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PLAIN ENGLISH. 
 
PLAIN ENGLISH 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN HOLLINGSHEAD 
 
 I' 
 
 
 
 ILontJon 
 CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY 
 
 1880 
 
q^' 
 
 
PREFACE, 
 
 HEN David Garrick had a dispute 
 i^~ with the gentle and mysterious 
 
 I^L.:^5> yunius, he was called a vagabond 
 and told to attend to his pantomimes. He 
 attended to his pantomimes and continued 
 the dispute. The same remark might be 
 hurled at me, with about the same result. 
 
 I am now a licensed dealer in legs, short- 
 skirts, French adaptations, Shakespeare, taste 
 and the musical glasses. I am no longer 
 a professional writer toiling for my living, 
 but an amateur writing when I think I 
 have something to say. Perhaps I am mis- 
 taken ; perhaps not. I regard the literary 
 man, or the writing machine, as a barrel- 
 
 lwl.99623 
 
vi Preface. 
 
 organ, made with a certain number of tunes 
 and no more. These tunes may be played 
 over and over again, as long as the public 
 will listen, but they can neither be added 
 to nor diminished. The machine will re- 
 volve its given number of times, and nothing 
 can stop it. What one editor rejects, another 
 is bound to take ; what one publisher spurns, 
 another is bound to print and circulate. 
 Nature provides a remedy for this in fires, 
 dry-rot, and other destructive agencies. The 
 vanity of seeing one's name in print is not an 
 unamiable weakness. The best books have 
 some evil in them, and the worst some good. 
 Let them go their ways in peace, and find 
 their various levels. 
 
 JOHN HOLLINGSHEAD. 
 
COxNTENTS. 
 
 DEALING IN THEATRICALS . 
 
 THE FIRST THEATRE IN EUROPE 
 
 THE PIT .... 
 
 AUTHORS AND MANAGERS . 
 
 actors' SALARIES . 
 
 INSOLENT PATRONAGE OF THE STATE 
 
 FIRES IN THEATRES 
 
 TOMFOOLERY IN LENT 
 
 OUR LITTLE WORLD 
 
 MUSIC AND DANCING LICENSES 
 
 THEATRICAL LICENSES 
 
 MR. PHELPS AT THE GAIETY 
 
 CHARLES Mathews's last years in london 
 
 HOW the electric light came to LONDON 
 A tale of TWO chimneys . 
 
 the mystery of a dress-coat 
 
 HOW TO manage a CERTAIN PARASITE 
 
 as safe as the bank 
 
 plain english 
 
 Jupiter's apprenticeship . 
 
 I 
 
 15 
 
 24 
 
 31 
 
 36 
 
 41 
 46 
 
 52 
 58 
 
 65 
 
 70 
 
 III 
 117 
 
 ^•25 
 
 139 
 148 
 
 153 
 
 170 
 
 177 
 
DEALING IN THEATRICALS. 
 
 HERE is no brick - and - mortar 
 investment more profitable in 
 London than that of building 
 theatres, and there is no occupation more 
 easy and agreeable than theatrical manage- 
 ment. The happy landlord of a London 
 theatre builds in odd holes and corners — in 
 back-yards and blind-alleys, in slums and 
 dust-holes ; and when his temple of the drama 
 is nearly complete, he obtains a narrow en- 
 trance and a frontage in a public thoroughfare 
 sufficient to carry a flaming gas ' device,' and 
 immediately lets his property at a fifteen per 
 cent, rental, reserving various privileges, and 
 taking the fullest security. His choice of 
 
 I 
 
' , • • • • • 
 
 2 Dealing in Theatricals. 
 
 tenants Is ample and varied. At one end of 
 his list are a host of penniless showmen ; at 
 the other are half a dozen belted earls with 
 what are called * theatrical proclivities.' Un- 
 deceived by the Micawberism of one class, or 
 the dazzling brilliancy of the other, he demands 
 and obtains those material guarantees which 
 make business a pleasure and earth a paradise. 
 The theatrical manager's occupation is easy 
 and agreeable, far beyond that of most occu- 
 pations, because he has so many people to 
 advise him and take an interest in his affairs. 
 The soap-boiler in the City and the Govern- 
 ment clerk at the West-end have no mis- 
 giving as to their power of directing his 
 faltering footsteps. Sixty newspapers, more 
 or less, seem to be written, printed, and pub- 
 lished for no other purpose than to point out 
 to him the many pitfalls in his path. Not 
 only newspapers of an artistic character are 
 amongst his friends, but trade journals leave 
 their more serious affairs to watch over his 
 trivialities. He is told what to do by the 
 recognised organs of Mincing Lane; he is 
 
