The White Slave

White Slave, The (1882), a play by Bartley Campbell. [Haverly's 14th Street Theatre, 40 perf.] At his death, Judge Hardin (Welsh Edwards) would free his housekeeper, Nance (Etelka Wardell), and her quadroon daughter, Lisa (Georgia Cayvan). But Hardin's adopted son, Clay Britton (Gus Levick), who has acted as his foster father's manager, has squandered the estate and must reluctantly sell everything and everyone to William Lacy (Frank Roberts). Lacy, a villainous man who boasts, “I never deal in anything except horses and niggers,” has been quietly engineering Britton's downfall, and when the young man becomes aware of the treachery he attempts to rescue Lisa. Lacy sends him to jail and warns Lisa that unless she loves him he will reduce her to the lowest of his slaves, with “a hoe in your hand, rags upon your back.” Lisa responds, “Rags are royal raiment when worn for virtue's sake.” More complications follow before Lisa is shown to be the white child of Judge Hardin's long dead daughter. Lacy is finally sent to prison for a murder he committed, and Lisa and the repentant Britton are free to wed. Most critics damned the play, seeing it as an inferior rewriting of Boucicault's The Octoroon but also acknowledged that it would undoubtedly appeal to the public. Helped by the almost instant fame of its celebrated “royal raiment” line, the work became Campbell's biggest success and was mounted regularly as late as 1918.