EQUESTRIAN DRAMAS. 57 



the piece produced under the most horse-piece-cious circum- 

 stances. The eventful night arrived, the house was crammed. 

 The play progressed, people came on and off the stage, talked, 

 raced, shouted, went through traps, climbed canvas rocks, and 

 indulged in all the customary motions of a grand " spectacle." 

 There has always been a natural feud between actors and circus 

 folks. The ring people despise those who can only " cackle," 

 (flash term for talk), while the stage fellows say that folks who 

 travel on their shape, and have no brains to back them up, are 

 contemptible. In those days there was even less good feeling 

 between the two professions than at present. The supes aspir- 

 ing to the dignity of ^^ the stage " were more intense in their 

 antipathy to the riders than were the actors themselves, and 

 being always ready for a lark, some of them procured a lot of a 

 peculiar kind of tinder which is readily lighted and could be 

 surreptitiously blown into a horse's nostrils without the culprit 

 being detected. Suddenly in the midst of the performance 

 the horses became restive, and in a moment became unman- 

 ageable. Some reared and kicked, some broke through the 

 stage, while others, trampling the foot lights under foot, 

 plunged into the orchestra. All was confusion. An actor 

 advances to the foot lights and assures the audience that they 

 need feel no alarm — nothing of importance is amiss — it is " all 

 right." At this very moment two horses are murdering their 

 riders in the orchestra. One of the men, literally impaled upon 

 the spikes around the railing, presents a sickening, horrifying, 

 spectacle as he writhes in his death agony. Of course the play 

 was not concluded ; the audience departed shocked at the awful 

 sight they had witnessed, and the supes, who had intended no 

 farther harm than a little amusement at the expense of the 

 circus men, now bitterly repented their thoughtless folly. 

 They did what they could to atone for trick by making up a 

 purse for the benefit of the families of the principal victims of 

 the unfortunate affair, but the horse drama had received its death 

 blow on Broadway. 



