A FATUOUS SHAKSPERIAN.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VI, Issue 172, 22 July 1871, Page 4

A FATUOUS SHAKSPERIAN.

A long pending libel case, which promises to be of a very amusing character, and to throw some light on the art for making up the human form divine for stage purposes, has just been settled at Philadelphia. The case was founded on an article which, amongst other things, cast considerable doubt on the reality.. of the legs of Mr. Edwin Forrest, the- wellknown American actor. The libellous criticisms appeared in November, 1867, in the Sunday Despatch, and cousisted, in substance of two wildly grotesque -ymaginary conversations between the critic and tbe actor. Mr. Forrest was made to express lhe most excruciating remorse for his "long and guilty career upon the stage," his " bloody murders of Shakespeare," and his "colossal crimes." At thought of his offences he " burst into tears, and his calves heaved and' swelled with unfeigned agony." Mr. Forrest was further made to give his idea of Hamlet as follows:; — " I consider Hamlet to be a young Prince, about sixty years old, and rather stout for his age. He ijias a red face, and wears a black moustache. His legs are modelled upon an original plan, and when encased in black tights, are calculated to startle and dismay tbe beholder; He, walks with some difficulty, and prefers] to sit dow n when a chair is handy^ There was something abouta glass of brandy taken as a restorative ("thereby pe^nj** and intending ")— to quote the 'Mgiiag'e of the complainant--" that the plaintiff as

an actor, was addicted to the use of spiritous liquors;" but the crowning aggravation was Mr. Forrest's pretended confession that his legs were stuffed. " thereby mcauing that plaintiffs reputation as an actor was the result of imposition and deceit." For all this Mr. Forrest sued the Sunday Dispatch, and laid his damages at the pretty figure of 50,000 dollars. " The case," Eays the New York Tribune, " ought to have gone lo trial. - Then we should! have known whether it is really libellous to charge ladies and gentlemen with emyloying the devices of art to enhance the charms of nature. We should have learned whether pads, palpi tators, plumpers, switches, glass eyes, and liair-dye can lie made, in a legal point of view, the subject mutter of ' a false, scandalous, malicious, and defamatory publication,' which is a very important question, not only for dramatic critics and proprietors of newspapers, but likewise for society gossips and the loungers of watering .places. And, finally, the great problem of the reality of Mr. Forrest's calves might have been settled for all time if, as the Philadelphia Post suggests, the legs, of the distinguished tragedian had been produced in court and properly prodded by an intelligent and high-minded jury of his countrymeD. Instead of this, Mr. Forrest, withdraws his suit, and the Dispatch admits that < the articles complained of were byond the limits of dramatic criticism,' which anybody who knows what: dramatic criticism is must admit to be an| extremely handsome and unexpected ac-S knowledgment. 1 ' '

The late Prof. William Gibson used to relate that while going through an hospital with Velpeau, that surgeon brought him to the bedside of two men who were under treatment for some .slight fracture. "Would you believe it," said Velpeau, "these men have made a living for the last fifteen years by being knocked down and run over. When they see a light wagon driven by some wealthy person coming by they step across the street, and are sure to be run over, picked up, and carried to some hospital, and then they sue for damages. When their money becomes, exhausted they begin again. Nearly every bone in their bodies has been broken." The French Ransom. — A curious calculation. — We can form but a faint idea of what £200,000,000 really is without practically illustrating it. £200,000,000 in sovereigns would weigh 1,569 tons. To convey this sum we should require 3,138 carts, each loaded with half-a-ton of the precious metal, or 63,735 sovereigns/ Let us horse* these treasure carts,yrfnd arrange that a space of six feet shajsinntervene between each cart ; from tjkre head of one horse to the head of tj^iiexfc would be a space of twenty hot, so that we„. should have one unbroken line of carts nearly twelve miles in length. If we load railway wagons with the coin, and place in each wagon ten tons weight of sovereigns, we should require four trains, each composed of forty carriages. Let us pile these sovereigns oue upou the other, and we shall build a golden column- more than 197 miles high. If these 200,000,000 sovereigns are placed upon the ground, and arranged in one continuous and unbroken line, each coin touching its neighbour, we shall have a golden girdle nearly 2,754 miles long, equal to the coast line of Euglaud and Wales and Ireland. It we place twenty-one sovereigns in a row we shall find the length of the line to be eighteeu inches. liet us place these rows of twenty-one Jn close order, each row, as well as each coin, touchiug its neighbour, and. we shall fiud the last row more than 131 miles distant from the first. Let us again collect all theße coins, and place thera closely together on the ground in the form of a square. The sides of the square will be 367 yards long, and the pavement will coyer nearly twenty-eight acres — space enojig;h for several thousands of soldiers to manoeuvre upon. Allowing the sovereigns^ be one r sixteenth of an inch in thickness, and to occupy a space forty-eight fifty-fifths of aq» inch square, we shall require a room fen feet high, ten feet wide, and . sixtythree feet long in which W pack. tye 200,000,000; and it will employ a cashier seven teeif^yearsi forty-one weeks, four days, three hours, and twenty minutes to count them, iMhe counts ouian average. 100 a minute, and is employee!: six; hours daily on the 311 working days of the year. • r ' Englishmen and Frenchmen, r^ '" There is one point of the -comparison*^ - between -us and our Parisian neighbors," writes Th&'Times/" happily much to-our | Vad vantage. \ Xhey do their revolutions at 'home ; :-we i *9o- ours : abroad. mayreally claim, a priority it? revolutions ;, nay, it is charged' against' usVhat J we 'set) the . example, t A )centurjLago 4 we->hadf a .ver* gran^ revolution, which resulted in found-

ing the model Republic, to which some believe all the earth will one dayibe annexed. B-nt we did it 3,000 miles offacross the Atlantic. The event was heard of in d uptime* a month or two after it happened ; but, except an ad <\i tion to our taxes, which no amount of victory would have spared usj the result mage justfiHK difference at all here. Nobody cared much to know" that henceforth about half the British race would bo Republican. From that day, to avoid a repetition of the surprise, we have revolutionised our colonies ourselves quite as fast as they desired, not to say faster. The fact is, we are filling the earth with Republican institutions. . . . . . Is it impossible now to suggest to. the excitable yet helpless multitudes of the French cities that, -if they have visions and dr.eam dreams, impossible to be realised on French soil without blood and fire, they had better -look abroad ? Tbe United States are a home for all nations, and theyhave land enough for the entire population, if it should think fit so to escape the evil eye and grasping hand of Germany. Our own colonies are as open to Frenchmen' as they are to ourselves, and once thero they enjoy equal rights with the best of us. As-colonies and all transoceanic states are now constituted, the nationality signifies nothing, aifd it is quite unnecessary for France to wait till she cau find or make a colony of Freuchmdn. ' Everybody, whatever his occupation in France, can pursue it with equal ease and greater profit iv any colony abroad. If the French peasant ..proprietor wishes to escape Prussian exactions, if the Parisian tradesman wishes to be out of the reach of the Communist, if the Communist himself wishes for a property from which he has not to drive the present owner, he will find this easily obtaiued by a voyage both shorter and pleasanter than a siege or a winter campaign. We British subjects have come to consider that we carry our country with us wherever we go, and that ' all the earth is, iv a manner, ours. That ; is a nobler, andj as it turns out, an easier ! ambition than that of the French Comjmunist or petty proprietor. It is realised jj before the world, and the world admires Jour fortune, aud even thanks us for the ; example aud the benefit. That is more \ than can be said of the suicidal struggles of France, which always end by leaving jj her where she was — her fortune still to be ?made, her career yet to be run." f !_* i ' I