ART, LITERARY, AND DRAMATIC GOSSIP.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1917, 16 April 1880, Page 3

ART, LITERARY, AND DRAMATIC GOSSIP.

It is said that there are in the "United States 3SO theatres and 120 halls and Lyceums. There are 125 regular travelling combinations, 50 minstrel or variety companies, 68 companies formed to support stars and play in spectacular, and 7 resident stock companies. Mies Jennie Lee has very -wisely reappeared at the Koyalty Theatre in her popular part of "Jo" in the well-known adaptation of Dickens's novel. To say anything fresh of so familiar a representation would be well-nigh impossible. It will suffice thßt " Jo" is likely to be as popular as ever, that Miss Jenny Lee is, as she has before been, very ably supported by Mies Dolores Drummond as Hortense, and by Mr Burnett as Bucket. Miss Dolores Drummond will be remembered here as Miss Dolly G-reen. The death of tho " Count Johannes" has led to a recital of the practical jjko by which he became a "Count," and Mr E. L. Blanchard, who was, I believe, an eye-witness of the affair, gives a highly interesting account of it. The hero, Mr George Jones, a young Englishman who went to America in his eighteenth year, became soon afterwards one of the best melcdramic actors the stage has seen. Unfortunately his beßottirg weakness was vanity, taking the form of a desire for personal, or rather titular, distinction, and this caused him to become the victim of one of the most remarkable practical jokes on record. In the summer of 1835 Mr Georgo Jones returned to this country, and appeared a 3 a staring tragedian at the Victoria Theatre, attracting, in the April following, considerable attention as the recite? of a florid oration over the grave of Shakespeare when the poet's birthday was commemorated atStatford-upon-Avon. On Saturday, June 4th, 1836, a complimentary benefit was given to him at Drury Lane Theatre, and on this occasion he played Hamlet, and Don Eelix in " Tha Wonder" to tho Donna Violante of Mrs Nisbet; while Sheridan Knowles filled up the interval between the tragedy atd comedy by representing William Tell in the fourth act of his own play. On returning to his apartments the benefieiare found preparatioias made to give him the the title he had so long coveted. In a large illuminated saloon, occupied during the day as a dancing academy, ho was introduced to a strange foreign-looking personage, who was aos.rted to have the privilege of conferring a patent of nobility. Obedient to instructions, Mr George Joccs knelt down, while the mysterious potentate, attended by apparently a large retinue in full court costume, smote hiin on tho back with the 11 it edge of a property broadsword, and told him to " Bise up —Count Johannes." A signature was then attached to a large sheet of parchment, covered with curious hioroglyphics, and almost smothered with huge seals fast n :?d on with crimson-coloured ribbons, and tho tragedian then went to his bedroom upstairs in the confiding assurance that he had attained what was tho ambition of his life. From that time ho was not only known as the " Count Jones," or the "Count Johannes," but he absolutely refused to recognise the possibility of the hoax which hud been so cleverly contrived by an English scene-painter and his brother a dancing-ma«ter, who had been familiar wi!h tbe ait ir in Njw York, To the la6t day of his life ho clung to tho title bestowed upon him in tho freak of a merry moment, and based his later popularity in America on tho spurious dignity ho had so whimsically acquired. He was, aB we know, the father of Miss Avonia Jones, tin; actress, who afterwards became the wifo of the ilifuted Gustavus V. Brooke, Inst in the wreck of the London, in January, 1866.