Little Peggy, afterwards the famous Mistress Woffington, was down at the shores of Liffey drawing water for her mother, when Madame Violante, a rope-walker, met her, and taking a liking to the girl, made terms with the parents and obtained possession of her. Madame Violante walked the rope with a child tied to her feet, and lovely little Peggy for a while assisted in this way at her mistress's entertainments. When the Madame got to Dublin she found a juvenile company playing "Cinderella" there, and at once began the organization of a class of children, who appeared in the play with Peggy as one of the bright luminaries. This was her introduction to the stage, which she trod with such brilliant success in after years. Nor was she the only one of the famous old English actresses trained to the drama from childhood. All through the history of theatricals, from and before Woffington's time, children were made participants in the play, and the seeds planted thus early ripened into the richest fruit. Until a very recent date it was not deemed the duty of anybody to interfere with this kind of training—not even with the barbarous treatment to which children training for the circus ring were submitted. Less than a half century ago the Viennese children went through the country dancing, and were unmolested by any philanthropically inclined body or any excessively humane individual. The juvenile "Pinafore" companies of two seasons ago were regarded kindly by press and public; and, indeed, until quite recently no extraordinary war was made against presenting the talents of a child actor or actress to the people. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children has, however, organized a stubborn resistance to the employment of little ones in stage representations; and while it may be well to exercise some authority for the protection of infants and for the preservation of the stage from a deluge of child-talent, there can be no justification in allowing that authority to run riot in plucking every blossom from the tree of histrionism, and erecting a permanent barrier against the development of native talent, when any happens to exist in a child of tender years. The experience of more than two centuries shows that the best training is that which begins earliest, which begins slowly, and widens only with the slow progress of the years. There are very few actors or actresses who have walked out of private life into the glare of the foot-lights with anything like success. The amateur may sometimes be suddenly metamorphosed into a full-fledged professional, with a bit of reputation to help him along the road he has chosen to travel, but this happens very rarely. Only those who begin early and study hard, and who have often to wait a long time for recognition, gain a place in the Thespian temple, and it is to those whose infant eyes open almost upon the mysteries and wonders of the mimic world, whose little limbs grow to strength behind the scenes, and whose lives are identified completely with all that have place or being behind the foot-lights, that it is given to hope for position in the profession into which they have been born instead of kidnapped.

I think the society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children did a very good thing when it took Little Corinne from the stage. The child was overtaxed far beyond her years; there was nothing very clever about her any more than there would be about a school-girl of the same age who had been taught to speak her piece and did it boldly, but awkwardly and inartistically. It was more painful than pleasant to sit out a performance of "Cinderella" with this offspring of the Kemble family in the role of the heroine of the glass slipper, and it was a temporary blessing to the public while the little thing was kept out of the way. Like all the precocious ventures on the stage, Corinne will gradually fade from memory, and the only thought left of her will be a painful recollection of her childish efforts to please the grown people who were foolish enough to go to the theatre to see her.

The young man or the young lady who has given years of study to preparation for the stage finds the debut night one fraught with fears and hopes. There are friends behind the scenes and friends in the audience willing to overlook faults and exaggerate excellencies; but there are cold, stern critics, too, anxious to puncture the new candidate for public favor in every tender spot their cruel eyes can search out, and there is the great public, that fickle body whose applause or condemnation often depends upon the whim of the moment. The effort is an enormous one to the new player; the suspense, frightful. A whole life's work may be swept out of sight in a moment, and the life itself blighted forever. But when the moment of success arrives—what a thrill of joy the triumph sends to the heart of the actress, if actress it be! What a dream of glory she already begins to live in! How her brain throbs and her heart bounds, and all the world seems a paradise, beautiful and fair as Eden was when it left the hands of the Creator! Friends crowd around, the house is ringing with applause, and she tears away from the congratulations and kisses and hand-shakings to step out before the curtain, and, with glowing face and tears in her eyes, kisses her hand and makes a profoundly thankful obeisance to the audience. Then she returns to her crowding friends on the stage, from the manager down to the call-boy and scene-shifters, and her ears ring with praise and encouraging words until it is time for the curtain to go up once more.

