The Gaiety girls marched on New Jersey last week and carried Orange by storm. Not since the day of the Corbett-Courtney fight has there been anything like the excitement which prevailed all day at the Edison laboratory. Last week Prof. Dickson, the man who knows as much about the kinetoscope as Mr. Edison himself, had invited all the dancers of the "Gaiety Girl" company to come out and dance before the kinetoscope. Manager Malone accepted on behalf of the entire company and early one morning most of the English beauties started for Orange in heavy marching order.
The conditions of the invitations were that the company was to come on the first fine day. Several other celebrities who had been asked to pose earlier in the week had been obliged to postpone their engagements on account of the rain. In consequence not only the "Gaiety" girls, but the Arabs from Koster & Bial's, Mlle Alcide Capitaine, the trapezist. and Miss Annie Oakley, the crack shot, all arrived at the laboratory in a bunch.
Never has the Black Maria -as the studio where the photographs are taken is called- contained so conglomerate an audience. Mlle. Capitaine was the first sitter. The trapeze was slung from the low ceiling and when she hung by her legs from it her fingertips came within two inches of the floor. Twenty seconds was the limit of each performance. When the "Gaiety" girls heard of this they rolled up their eyes in dismay, and Miss Grace Parlotta, turning to the Pierrot dancers, exclaimed:
"My dear girls, I am afraid your kicks will have to be strictly limited."
While Miss Oakley was posing for her shooting specially, the big study of the Edison laboratory was handed over to the "Gaiety" girls for a dressing room. Decima Moore, Miss Lloyd, Miss Parlotta and the other principals who were not going to dance were given seats on the floor of the Black Maria, from which they could witness the whole proceedings. The laboratory Is nearly 100 yards from the Black Maria, and as the dancers had forgotten to bring any wraps, Mr. Hope, Prof. Dickson and some other men had to wrap the dancers in their overcoats.
The news that the "Gaiety" girls had come to town by this time had spread through all the Oranges and a crowd of small boys began to gather outside the gates. For the Arabs they had scarcely a giance to spare. Their eyes with one accord were fastened on the "Gaiety" girls' "bath buns," which they regarded with outspoken awe. Later on in the big laboratory a phonograph concert took place, A special phonograph had been prepared, and after a good deal of hesitation Decima Moore stepped up to the instrument. As she did so every woman in the room began to give her advice at once. Miss Moore sang a verse of "Oh Honey, My Honey," from "Little Christopher Columbus," and this as the way it sounded when the phonograph reeled it off ten minutes later:
"Oh, come, my love; oh, come, my love, with me,"
"Sing louder, Decima; and for heaven's sake take your veil off."
"Oh, come, my love; oh, come, my love; to me "
"You’re way off the key, darling, but never mind."
"You shall nestle to my breast " (a bass Interlude from Mr. Kaye).
"Oh, thanks, dear!"
"And we'll dream awhile"
"Decima, darling, your bun's coming down
"And rest."
"I wouldn't sing into that thing for worlds"
"As we listen to the music, to the music far away. "
Miss Parlotta next obliged the phonograph by singing, "If Your Pride Should Have a Tumble," and then Mr. Kaye concluded the performance with his own version of “After the Ball.”
A luncheon was served at 3 o'clock, at which the Arab Sheik — we forget his name, although he wrote It out on half a yard of paper - fell in love with a different young woman between each course. On the way home the peddler on the train entered the car with a basket full of colored paper babies. The Sheik insisted on buying up the whole basket and among and distributing them among the young ladies. When it was found that there were more than enough babies to go round, the Arab smiled and exclaimed In broken English, as he began to deal the balance-of the babies out:
"Never mind, young ladies; what is the matter with twins?"
The National Police Gazette, New York, November 24, 1894, p. 7.
