ADDRESS AT THE ACTORS' FUND FAIR, PHILADELPHIA, in 1895
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,--The--er this--er--welcome occasion gives me an-- er--opportunity to make an--er--explanation that I have long desired to deliver myself of. I rise to the highest honors before a Philadelphia audience. In the course of my checkered career I have, on divers occasions, been charged--er--maliciously with a more or less serious offence. It is in reply to one of the more--er--important of these that I wish to speak. More than once I have been accused of writing obituary poetry in the Philadelphia Ledger.
I wish right here to deny that dreadful assertion. I will admit that once, when a compositor in the Ledger establishment, I did set up some of that poetry, but for a worse offence than that no indictment can be found against me. I did not write that poetry--at least, not all of it.
