EXPERIENCES OF AN ACTOR.

Dunstan Times, Issue 783, 20 April 1877, Page 3

EXPERIENCES OF AN ACTOR.

Kot many mouths ago’Mr Edwin Adams, an American actor of repute, was playing an engagemeut/dn Melbourne. As he was suffering from disease of the lungs, which it is feared will prove fatal ere long, a report of his death reached California, and was very generally credited. He' ; returned to that country, however, in January last, and as ho landed late in the evening he proceeded to ons’of ’the principal hotels in San Francisco, where [he‘registered t hisjname in the book in the usual way. What followed is thus related,iby'af correspondent of the Maryborough Advertiser : read the signature on the book, glanced at Mr Adams, and smiled. Mr Adams bad grown a’heardj while on shipboard, "and] was become stout on ship fare. ‘Why don’t you register properly ’’[remarked the clerk. ‘ What do you mean ?’ asked Mr Adams. ‘Why, I mean write your own name,’was the reply. ‘1 have,' 4. said,JtheJ'astonished guest; ‘I am Edwin Adams, [the actor.’ ‘ That’s too thin, you know,’ said the clerk ; * I know poor Ned Adams, hut he is dead. ’ ‘ Dead !’ shouted the actor. ‘ Yes, dead,’ was the reply ; ‘ died in Australia, poor follow, six weeks ago.’ ‘Ok ! you are mistaken,’ was the rejoinder; I am Ned Adams, and I don’t feel particularly dead.’ ‘ Now, look here,’ said the clerk, ‘ this is enough of this. Here's the papers reporting poor Ned’s death, and hero’s the obituary in the Call and the Alta, and here’s the notices 1 cut out of the New York papers.’ Mr Adams was taken aback. Then the absurdity of the situation burst upon him and he began to laugh. Then he asked if Bob Withara, an old friend of bis, was at the hotel. ‘ No, he ain’t,’ was the surly reply ; ‘ but hero comes Billy Florence, and be knows Ned Adams.’ Mr Adams rushed up to the member for Golmsh, and grasped him Warmly by the hand. Florence gazed in amazement for a minute or two, but as soon as Adams spokedic knew his peculiar voice, and exclaiming, ‘ Good Heavens, Ned, is that you,’ plied him with a thousand and one questions. ‘ It’s only another case of Enoch Arden,’ said Adams, except that I took my wife along with me.’ It was tho first Mr Adams knew of his reported death; but hj lorenco’a identification reassured tho hotel clerk, and the genial actor was soon comfortably installed in his room, reading numerous obituary notices.”