Dealing in Theatricals. 3 
 
 told what to avoid by the appointed guar- 
 dians of the corn-market. Journals that 
 appear to be a little hazy in the management 
 of their own business are very decided as to 
 the management of his; infant journals — the 
 'Little Toddlekins' of the press — and journals 
 on the eve of bankruptcy and extinction can 
 still lift up their piping or expiring voices to 
 give him a solemn warning. If the manager 
 is of an irritable and sarcastic nature, he may 
 possibly resent these counsels, and may hang 
 up the fable of the old man and his ass in a 
 prominent part of his theatre as a delicate 
 hint to his many advisers. 
 
 If the manager is a practical man — and no 
 man who is not practical ought to have the 
 direction of a theatre — his first duty, when 
 he takes possession of his theatre, will be to 
 supervise the work of his architect. He will 
 sit in every seat in his house, and look at 
 the stage from every point of view from 
 which the audience will have to look at it. 
 If any Corinthian capital, caryatides, gur- 
 goyle, or other architectural ornaments come 
 
 I — 2 
 
4 Dealing in Theatricals, 
 
 in the line of anyone's sight, from a six- 
 penny boy in the gallery to the holder of a 
 ten-shilling stall, he will sacrifice those orna- 
 ments without a moment's hesitation. If 
 any columns threaten to prove obstructions 
 of a similar nature, he will fill their places 
 with girders with the least possible delay, 
 until he has made his theatre a place in which 
 all his audience can see all the performance. 
 When the Surrey Theatre was rebuilt after 
 the last fire, a splendid architectural ceiling 
 was displayed on the first night, which had 
 only the trifling defect that it prevented half 
 the gallery from seeing the stage. The 
 house had to be closed and half this ceiling 
 . cut away before the manager could fairly 
 commence his business. 
 
 The next duty of the manager will be to 
 ascertain whether his audience can hear as 
 easily as they can see, and on this point he is 
 more at the mercy of the brute force of 
 matter. What are called the ' acoustic pro- 
 perties ' of a playhouse are largely the result 
 of accident. Until the first word is spoken, 
 
Dealing in Theatricals. 5 
 
 no one can say whether a whisper will pene- 
 trate to the farthest corner of the buildin^ir, or 
 a pistol-shot be scarcely audible. If the 
 manager meets with good luck in this 
 respect, so much the better for the manager : 
 if he meets with bad luck, he must try to 
 improve it by every means in his power. 
 
 His next duty will be to ascertain whether 
 his audience can breathe in his theatre, a 
 matter that is very difficult in many play- 
 houses. He must not bake his audience on 
 one side and freeze them on the other, but 
 he must so temper the wind to the shorn 
 lamb that the shorn lambs may not suffer 
 from neuralgia or old toothache. Whilst on 
 the subject of ventilation he must thoroughly 
 examine the sanitary condition of his pro- 
 perty. A theatre ought not to play into the 
 hands of the Mawworm class, and become, 
 what they say it is, a 'whitened sepulchre.' 
 No manager ought to invite a visitor to the 
 play without offering him, as near as possible, 
 the same comforts that he leaves at home. The 
 French theatres in this respect are examples 
 
6 Dealing in Theabncals, 
 
 to avoid. No sensible man ought to go 
 even to a private box in Paris without a 
 dust-pan, a broom, a few hat-pegs, a small 
 strip of carpet, . a surgical appliance for 
 straightening crippled or cramped legs, and 
 a little chloride of lime or other disinfectant. 
 No sensible man ought, on any consideration, 
 to go into one of those avant-schie boxes, 
 those Punch-and-Judy-shovv abominations, 
 which disfigure even the splendid mise-en- 
 scene at the Grand Opera. No person of 
 taste ought to sit in a French theatre while 
 the shopkeeper manager is exhibiting an 
 advertisinqf curtain. 
 