The debut of Emma Livry, an artiste who promised to lead a very brilliant career, but who was suddenly and early cut down by death, is described in a very interesting manner by one who was present. It was at the Grand Opera House, Paris, and the theatre was filled from parquette to dome with an extraordinary audience. Louis Napoleon was there, and the Empress Eugenie; princes and dukes filled the boxes, and the nobility of France, representative Americans and prominent Englishmen were in the audience. Emma Livry was then only sixteen. From her earliest childhood, says the writer, she had been devoted to the art of dancing—though this was no extraordinary thing, for there are a large number of girls always in training for the Grand Opera in Paris, who are taken at the age of four years, and kept in constant practice until they reach womanhood, when they appear in public. But this girl had shown extraordinary genius. In her later years the celebrated dancer, Marie Taglioni, Countess de Voisius, hearing of the new dancer, left her villa on the Lake of Como, and her palace in Venice, to come to Paris to give the girl lessons. Her improvement was miraculous. Taglioni said she would renew the triumphs she herself had won in former days. And now she glided upon the stage. The brilliant audience ceased their chatter as she appeared. The occasion took the character of what it was afterwards called in the newspapers—"a great solemnity." She was very young and was just at that period in the life of a girl when her figure is apt to be what old-fashioned people call raw-boned. She was tall, thin, and pale. Her face was not handsome. Her form gave no evidence of physical strength.

She was received in a hush of silence. "Let us see," this great audience seemed to say, "what you really can do in this poetic art." Any one who could have connected sensuality or grossness with this girl would have been baser than a sybarite; and yet her dress was the conventional dress of ballet dancers—short to the calf of the leg but thickly clad above.

She began. O Grace, you never found a prototype till now! O Painting, Sculpture, you paled before this supple, elastic, firm, yet dainty tread. At the conclusion of her first movement, when with a gush of sweet music she sprang like a fawn to the foot-lights, and extending her slender arms and delicate hands towards the audience, as if to ask, "Come, what is the verdict on me now?" a burst of enthusiastic applause, loud shouts of "Brava!" and "Bravissima!" "C'est magnifique!" waving of perfumed handkerchiefs, a deluge of sweet flowers formed the response.

The whole evening was a series of triumphs. The Emperor and Empress sent an aid-de-camp behind the scene to offer her the Imperial congratulations. Marie Taglioni, accompanied by her noble husband, sought the girl also, and taking from her breast a magnificent diamond star, which had been given her in former days by the Emperor of Russia, "Here," said she, "take this the queen of dance, Marie Taglioni, is dead—long live the queen, Emma Livry!"

As I passed out amongst the dense crowd, the writer continues, I saw a woman of middle age, and respectably dressed, leaning against one of the marble columns in the vestibule. Her face was flushed and she was wiping tears from her eyes.

"You weep, Madonna?" said a gentleman who was passing.

"Yes, Monsieur," she replied, "but it is with joy. Who would not be proud of such a daughter, and of such a tribute to her genius?"

There are few favorites of the public to-day who have not fought their way to the front inch by inch, who have not sacrificed everything for their art, toiling through the day that the work of the night might show improvement—very few who have not served years of apprenticeship on the stage before the moment of success arrived. And this has been the rule always. Nell Gwynne, the fish-girl, whose beauty and bright repartee attracted the attention of Lacy, the actor, and who peddled oranges to the audience before she began to amuse them on the stage, managed without much trouble, and during a short stage experience, to win the heart of Charles II., who made her his mistress and retained her while he lived, his parting words to those around his death-bed being, "See that poor Nelly doesn't starve;" but Nelly did starve. She died in poverty and left a line of dukes to perpetuate her plebeian blood in royal veins. She died in November, 1687, in her thirty-seventh year.

