great difficulty that the police held back the overwhelming mass of humanity long enough to allow tho' casket to pass through the door of the theatre, where for hours tens of thousands had waited in the vain uopo of doing homage. The building, accommodating only abput 2000, was soon jammed to the doors by those who were on tho , mere 'edge of tho croivfi. The doors were rushed and tho police swept off their feet.: • Many'notedmen were present at the last , solemn- rites; also representatives from theatrical societies in Greater New York and New Jersey. Jacob P. Adler, tho well-known tragedian and venerable father of all the East Sido, no less beloved than Mogulesko, fainted as , he pronounced' tho eulogy over his dead friend, and a physician, had to be called to attend him. Outside the ,denso crowd waited patiently during the services and 1 afterwards many thousands followed the monster cortege to tho cemotery. Mogulesko was buried while hymns written by himself were being sung by all the \iddish actors , and actresses in New York. The man who had won this remarkable demonstration of grief at his departure from tho world, was born in Russia 56 years ago. At the ago -of 22 ho was leading actor in a stock company in Odessa, but his progress in tho land of bureaucracy was soon checked. The emotionai state into which he was wont to lift his audiences came under the ban of officialdom and the theatre was razed to the ground by orders from headquarters. Later, in the mid-eigh-ties, he again offended the Tsar by some of his witticisms and was banished from Russia. Setting out for the land of Liberty he arrived in Now York penniless and friendless. However, lie did not remain unknown long, but soon established himself a warni favourite with tho patrons of the Yiddish theatres. His last words utteied on his death-bed were, tho same as those of Canio in "Papli- : acci," "La coinmedia e. Finita"—(Tho comedy is ended).