 The alliance which has been formed of 
 late years between the gin-shop and the 
 theatre of England is one that requires 
 careful supervision. In this respect the 
 French theatres are models to copy. In 
 some London theatres a gaudy bar and a 
 flaunting barmaid meet you at every turn ; 
 the placards of the great brewers and dis- 
 tillers stare you in the face on every wall ; 
 while the programmes of the performance 
 
Dealing in Theatricals. 7 
 
 are carefully hidden until you produce a shil- 
 ling. Hungry waiters prowl about and 
 suggest drinks to people who are not thirsty 
 or object to stand at a bar, until it is difficult 
 to say where the public-house ends and the 
 theatre begins. Protected by a clause which 
 was smuggled into an Act of Parliament, 
 this theatre-bibbing is not bound by the 
 go-to-bed legislation of the last few years ; 
 and as lono^ as the actors fret their late hours 
 upon the stage, the gin-shop ^^in front of 
 the theatre can sell its fire-water. On the 
 memorable first night of Oona/i at Her 
 Majesty's Theatre the performance lasted 
 till a quarter to three on Sunday morning ; 
 and up to this hour refreshments (sorely 
 needed) were partaken of freely by the much- 
 tried critics. 
 
 While on this subject of refreshments, It 
 will be well for the manager to see that they 
 are really what they profess to be, and not 
 apples of the Dead Sea and Lucrezia Borgia 
 fluids. It is customary at too many theatres for 
 the manao-ement to let the bars to some half- 
 
8 Dialing in Theatricals. 
 
 amateur publican at a rental which almost 
 compels the vendor to sell bad articles at 
 exorbitant prices. It Is also customary at too 
 many theatres to let with these bars the right 
 of worrying the public for the custody of 
 their coats, hats, and sticks, of demanding 
 fees for showing them Into seats which they 
 have paid for, and of forcing on them pro- 
 grammes at twenty times the value of paper 
 and printing. These are evils that should 
 be vigorously stamped out, not only by 
 exhibiting placards warning the public not 
 to give fees, but by discharging without 
 mercy any servants found guilty of taking 
 bribes, though these may have been forced 
 upon them by weak-minded members of the 
 public. As to the bars, If a theatre Is to be 
 a drinklng-shop It may as well be a gocd 
 one ; and the experiment of selling liquor 
 untampered with, as it comes from the 
 brewer or distiller, might do as much for 
 the success of a playhouse as the cultivation 
 of the highest form of drama. 
 
 Having prepared for the reception of 
 
Dealing in Theatricals. 9 
 
 audiences after this fashion, it will be well 
 for the manager to reflect on the probable 
 character of his patrons. He must never 
 forget the melancholy fact that, In spite of 
 the School Board, there are many persons in 
 London who can neither read nor write, and 
 who are compelled to seek that amusement 
 in public places which a defective education 
 has denied to them at home. He must 
 never foreet the fact that in a comfortable 
 gallery the lower orders of society can obtain 
 a degree of physical warmth for a penny an 
 hour which it Is Impossible for them to obtain 
 at home with coals at thirty shillings a ton, 
 and gas at three-shllllngs-and-slxpence the 
 thousand cubic feet. He miust never forget 
 the fact that there are many gentlemen, old 
 and young, In London, who will go to a 
 theatre to admire the beauty of female 
 actresses ; and that there are many ladies, 
 old and young, in the same city, who will go 
 to the theatre to admire the beauty of male 
 actors. He must never forget the fact that 
 many people go to a theatre In a vague sort 
 
lo Dealing in Theatricals, 
 
 of way, believing they are sittlno^ In one play- 
 house when they are sitting in another ; or 
 being in perfect ignorance of the name of the 
 drama they are witnessing, and only alive to 
 the name of the principal actor or actress who 
 may be playing in this drama. He must not 
 forget the fact that many people are attracted 
 by clean seats, civil servants, soft carpets, 
 punctuality, and straightforward manage- 
 ment. He may forget many things, but he 
 must never forget the great fact that, no 
 matter what persons may form his audience, 
 they have a much clearer idea as to the 
 article they want to see than he can possibly 
 give them. He must never attempt to make 
 his taste their taste. His business is to open 
 his shop, and to serve them with what they 
 want, and not with what he probably would 
 like to give them. He must never commit 
 the folly and impertinence of suggesting to a 
 customer who asks for a baked potato the 
 propriety of selecting a rose or a volume of 
 poems. He is not a director of public taste 
 any more than an editor is a director of 
 