Lola Montez, the pretty Irish girl who in her fourteenth year eloped with one Capt. James to avoid a disagreeable marriage, accompanied him to India, where they got mutually tired of each other and returning to England studied dancing and went on the stage, was another of those fortunate and unfortunate fascinating women whose lives fade away fast and who after a brief hey-day of luxuries lie down in rags and poverty to seek a needed rest that is never broken. She won the hearts of kings, led a revolution in Poland, and finally, after being driven from her Bavarian castle where, as Countess of Lansfield she had ruled, and strutting a brief hour in London in male attire, died in this country January 17, 1861. Her ashes rest in Greenwood Cemetery, but she was saved from a pauper's grave only through the charity of some friend. During her life she had thrown away millions. Fallin, the husband of Maude Granger, is the son of the man with whom Lola Montez had her last escapade, Fallin, Sr., deserting his family in New York to accompany Lola to San Francisco. Her real name was Marie Dolores Eliza Rospanna Gilbert.

Another child of genius whom waywardness and frailty brought to an early grave was Adelaide McCord, better known to the world as Adah Isaacs Menken. She was born near New Orleans, June 15, 1835, and when still young went on the stage as a ballet dancer in one of the theatres of the Crescent City. She had been expelled from school, and tiring of her native village, where she had created a sensation by embracing the Jewish faith, she made the journey to New Orleans, and as I have said went on the stage. Her career there was not a very brilliant one until she began playing Mazeppa, the part with which her name has since been identified. Prior to her time men had appeared in this role. Her first appearance was on Monday night, June 17, 1861, in the Green Street Theatre, New York, then under the management of Capt. John B. Smith. On the first attempt to go up the run the horse after making one turn fell, crashing through the scenery with the Menken on its back. Horse and rider were picked up, and after some delay the ascent was made amidst a great deal of enthusiasm. The appearance of so beautiful a woman as Menken in the scarcity of clothing that Mazeppa requires created a furore, and from that time her success was assured. She fought spiritedly in the combat scene, breaking her sword and otherwise won the good opinion of her first audience. Previous to this she had married Alexander Menken, a musician in Galveston, but by this time also she had obtained an Indiana divorce. While in New York she met John C. Heenan, fresh from his victory over Tom Sayers, and after a brief courtship married him. Another Indiana divorce soon dissolved this knot, as it did a third time in the case of Orpheus C. Kerr (Robt. H. Newell). All this time her fame was growing. She went to London, and after setting the English metropolis on fire with her beauty returned to New York, where she married James Barclay, a merchant, in whose mansion she and her friends held such wild orgies that Barclay was glad when she fled to Paris, where she was stricken down in the midst of her mad career, in 1868. The brief but expressive epitaph, "Thou knowest," is carved upon her tomb.

Mary Anderson, the tragedienne, is the most phenomenal success of late years. She was born July 28, 1859, in Sacramento, California. Her parents removed to Louisville when she was one year and a half old, and there she was educated in the Ursuline Convent. She had a longing to be an actress from her earliest years, and all her readings tended in the direction of the stage. She was taken away from school at the age of thirteen, to pursue her studies for the profession to which she seemed to be so strongly inclined. At the age of fifteen she went to Cincinnati to see Charlotte Cushman act. While there she called on Miss Cushman, who said she could give her only a five-minute audience. Miss Anderson recited passages from "Richard III.," Schiller's "Maid of Orleans," and "Hamlet." She remained with Miss Cushman three hours, and the great actress had such confidence in her talents that she told her to study a few hours each day for a year and then she might go on the stage. This Miss Anderson did. An accident of some kind or other left Macauley's Theatre in Louisville with a Saturday night for which there was no attraction. Macauley knew Miss Anderson's desire to go on the stage, and meeting her step-father, Dr. Hamilton Griffin, in the street, told him the girl, who was then only sixteen, might have the theatre that night. Miss Anderson was overjoyed. She chose Juliet for her debut, got a costume hurriedly together and after one rehearsal and three days' preparation, appeared before a large audience, and made a decided hit. This was on November 27, 1875. Macauley was so pleased with the debutante that he gave her his first open week at starring terms. She then went to St. Louis, in March, 1870, and added greatly to the reputation she had won in her home city. Mr. John W. Norton supported her. Ben De Bar sent her to his New Orleans Theatre, and while in the Crescent City she was presented, by the citizens, with a check for $500, and the Washington artillery presented her with a jewelled badge of the battalion. Returning to Louisville again she continued her studies through the summer, began starring the following season, and has been before the public ever since. She is a young lady of remarkable personal beauty, intelligent and accomplished, a hard student, and one of the noblest and fairest of her sex that ever adorned the stage.

