About the most laughable thing around a theatre is the “supes.” However funny a play may be, the actions of the supes are funnier than the comedians. Men may act as supes for twenty years, and they can never come on the stage without appearing awkward and falling all over themselves. The actors tell them where to stand, and they get into another place. They act as if they expected to be stabbed and they cannot appear natural to save them. Take a far western scene, where they want a lot of miners in a bar-room to take a drink. One would think fellows who are in bar-rooms a dozen times a day would know how to act, but they don’t. They all go up to the bar in a crowd, and fall around, and then take tin cups of alleged whiskey and stare at vacancy until told to sit down, and then they all try to sit down on the same chair. When they are wanted for a scene in the Roman forum, they get on the red night-gowns and walk around toeing in, and walking knock-kneed, making the sickest lot of Roman citizens that ever robbed a hen roost. It is a singular coincidence that a supe always has a black patch on the seat of a pair of gray pants. Where in the world they all get gray pants, and why they don’t have gray patches on them, is more than anybody can find out. Let a couple of supes come on the stage to remove a table, and they will have those patches dead sure, and they will arrange to stand with the patches to the audience. They probably reason that their faces are liable to betray emotion, or that they may blush, but that the patches can maintain a stern and dignified demeanor under the most trying circumstances of guying and cat-calls on the part of the gallery boys. Female supes are even worse than men in stubbing their toes on the carpet, or backing against the wings. They are hired to come on to fill up a scene at half a dollar a night, and they usually wear octagon shaped tights, with more bran than legs, and it is painful to see them stand around. But they get confidence in themselves quicker than men, and they want to star after appearing one or two times. The supe business has lots of fun in it. ALEXANDER EDWIN SWEET. Texas is known to be the largest State in the Union, yet in all the vast territory there resides but one genuine humorist. Alexander Edwin Sweet is the proud possessor of that title. During the last few years the Texas Siftings has been universally quoted and ranked “A 1” among the funny papers of this country. It is needless to state in this connection that Alexander E. Sweet is one of the editors of Siftings.