Identifier: autobiographyofj00injeff (find matches)
Title: The autobiography of Joseph Jefferson
Year: 1890 (1890s)
Authors: Jefferson, Joseph, 1829-1905
Subjects: Jefferson, Joseph, 1829-1905 Actors
Publisher: New York : Century Co.
Contributing Library: Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection
Digitizing Sponsor: The Institute of Museum and Library Services through an Indiana State Library LSTA Grant

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time passed away.Peace and happiness be with her! As an actress,she was for years the delight of the public; and asa wife, a comfort and an honor to her husband. During my visit to Australia I acted at Dayles-ford, and after the performance, by the invitationof a friend, I visited a Chinese theater. We rodethrough the woods for three miles to a camp orgold-diggings worked by the Chinese. Therewas a large population of them here — about twothousand. It was past twelve oclock when wereached the theater, where the actors were hardat it, and had been from sundown. The theaterwas under a tent, looking like a small moderncircus cut in two. The seats were arranged ina half-circle, the stage coming out well amongthe audience. The Chinese manager had beenapprised of our visit, so he had reserved seats inthe center of the tent, which was quite full ofChinamen. The orchestra was at the back, andthe music — if the hideous sounds they made canbe dignified by that name — was played at inter-
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IMRS. CHARLES KEAN AS heRMIONE. OF JOSEPH JEFFERSON 269 vals during the whole performance. I recognizedthe play by its action to be our old friend, TheYoung Scamp, In French it is called Le Gaminde Paris ; in Chinese, The Mothers Pet ; andI suppose every nation in the world has a freetranslation of this universal piece of humanity.What on earth the music has to do with a Chineseplay, I could never discover. The band will re-main perfectly quiet for five or ten minutes, andthen, apparently without the slightest provocation,burst forth upon the audience, splitting their earswith the most dreadful din — the scraping of cat-gut, the tooting of pipes, tinkling of triangles, andbanging of gongs, altogether making a most dis-cordant clatter. Now dead silence; then a longspeech by some actor, punctuated by little taps ona small sheepskin drum, the catgut man now andthen scraping a parenthesis. The musicians sitbolt upright, staring in front of them, without anymovement or expression, lookin

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