relates, having assembled his _dramatis personæ_ for the final curtain by the novel yet simple expedient of “washing them all up from the ocean,” after a shipwreck, like flotsam, he introduced a frantic struggle between the villain and the hero, beginning on the wave-beaten rocks, conducted up a spiral stairway within the lighthouse and intermittently visible through the windows thereof, and terminating in the fall of the villain from the pinnacle of that edifice to a watery grave,--with which fitting demise, and the union of lovers, the spectacle drew sweetly to a close. “The critics,” writes Belasco, “had plenty of fun with the absurdities of the piece (which hardly needed to be pointed out), and I had many a good laugh at it myself; but, for all that, it was the most elaborate scenic production of the kind ever made in the West, and the people who came to see it went wild over it. The only trouble was not enough of ’em could be induced to come!” “The Curse of Cain” was acted from March 7 to 18, except on the evenings of the 8th and 15th, when Frederick Haase acted at the Baldwin. J. B. Dickson, of Brooks & Dickson, who saw the play there, purchased the right to produce it in the East, in English, and Gustav Amberg (then in San Francisco as manager of the Geistinger Opera Company) arranged to bring out a German version of it at the Thalia Theater, New York,--but I have not found that either of those managers ever presented it. A fragmentary record of the original cast, which is all that diligent research has discovered, shows Mrs. Saunders and Ada D’Aves as members of the company and signifies that the chief characters were allotted thus: _Sir Rupert Treloar_ Joseph R. Grismer. _Ashcroft_ Harry Colton. _Tom Gray_, “_The Idiot_” George Osborne. _Joan Gray_ Jean Clara Walters. _Alice Gray_ Phœbe Davis. On March 15 Osborne superseded Colton as _Ashcroft_,--his place, as _Tom Gray_, being taken by Joseph W. Francœur. THE PASSING OF MAGUIRE. Maguire’s control of the Baldwin Theatre and Belasco’s career in San Francisco were now drawing toward an end. The Geistinger Opera Company came to the Baldwin for a few days, when “The Curse of Cain” was withdrawn: “The Great Divorce Case” was acted there March 30: then came Haase, in “Hamlet,” “The Gamester,” and other old plays, which were performed by him “to a beggarly array of empty benches”: and, on April 11, the Italian tragedian Ernesto Rossi (1829-1896) [Illustration: Photograph by (Houseman?). Belasco’s Collection. THOMAS MAGUIRE]