Jr., at its head, it gave such plays as "The
Banker's Daughter," "The Two Orphans," "The Celebrated Case," and "The
Danicheffs," their great popular vogue. Miss Claxton was what is known
as the leading juvenile lady in the Union Square Company, and her
Louise, the blind sister, to Miss Sara Jewett's Henrietta in "The Two
Orphans," won for her a national reputation. She was endowed by nature
with a superb shock of dark red hair, over which a Titian might have
raved. This was very effective when flowing loose about the bare
shoulders of the blind orphan, but afterward, when Miss Claxton went
starring over the country and had the misfortune to have several
narrow escapes from fire, the newspaper wits of the day could not
resist the inclination to ascribe a certain incendiarism to her hair,
and also to her art. And Field, who was on terms of personal
friendship with Miss Claxton, led the cry with the following:

BIOGRAPHY OF KATE CLAXTON

This famous conflagration broke out on May 3d, 1846, and has been
raging with more or less violence ever since. She comes of a famous
family, being a lineal descendant of the furnace mentioned in
scriptural history as having been heated seven times hotter than it
could be heated, in honor of the tripartite alliance of Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abed-nego. One of her most illustrious ancestors
performed in Rome on the occasion of the Emperor Nero's famous violin
obligato, and subsequently appeared in London when a large part of
that large metropolis succumbed to the fiery element. This artist is
known and respected in every community where there is a fire
department, and the lurid flames of her genius, the burning eloquence
of her elocution, and the calorific glow of her consummate art have
acquired her fame, wherever the enterprising insurance agent has
penetrated. Mrs. O'Leary's cow vainly sought to rob her of much of
her glory, but through the fiery ordeal of jealousy, envy, and
persecution, has our heroine passed, till, from an incipient blaze,
she has swelled into the most magnificent holocaust the world has
ever known. And it is not alone in her profession that this gifted
adustion has amazed and benefited an incinerated public: to her the
world is indebted for the many fire-escapes, life-preservers,
salamander safes, improved pompier ladders, play-house exits,
standpipes, and Babcock extinguishers of modern times. In paying
ardent homage