Theatrical and Circus Life or, Secrets of the Stage, Green-Room and Sawdust Arena. John J. Jennings

Thus the strange spectacle was witnessed of a man supposed to be totally blind, who read every word he uttered from a paper he carried in his hand.

      LIZZIE WEBSTER.

      At an English performance of "William Tell," the traditional arrow, instead of going straight from Tell's bow to the heart—perforated beforehand—of the apple placed on the head of Tell's son, stopped half way on the wire over which it should have travelled to its destination. Everything, however, succeeded in Rossini's "William Tell," except the apple incident, as everything failed in "Dennis's Appius," except that thunder which Dennis recognized and claimed as his own when he heard it a few nights afterward in "Macbeth." Yet it has never been very difficult to represent thunder on the stage. One of the oldest theatrical anecdotes is that of the actor, who, playing the part of a bear, hears a clap of stage-thunder, and mistaking it for the real thing, makes the sign of the cross.

      LAWRENCE BARRETT.