An Actress' Prbmpti-TUDE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume 4, Issue 135, 15 May 1883, Page 2

An Actress' PrbmptiTUDE.

' A remarkable instance ot presence of mind on the part of an actress is reported from Chelsea Villa, m Texas. A.t a part of the piece when she was the only person on the stage she was 1 informed from the wings that a fire had broken out behind the scenes. Instead of making a precepitate retrea^, and thereby causing a disastrous panic— as nine out of ten would have. done. — sh^quietly ordered the curtain to be, lowered, and stepping to the footlights she said to the audience :— Ladies and Gentlemen, — A drama m real" life, as terrible as unexpected, has just been enacted behind the scenes. Oar manager m a fit of jealousy, has killed the leading lidy and cut hi? own throat afterwards. This double tragedy prevents, of course, the continuance of the performance. The bodies have been removed to a neighbouring house, where there 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 ronstituts, m fact, the greatest peril on such occasions ; but, instead of the two corpes whicb (hey expected to find, they only saw a thick column of smoke rising from the rear of the building they had j«Bt vacated, .