Note 44 — XVII. ST. LOUIS, CINCINNATI, INDIANAPOLIS, COLUMBUS.

The Dramatic Festival Association tendered a dinner to Mr. Henry Irving, at the Queen City Club-rooms, last evening, after the great actor’s final performance at the Grand Opera House. There were present, besides the distinguished guest, Governor Noyes, ex-president of the association: Manager Henry E. Abbey; Colonel Miles, city dramatic director; Secretary Hall, Mr. Halstead, Judge Force, Colonel Dayton, Mr. Alter, Mr. Huntington, Mr. J. W. Miller, Mr. Nat. H. Davis, Mr. Devereux, Mr. Chatfield, Mr. Bram Stoker, manager for Mr. Irving; Mr. Wetherby, Mr. Stevens, Copleston, agent of Mr. Abbey; Mr. Charles Taft, Mr. Leonard, Colonel Markbreit, Mr. Will. Carlisle, Mr. Frank Alter, and others, to the number of thirty or more. The tables were elegantly decorated, and the menu was, of course, of the choicest and most fastidious description. Governor Noyes introduced Mr. Irving to those present in his usual happy manner, alluded to the great pleasure and benefit the “Paris of America” had enjoyed from his brief sojourn among us, and significantly expressed the hope that he might soon return to us. Mr. Irving responded to the enthusiastic greeting which followed Governor Noyes’s introduction in a manner which won all hearts, by its sensible and modest sincerity. He had been most favorably impressed by his audiences in Cincinnati, finding them keenly responsive and deeply attentive. Allusion had been made to the operatic and other festivals; but he was not yet persuaded that the emulation excited between the artists taking part in them might not have a flavor of the cockpit about it. He was much more inclined to believe in the benefit of sound, permanent dramatic enterprise here, a school of the drama, with a theatre and stock company attached, whence might originate influences of deep and permanent good to the community and country. He paid a high compliment to the quickness and ready grasp of an idea by Americans, and concluded with a graceful acknowledgment of the general and particular courtesies he had met with in Cincinnati, not forgetting the press. Remarks were also made by Judge Force and Mr. Halstead, the latter alluding, with much feeling, to some of Cincinnati’s peculiar claims to the title of “Paris of America.”—Cincinnati News-Journal, Feb. 3, 1884.