Dealiitcr in Theatricals, 1 1 
 
 public opinion. He is only a follower. He 
 must have no theories and no prejudices. 
 He must never sit at his own theatre and 
 watch the pieces he gives to the public. Few 
 men can do this without becoming prejudiced 
 either for or against such pieces. He must 
 only look at the financial results, and watch 
 these carefully night by night, with all dis- 
 turbing influences — rain, snow, strikes, com- 
 mercial depression, and other evils. His 
 idea of a good piece must be a piece that 
 pays ; his Idea of a bad piece must be a piece 
 that does not pay. When he finds he has 
 got the first, he must carefully nurse it ; when 
 he finds he has got the latter, he must 
 strangle it with as little remorse as Provi- 
 dence shows for the poor beetle. He must 
 take a lesson from the billiard-room, and be 
 able to fluke with superhuman serenity. 
 When he has made a success, either with a 
 piece, an actor, or with both, he must look as 
 if he were reaping the reward of a scheme 
 which he had been maturing half his life. 
 He must ignore the fact that, like all his 
 
12 Dealing in Theatricals. 
 
 tribe, he lives on a hand-to-mouth poHcy, 
 always waiting for something to turn up. He 
 must gently Insinuate that he selects his 
 authors after years of deliberation ; that his 
 pieces are written to order many seasons 
 before they are wanted ; and that his actors 
 have been selected in the same way, and 
 trained for him, and him alone, by ages of 
 study and tuition. 
 
 When he has to descend from this lofty 
 pedestal, and really select the exponents of 
 his dramas, he will find two courses open to 
 him. He may engage what are called 
 ' stars,' who are rapacious, but popular ; or 
 he may surround himself with a group of 
 well-drilled mediocrities. He must not be 
 astonished If he Is asked to pay the salary of 
 an Under-Secretary of State to a young man 
 who has just stepped out of society on to the 
 stage, and whose chief merit may be his 
 ability to act as a clothes-horse. If he asks 
 one of these actors to play a recognised part 
 in the standard drama of his country, he 
 must not feel surprised if six months' re- 
 
Dealing in Theatricals. 13 
 
 hearsal Is demanded. The days have \o\^g 
 passed when every actor had a repertory of 
 twenty parts, In any one of which he was 
 ready to appear at an hour's notice. Each 
 actor in our time only plays about one part a 
 year, is drilled by machinery, and goes on 
 till the springs run down, like a piece of 
 Swiss clockwork. 
 
 In the selection of his plays, or rather 
 authors, his choice will be much more 
 limited. If he shows any hesitation, it 
 cannot arise from the varlet}^ of material at 
 his disposal. He will find that there are 
 fifty theatres, m.ore or less, In London, and 
 only about three dramatic authors. He w^ill 
 treat these gentlemen \vith great respect, and 
 wait his turn to be served, like a duchess at 
 a Civil Service store. He w^ill buy his 
 dramatic pigs In a poke, and pay what Is 
 asked without a murmur. Occasionally he 
 will get a piece from a French source, which 
 he will either steal or pay for in a prodigal 
 manner ; and, having secured it, he will place 
 it in the hands of one of the two recognised 
 
14 Dealing in Theairicais, 
 
 English adapters. If he spends much money 
 in placing it on the stage, he will be told that 
 he is a fool and an upholsterer ; and if he 
 starves it in the production, he will be told 
 that he is a shortsighted niggard. If he flies 
 to the old drama as a refuge, he will have to 
 plunge Into Shakespeare and legitimacy, as 
 there are not more than three comedies out 
 of a thousand, from the time of Queen Eliza- 
 beth to that of Queen Victoria, that are 
 worth the trouble of acting. Being in for 
 theatrical management, however, he will do 
 his best according to his lights, and at the 
 end of a few years he will find that he has 
 either lost ten thousand pounds by hard 
 work, or made double that sum by a series 
 of inexplicable flukes. He may probably 
 hold his peace in the market-place ; but in 
 the privacy of his study he will admit that no 
 particular training in literature and art is 
 necessary for the good government of a 
 theatre, but precisely those qualities that 
 make a successful cheesemonger. 
 
