MRS. FRANK MARK BATES SALLIE HINCKLEY _From old photographs_] died, in San Francisco, January 17, 1872, in the sixty-sixth year of his age, leaving no work undone that he could do and therefore ending in the fulness of time. He was acquainted with grief, but there was one sorrow he escaped,--he never knew “how dull it is to pause.” It is obvious that no influence could have been more helpful to the eager, ingenuous, stage-struck Belasco than that of this sturdy, experienced, grand old actor and director, attracted and pleased by the fervor of a schoolboy seeking ingress to the Theatre. Belasco’s assurance that he wrote a good hand when he was a boy, however difficult that may be to believe now, is correct (I have independently ascertained that he took a prize for penmanship at the Lincoln School), and Smith,--who was stage manager of the California Theatre,--gave him odd pieces of work to do making fair copies of prompt-books of plays produced at the California, and also, from time to time, employed him to “go on” in the mobs, crowds, etc. To him Belasco confided his ambition to act _Hamlet_, _Iago_, and romantic characters, and by him he was advised to throw away ambition of that kind, physical exility making his success improbable (“you would need to be a head taller,” the veteran assured him), and to devote himself to what are termed “character parts” (miscalled by that designation, every part being a _character_ part: “eccentric” is the quality really meant) and the study of stage management. If Smith had lived a little longer Belasco probably would have had better opportunity at the California Theatre, but the old man died before the youth had been more than about six months embarked on his professional theatrical career. Nevertheless, he owes much to the instruction and advice of that wise and kind friend. ADOPTION OF THE STAGE.