THE WITCHING HOUR
The Witching Hour represents the play that reflects a phase of modern interest, in this case telepathy. It also represents Mr. Thomas's work in the most significant period, so far, of his career. Augustus Thomas was born in St. Louis, Missouri, January 8, 1859, the son of Dr. Elihu B. Thomas. His father was associated with the theatre, being director for a time of the St. Charles Theatre in New Orleans. Mr. Thomas tells us, in his brief reminiscences, that after his father returned to St. Louis in 1865, Dr. Thomas told him much concerning the actors with whom he had come in contact. Augustus Thomas was taken to the theatre early in his life and has grown up in its atmosphere. He was educated in the public schools of St. Louis, was a page in the Forty-first Congress and up to his twenty-second year was in the service of the freight department of various railroads, where, he tells us, he learned much about human nature. Later on, he became a special writer on newspapers in St. Louis, Kansas City, and New York, and was for a time editor and proprietor of the Kansas City Mirror.
He began to write plays when he was fourteen years old. By the time he was seventeen he had organized an amateur company which he took on circuit. It was at this time that such early efforts as Alone (1875), or A Big Rise (1875), his earliest plays known by name, were written. In 1882 he dramatized Mrs. Burnett's Editha's Burglar, and organized a professional company which he took around the country playing this and other plays. In 1887 a four-act play by the title of The Burglar became a success in New York and from that time Mr. Thomas has devoted himself to play writing. He is now the Art Director of the Charles Frohman interests.
Mr. Thomas has written fifty-two plays. He stands in our drama for literary craftsmanship combined with practical knowledge of the stage and for a serious interest in the furtherance of dramatic progress. His work is not the result of accidental inspiration, but he has proceeded on a basis of logical deduction from observed facts to an establishment of fundamental principles in dramatic construction. His art is native, too; his first significant play, Alabama, produced April 1, 1891, at the Madison Square Theatre, New York, had as its theme the reunited country. In Mizzoura (1893) pictured in a less significant though amusing manner the customs of that State. Arizona, produced first, June 12, 1899, at Hamlin's Grand Opera House, Chicago, is a better play than any of the ones which preceded it, and Mr. Thomas may be said to have entered into his most significant period with this play. It was laid at the time of the Spanish-American War, but the war itself was of little significance. The play portrayed Amer-
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