THE FIRST THE A TRE IN E UROPE, 
 
 FEW weeks ago I was staying in 
 Paris for a short time, and doing 
 as most English people do In that 
 gay but limited city. I was eating twice as 
 much food as I could easily digest ; buying a 
 lot of English articles (increased in price by 
 French profits and prohibitive duties) under 
 the fond belief that they were Parisian speci- 
 alities ; spending my days In a promenade 
 that was bounded at one end by the Grand 
 Hotel, and at the other end by the Restau- 
 rant Brebant ; and dividing my nights 
 amongst dramatic entertainments that I had 
 been taught to believe were far superior to 
 anything of the kind In my own benighted 
 
1 6 The First Theatre in Europe, 
 
 country. One morning, while I was eating a 
 second breakfast, which was equal to three 
 English lunches and nearly equal to two Eng- 
 lish dinners, a friend asked me if I had ever 
 been Inside the sacred walls of the Theatre 
 Francais. I was obllo^ed to admit that I had 
 never had that refined pleasure. Of course 
 1 was immediately asked why. I replied, 
 because I had a constitutional aversion to 
 subsidised theatres and academies of all 
 kinds ; that I believed more in free-trade 
 than I did in Government patronage of art ; 
 and that I had almost a loathing for the so- 
 called French classical drama. I admired 
 Moliere. as far as I understood him ; but I 
 thought that he was hardly able to carry 
 Corneille and Racine on his back ; while as 
 to Voltaire, I doubted whether even the 
 Frenchman was living who could sit patiently 
 through one of his very prosy dramas. My 
 friend immediately told me that I was labour- 
 incr under a delusion ; that the Theatre 
 Francais was no longer exclusively the home 
 of the so-called French classical drama ; that 
 
The First Theatre in E 21 rope. 17 
 
 its doors had been thrown open, If not very 
 wide, to the living dramatic authors of 
 France, although he admitted that It had 
 taken nearly a century of persistent agitation 
 to obtain this desirable concession. He 
 moreover told me that if I picked my night 
 I might drop upon a play as popular and bad 
 as any ever produced at the Vaudeville or 
 Oymnase Theatres, and he kindly offered to 
 act as my guide, instructor, and friend on the 
 night of my proposed visit. I could scarcely 
 refuse so polite an offer from a distinguished 
 Parisian, and I selected the night of the day 
 on which this conversation took place. We 
 looked at the programme, and the play hap- 
 pened to be UEtrangcrc. 
 
 About half-past seven o'clock^ after an un- 
 usually light dinner, for I felt that some little 
 physical training was necessary on this Im- 
 portant occasion, I was taken down to the 
 stage-door of the ' first theatre In Europe,' 
 as It Is often called, and Introduced to a 
 mutual friend, a distinguished member of 
 the Comedie Francalse. I was received 
 
 2 
 
1 8 The First Theatre in Etcrope. 
 
 with great courtesy, and invited to inspect 
 the back of the theatre, the stage, and Its 
 adjuncts before going in to see the per- 
 formance. I found the stage-entrance and 
 the porter's lodge very lofty, clean, and quiet ; 
 very unlike the dismal and dirty dens which 
 architects have planned for the stage- 
 entrances of most London theatres. I 
 followed our mutual friend up a broad, richly- 
 carpeted staircase, passing walls adorned with 
 portraits of past literary and artistic cele- 
 brities, and resting on landings which were 
 handsomely furnished with busts and pedes- 
 tals. I could scarcely realise the fact that I 
 was on my way to the dressing-rooms of the 
 theatre, and not going to the reception-saloons, 
 of some Minister of State. A glimpse at the 
 two 'green-rooms' — the large and small green- 
 room — only fostered this idea. The large 
 ereen-room was like a room In the Palace of 
 Versailles, loaded with portraits of those who 
 had done honour to the theatre from the old 
 days of its foundation. My attention was. 
 directed to the portrait of Moliere, as it was 
 
