Belasco’s carelessness of statement is again illustrated in a remark made in his “Story” regarding contemporary conditions when Wallack’s career was ending: “New men,” he writes, “were on the horizon, public taste was changing, and lighter forms of entertainment were coming into vogue. Even Daly was meeting reverses and the Madison Square was going downhill.” It is regrettable that such an influential manager should fall into such errors and unintentionally contribute to the generally prevailing ignorance of theatrical history. I am again prompted to quote the old sage, Dr. Johnson, who remarks that “To be ignorant is painful, but it is dangerous to quiet our uneasiness by the delusive opiate of hasty persuasion.” At the time of which Belasco speaks (1886-’87) Daly was, in fact, on the crest of the wave of success, with “A Night Off,” “Nancy & Co.,” and revivals of the Old Comedies. In May, 1886, he took his company on a notably successful tour which, after nine weeks in London, embraced Paris, Hamburg, Berlin, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool, and Dublin, and soon after his return to America he produced, in New [Illustration: Photograph by Falk. Courtesy of Arthur Wallack, Esq. LESTER WALLACK Taken at about the time he produced Belasco’s “Valerie,”--1886 (The last picture ever made of Wallack)] York, for the first time in our country, “The Taming of the Shrew,” in which Ada Rehan gave her matchless personation of _Katharine_ and which was the most successful of all his ventures in the second half of his great career, ending in 1899. The Madison Square, so far from “going downhill,” was just entering on a period of notable prosperity and influence, with Jones’s “Saints and Sinners,” Mansfield’s presentment of “Prince Karl,” which ran from May 3 to August 14, 1886; “Jim the Penman,” “Heart of Hearts,” etc. Palmer remained in management of the Madison Square till September, 1891. AN EXTRAORDINARY COMPANY AND A SUMMER SEASON IN SAN FRANCISCO. Soon after “Valerie” was withdrawn at Wallack’s,--that is, March-April, 1886,--Belasco received and accepted an invitation to return to the city of his birth, and the scene of much of his vicissitudinous early career, as stage manager of what was fairly denominated “a stock company of stars” and was, without question, one of the strongest theatrical companies ever assembled in America. That company was organized by Al. Hayman to fill a summer season at the Baldwin Theatre (of which he had obtained control in 1883) and it comprised the following players: Robert B. Mantell. Joseph Haworth. William J. Ferguson. Charles Vandenhoff. Rowland Buckstone. Henry Miller. Owen Fawcett. W. H. Crompton. Maurice Barrymore. L. J. Henderson. Alfred Fisher. Errol Dunbar. George H. Cohill. Sophie Eyre. Florence Gerard. Mary Shaw. Louise Dillon. Kate Denin. Kitty Wilson. Ada Dyer. Mrs. Alfred Fisher. Agnes Thomas. Mrs. C. R. Saunders.