Lotta Mignon Crabtree, another of the very successful women on the stage, and one of the brightest soubrettes that ever delighted a public, was born at No. 750 Broadway, New York, on November 7, 1847. In 1854 her people removed to California, and Lotta made her first appearance on a stage at a concert given at Laport; her second appearance was at Petaluma, in 1858, when she played Gertrude in "The Loan of a Lover." She starred, they say, for two years as La Petite Lotta. Before she made her appearance in New York we hear of her in San Francisco at Burt's New Idea and Gilbert's Melodeon—concert saloons—where Joe Murphy, Barnard, Cotton, Pest, Burbank, Billy Sheppard, Backus and other prominent minstrels were engaged. The Worrell Sisters, Maggie Moon (now Mrs. Williamson) and Lotta were in the company, and there was great rivalry between them at the time. The theatre was crowded every night up to the close of the first part in which there was a "walk around," in which the girls entered into the liveliest kind of a competition. Each did her utmost to out-dance the other. Each favorite had her host of admirers and the demonstration on the part of the audience was intense. After the "walk around" the house became almost empty, showing that this was the attractive feature. Lotta was very ambitious, and whenever she failed to score a triumph she would retire to her dressing-room and cry bitterly. From San Francisco her parents took her to New York, where she gave her first performance at Niblo's Saloon, June 1, 1864. She wasn't a success in New York, so she went to Chicago and played "The Seven Sisters" at McVicker's. Fortune began to smile on her there, and her success dates from this point. One night during this engagement an unknown admirer threw a $300 gold watch and chain upon the stage. Lotta cannot sing any more, but she kicks as cutely as of yore, dances neatly, and is as vivacious as a girl of sixteen.

Maggie Mitchell, who has been a great favorite ever since she produced "Fanchon" at Laura Keene's Theatre, June 9, 1862, was born in New York in 1832, of poor parents. She began to play child parts at the old Bowery and in 1851 had advanced to responsible business. She made a hit at Burton's Theatre as Julia in "The Soldier's Daughter," and then began starring in "The French Spy," "The Young Prince," and like plays, but did nothing remarkable until, as I have already said, she made a hit in "Fanchon," an adaptation of George Sands's novel "La Petite Fadette." Following this came "Jane Eyre," "The Pearl of Savoy," and "Mignon." Miss Mitchell has amassed a fortune by her efforts. Her name off the stage is Mrs. Paddock, she having married Mr. Henry Paddock, of Cleveland, Ohio, in Troy, New York, October 15, 1868.

Emma Abbott, the finest of American lyric artistes, after the usual freaks of an ambitious childhood and the trials of an operatic training in Milan and Paris, was given a London engagement by Mr. Gye and made her debut at the Royal Italian Opera, Covent Garden, on May 2, 1876. The debut was a success, and with the congratulation of friends, the best wishes of all who knew her, and the predictions of the best judges of vocal music that she had a brilliant future ahead of her, she set out on a tour of the provinces, singing through England and Ireland and everywhere winning the love and applause of the people. Returning to her own country the artiste gave two seasons of concerts, and began to sing light opera. She has created the role of Virginia in "Paul and Virginia," and Juliet in "Romeo and Juliet," both which operas she introduced here. Her repertory includes, besides the two named, "Mignon," "Maritana," "The Bohemian Girl," "Martha," "Il Trovatore," and "Faust." She has a sweet, clear, crystalline voice, which she uses to great effect, is a charming lady personally, a careful, pure, and energetic artiste, and altogether wholly deserves to be called, as she is, "Honest Little Emma."

Marion Elmore, a charming little soubrette who is looking after Lotta's laurels, is a native of England and has been on the stage since her third year, having then played Meenie with Joe Jefferson in "Rip Van Winkle." She was born in 1860 in a tent on the gold fields of Sandhurst, Australia. She came to this country with Lydia Thompson in 1878, and played in burlesque until the season of 1881–2 when she took a soubrette part in Willie Edouin's "Sparks." She is now starring under the management of Hayden & Davis in "Chispa," a California play.

