The miscellaneous knowledge that young Belasco accumulated in observation of “the seamy side” of life by night, in one of the most vicious, turbulent, and perilous cities in the world,--which San Francisco certainly was, in his juvenile time,--was of much use to him when, later, he became employed as a hack-writer of sensation melodramas, in the theatres of that city and other cities of the West. BELASCO’S EARLIEST ASSOCIATIONS WITH THE THEATRE IN SAN FRANCISCO It is not possible to furnish an entirely full, clear, chronological account of Belasco’s earliest relations with the Theatre in San Francisco. Various current sketches of his career which I have examined either give no details as to this part of it, or make assertions about it which I have ascertained to be incorrect. The subject is not explicitly treated in his autobiographical fragment, “The Story of My Life,” a formless, rambling narrative, obviously, to a discerning reader, evolved from discursive memory, without consultation of records or necessary specification of dates or verification of statements, and which I have found to be, in many essential particulars, inaccurate. Few persons possess an absolutely trustworthy memory of dates, [Illustration: From an old photograph. Belasco’s Collection. BELASCO’S PARENTS HUMPHREY ABRAHAM, AND REINA MARTIN, BELASCO, ABOUT 1865] and Belasco is not one of them. His recollections of his boyhood and specially of his early association with the Theatre in San Francisco are sometimes interesting and in a general way authentic, and certainly they are believed by him to be invariably correct; but careful research of San Francisco newspapers of the period implicated, and of other records, discovers that frequently they are hazy, confused, and erroneous. “He who has not made the experiment,” says Dr. Johnson, “or is not accustomed to require _rigorous accuracy_ from himself, will scarcely believe how much a few hours take from certainty of knowledge and distinctness of imagery.” How much more must the lapse of many years take from memory! According to Belasco’s recollection, his first formal appearance on the San Francisco Stage was made while he was yet a pupil at the Lincoln Grammar School in that city, when Mary Wells (Mrs. Richard Stœples, 1829-1878) was (as he alleges) filling an engagement at the Metropolitan Theatre, in a play called “The Lioness of Nubia.” Mary Wells was an English actress, well known and much respected on the New York Stage about fifty years ago. She made her first appearance in this country at Albany, in 1850, and in 1856 she appeared at Laura Keene’s Theatre, New York, as _Mme. Deschapelles_, in “The Lady of Lyons.” She did not figure as a star: her “line” was old women: there is no record of her appearance at the Metropolitan Theatre, nor of her appearance anywhere in San Francisco, until April 4, 1874, when she acted with “The Lingard Combination,” at the Opera House (opened as Shiels’ Opera