AN ACTRESS’ PROMPTITUDE.

Patea Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 1031, 7 May 1883, Page 3

AN ACTRESS’ PROMPTITUDE.

A remarkable instance of presence of .mind on the part of an actress is reported from Chelsea Villa, in Texas. 'At a part of the piece when she was the only person on the stage she was informed from the wings that a fire had broken out behind the scenes. Instead of making a precipitate retreat, and thereby causing a disastrous panic—as uine persons out of ten in her position would have done—she quietly ordered the curtain to be lowered, and stepping so the footlights she said to the audience :—“ Ladies and gentlemen,—A drama in real life, as terrible as unexpected, has just been enacted , behind the scenes. Ohf manager, in a fit of jealousy, has killed the loading lady and cut his ovvn thrhat afterwards. This double tragedy prevents, of course, the continuance of the performance., . The bodies have been rerapved to a neighbouring house, where they are to be seen.” The public, whose curiosity was naturally very much excited, cleared the theatre with the utmost promptitude, but without accident, no one feeling the sense of danger which constitutes, in fact, the greatest peril on. such occasions; but, instead of the two corpses which they expected to find, they only saw a thick column of smoke rising from the rear of the building they had just vacated.