Edwin Booth, the illustrious son of Junius Brutus Booth, was born at Belair, near Baltimore, Maryland, in November, 1833. He was his father's dresser, accompanying him on all his tours, and receiving from him lessons in histrionism. On September 10, 1849, he made his first appearance at the Boston Museum as Tressel, in "Richard III.," and on May 22, 1850, appeared at the Arch Street Theatre, Philadelphia, as Wilford, in the "Iron Chest." In 1850 he distinguished himself by playing "Richard III.," at the Chatham Theatre, New York, in the place of his father, who had disappointed. His first independent appearance in the metropolis, however, was made on May 4, 1857, as Richard III., at the Metropolitan, afterwards the Winter Garden Theatre. In 1851 he went to California and thence wandered to the Sandwich Islands and Australia in 1854. In 1857 he returned to New York. He was known as an actor of ability, but it was not until his famous engagements at the Winter Garden that he succeeded in making a really profound impression on the public. During this revival "Hamlet" ran one hundred nights and Mr. Booth at once stepped to a foremost position before the public. His disastrous investment in the theatre that bore his name in New York is well known. It compelled him to go into bankruptcy in 1872, since which time he has been the most successful of American stars. He has been twice married—to Mary Devlin, an actress in 1861, who died in 1862, and to Mary McVicker, daughter of J.H. McVicker, of Chicago, who died in 1881. His Hamlet is the finest interpretation of that character on the American stage, and this with Bertuccio, in "The Fool's Revenge," and Brutus, are his best impersonations.

John McCullough, though born in Ireland, came to this country when very young. He was poor and an orphan, and poverty had been "looking in at the door" of the humble home where he passed his boyhood for many a year. Yet the tenant farm which his father held was once the pride of all the country round, and the child's earliest recollections called to mind a happy time which too soon, alas, passed away. His mother had died when the son was a mere lad, and misfortunes came not singly but in hosts after that bereavement. Sir Harvey Bruce, the landlord of the estate, though a kindly man, as Mr. McCullough testified, claimed his legal rights, and all that appertained to the estate held by the family was taken possession of by law, and father and son driven out from their home.

"How well I recall the time," said Mr. McCullough, "and every scene and incident of that eviction—as it would, I suppose, be called now. I was a boy of about twelve years or so, and the greatest trial to me was the sale of a pony which I prized most highly. I couldn't bear to part with the pony, and Sir Harvey Bruce, who saw my grief and knew its cause, kindly arranged matters so that before long I was able to call the animal once more my own. It was an act of goodness which, of course, I have never forgotten."

Not long after the eviction the father died, and the boy was left in the care of an uncle. But, like thousands of others, young McCullough had heard of the land of freedom beyond the Atlantic, and it was not long before he decided to leave kindred and friends, and seek a home in America. With all his earthly possessions in a bundle the young lad landed at New York, and with characteristic pluck and energy began the battle for existence. He followed various callings, but soon felt within him the desire to become an actor. Fortunately the foreman of a chair factory in Philadelphia, where he was employed, sympathized with the aspirations of the future actor, and often studied with him the great Shakespearean tragedies in which McCullough afterward attained such renown.

It was in the winter of 1857 that the young aspirant for Thespian honors first stood upon the stage; and he began in Philadelphia his professional career at the munificent salary of $1 a week. For several seasons he acted the "heavy villain" line in the Shakespearean drama, and made steady improvement in his art. A great event in his career was his engagement to support the great Forrest in 1862; for it gave him opportunities which such a man as McCullough was not slow to improve. The grand qualities which marked Forrest's acting were made the subject of careful study by the young actor, and to-day John McCullough is recognized everywhere as the successor to the famous American tragedian. His career as an actor, interrupted only by a brief managerial experience in San Francisco, has been one of steadily increasing success.

John McCullough's starring experience dates from only a few years back; yet his impersonations, with peerless Virginius at the head, have won fame and fortune in all parts of the country, and gained for him also the highest honors on the English stage.