The First Theatre in Europe. 19 
 
 afterwards directed in another part of the 
 theatre to the statue of Voltaire, said to be 
 the best statue of that author in France ; and 
 after paying full reverence to Moliere's be- 
 wig-ged head, I asked if Victor Hugo had yet 
 been admitted into this theatrical Walhalla. 
 Although this illustrious author's great play 
 of 'Plernani' was posted up as being in re- 
 hearsal, I found that I had rather shocked 
 our mutual friend by such an inquiry ; and I 
 then remembered the Conservative, not to say 
 Tory, feeling which animates all actors, and 
 especially the actors of a subsidised theatre. 
 
 I took a passing glimpse of the stage with- 
 out intruding myself, and saw that Smyrna 
 rugs were placed at the wings for the actresses 
 to stand upon, and I was then conducted to 
 the private room of the director of the theatre. 
 We were admitted to an antechamber by a 
 servant in private livery, and after a little 
 delay were ushered into the presence of the 
 director. Our reception was polite and 
 stately, in keeping with the apartment in 
 which we were seated. The walls and ceiling 
 
20 The First Theatre in Eicrope, 
 
 were covered with rich Gobelin tapestry ; the 
 furniture and carpets were In harmony with 
 these surroundings ; and the stillness of the 
 chamber suggested the parlour of a wealthy 
 convent. There were no traces of Thespian 
 carts — of vagabond booths and cockpit 
 theatres. I felt that I was In a Government 
 office, and that the Government had some- 
 thing to look at for Its money. 
 
 Our brief Interview with the director being 
 over, v/e were ushered through a corridor 
 into the audito^Huvi of the theatre, and we 
 seated ourselves In our two orchestral stalls 
 to witness the performance. The luxury 
 behind the scenes Is certainly not continued 
 in the front of the house. Our seats were 
 narrow and cramped, the floor was dirty and 
 uncarpeted, and the dust In the spaces at the 
 back of the seats starlncr us In the face mlg^ht 
 have been taken out with a small shovel. 
 The decorations of the theatre are rich and 
 showy — the house appearing to be not quite 
 as large as Drury Lane — but the corridors 
 are low-roofed and badly ventilated. Cloaks 
 
The First Theatre in Europe. 21 
 
 and coats, when given to the attendants, are 
 rolled up in bundles, deposited on the floor 
 or in corners, and generally returned to their 
 owners with a considerable quantity of dirt 
 upon them. The space so much required by 
 the public is partly let off to an optician, who 
 advertises himself while he lets out opera- 
 glasses ; in short, all the vices of the worst 
 French theatres, as far as regards the front 
 of the house, are perpetuated at the Theatre 
 Francais. 
 
 The play placed before us on this evening 
 • — ' L'Etrangere,' by Dumas the younger — 
 ought not, perhaps, to be taken as a fair test 
 of what the Comedie Francalse does when it 
 steps outside its classical repertoire, and 
 begins to encourage the contemporary French 
 drama. The mission of the Theatre Francais, 
 if it has a mission, is certainly not to take 
 away from the Gymnase or the Vaudeville a 
 commonplace drama of shallow^ conventional 
 intrigue, which w^ould do no credit to any 
 theatre. The Theatre Frangais does not 
 draw eight or ten thousand pounds sterlin^^ 
 
22 The First Theatre in Etcrope, 
 
 per annum from the pockets of the French 
 taxpayers to produce such a tawdry piece of 
 French dramatic workmanship as this play. 
 By producing * 'LEtrangere' it has probably 
 put money into the pockets of its sociitaireSy 
 for the piece is undoubtedly popular ; but the 
 Francais is subsidised to fly in the face of 
 popularity, if popularity Is only to be gained 
 at the expense of art. The cast Is what is 
 called a full cast — that Is, It comprises Sarah 
 Bernhardt, Crolsette, Rohan, Coquelln, Febvre, 
 Sully, etc. — and at one time it did comprise 
 Got. The supposed discipline of the theatre, 
 however, has been relaxed to relieve Got of 
 his part, and to put in his place a far inferior 
 actor. None of the actors and actresses 
 shine in their characters, perhaps for want of 
 sympathy with their work. Coquelln is 
 merely grotesque as the Duke, Crolsette is 
 vulgar as the Duchess, Febvre ineffective 
 as the American, and Sully wild and spectral 
 as the lover. Sarah Bernhardt alone is 
 spiritual and forcible as the ElrangerCy 
 though she might attain this force with- 
 
The First Theatre in Europe, 2 
 
 J 
 
 out turning her eyes into her head quite so 
 often. 
 