J.K. Emmett, or Joe Emmett, as he is familiarly called the world over, was born in St. Louis on March 23, 1841. He early had a penchant for the stage, and could rattle bones, play a drum or do a song and dance on a cellar-door better than any of his companions. He began life as a painter, but soon left the pot and brush for the stage of the St. Louis Bowery, where his specialty was Dutch "wooden-shoe business." He could sing finely, and was as graceful as a woman. So popular did he become in his line that Dan Bryant engaged him for his New York house in 1866. Two seasons later Charles Gayler wrote "Fritz," a nonsensical play without rhyme or reason, and Emmett opened with it in Buffalo. His success was indifferent at first, but within a short time "Fritz" and Emmett became the rage, and for fifteen years the people have actually run after this star. His name and play will fill any theatre in the United States, and in many places outside of the United States. He is the great pet of the public. Time and again has he disappointed them, but it makes no difference; the next time he announces himself ready to play they are there in throngs. Joe Emmett has friends the whole world over, and he is welcomed and admired everywhere.

John T. Raymond's real name is John T. O'Brien. He became stage-struck while clerking in a store, and after a brief amateur experience made his first appearance on the professional stage as Lopez, in "The Honeymoon," on June 27, 1853, and played comedy with varying fortune until 1874, when "The Gilded Age," which had been dramatized, was brought out at Rochester, New York, on August 31st, and he made an immense hit as Col. Mulberry Sellers. Next to Colonel Sellers, John T. Raymond's enduring popularity rests upon his impersonation of Fresh, the American, in the drama of that name, which he is now impersonating throughout the country. In connection with both his best known parts Mr. Raymond may be said to have "made" the plays they are framed in. Without them those plays would be flat, and in any other hands than his the characters which relieve them of that odium would be insipid. It is the actor's art and personal magnetism alone which make them what they are—successes. A good story, whether it be true or not, is told about Raymond and John McCullough. The latter was asked to appear as Ingomar, with Miss Anderson as Parthenia, at a benefit performance for a friend. As an additional inducement the beneficiary asked Raymond to play Polydor. "Certainly, with great pleasure," said Sellers; "I will travel one thousand miles any time to play Polydor to McCullough's Ingomar." The happy man ran off to tell his good fortune to McCullough; but the tragedian, in his deepest Virginius voice, answered him: "No, sir, never, never again! Once and out." The explanation of Mac's refusal to have Raymond in the cast is given as follows:—

It seems that at a certain benefit in Virginia City, "Ingomar" was the play, Mr. McCullough sustaining the title role and Mr. Raymond played Polydor. Polydor, it will be remembered, is the old Greek duffer who has a mortgage on Myron's real estate, and presses for payment in hopes to get Parthenia's hand in marriage. The performance went beautifully, and the applause was liberal, for McCullough was playing his best. Raymond was the crookedest and most miserly of Polydors, and the savage intensity he threw into his acting surprised all who imagined he could only play light comedy. All went more than well until Ingomar offered himself as a slave to Polydor in payment of Myron's little account. "What, you?" screamed Polydor, and, apparently overcome by the thought, he "took a tumble," and fell forward upon Ingomar. Ingomar stepped back in dismay, when Polydor, on all fours, crept nimbly between his sturdy legs and tried to climb up on his back. The audience "took a tumble," and the roof quivered and the walls shook with roars of laughter. "D—n you," groaned Ingomar, sotto voce, "if I only had you at the wings?" But Polydor nimbly eluded his grasp, and, knocking right and left the dozen supes, who were on as the army, he skipped to the front of the stage and climbed up out of reach of the projecting mouldings of the proscenium. Here he clung, and, to make matters worse, grinned cheerfully at the pursuers he had escaped, and rapidly worked the string of a trick wig, the long hair of which flapped up and down in the most ludicrous fashion. It was impossible for the play to proceed, and the curtain was rung down, leaving Polydor still on his lofty perch, while the audience laughed and shouted itself hoarse. And this is the reason why Mr. McCullough said, "No, sir, never again!" to Mr. Raymond's offer.

I may add that among the young people of the stage who are possessed of that personal magnetism that makes them popular, is Fay Templeton, who is not only pretty, but thoroughly original.