 There are not many persons in England 
 who do not reverence the Theatre Fran^ais ; 
 there are many persons who really regard it 
 with a blind and superstitious reverence — 
 the offspring of hearsay and ignorance ; and 
 there are a few persons who know its history, 
 and still love it. My first visit to this cele- 
 brated — and probably justly celebrated — 
 theatre has not enrolled me at present in 
 either of these three classes, as I am accus- 
 tomed to be governed by what I see, and not 
 by what other people tell me. 
 
THE PIT, 
 
 HE reconstruction of the Haymarket 
 Theatre by Mr. Bancroft, which 
 has resulted In the destruction of 
 a certain number of seats on the ground-floor, 
 usually called the pit, and the substitution of 
 certain more or less luxurious chairs, commonly 
 called stalls, has given rise to a discussion of 
 a somewhat peculiar character. It has been 
 assumed in many quarters that a theatrical 
 manager — the most heavily taxed, rated, and 
 rented tradesman in the world — Is bound to 
 carry on his business on sentimental principles, 
 thinking more of some mysterious duty which 
 he is supposed to owe to the public, and of 
 another mysterious duty which he is supposed 
 
The Pit. 
 
 -D 
 
 to owe to art, than of a certain less mysterious 
 duty which he undoubtedly owes to his 
 creditors and his breeches-pocket. Of course 
 no manager takes any heed of these discus- 
 sions, but carries on his business on the 
 divine and everlasting principle of self-interest 
 — a principle which probably governs the 
 universe. The director of the Comedie 
 Francaise — the director of the first theatre In 
 the world, M. E. Perrin — has set an example 
 to his brother-managers, of working steadily 
 for the highest receipts which his theatre will 
 hold, caring very little, to all appearance, 
 whether those receipts were made by con- 
 tinually running an electro-plated piece like 
 ' UEtrangere,' or by representing the fine 
 old crusted works of the ancient masters. 
 The late Mr. Bateman, after boxing the 
 theatrical compass for some years In search 
 of the magnetic play, at last discovered It la 
 ^ Hamlet,' and held on to It day and night 
 like grim death as long as the public w^ould 
 have It, without paying much attention to the 
 health of the principal perform^er, or those 
 
26 The Pit, 
 
 interests of art which are thought to be best 
 served by giving as much variety as possible. 
 My friend, Mr. Irving, followed with a policy 
 which some of the journals were good enough 
 to say he had copied from me, of changing 
 his programme very frequently, and playing 
 different pieces on alternate nights. If ever 
 I conducted my theatre on such a policy, it 
 was forced upon me by hard necessity — by 
 the non-attractiveness of my pieces or the 
 company representing them. I do not say 
 that Mr. Irving was ever in this unenviable 
 position ; but I do say that the moment he 
 found his eold-mine in ' The Merchant of 
 Venice,' away went ^ The Bells,' * The Iron 
 Chest,' * The Lady of Lyons,' and even 
 'Hamlet,' as so much lumber; the 'run' 
 was nursed, as it ought to be ; and the public 
 were told to book their seats six weeks in 
 advance. 
 
 My friend, Mr. Bancroft, takes the Hay- 
 market Theatre at a very heavy rental, on a 
 not very long lease, and thoroughly rebuilds 
 it at a ' cost which will probably represent a 
 
The Pit, 27 
 
 charge of ten pounds a night as long as he 
 remains in possession.' He finds that the 
 levels will not allow him to excavate a pit 
 under the dress circle, and his space outside 
 his dress circle on the floor of the house is 
 only sufficient for his stalls. He makes his 
 house like the Opera Comique has always 
 been (with the exception of a very brief 
 period), like the Gaiety Theatre was during 
 the French plays last season, and like Covent 
 Garden is on a great Patti-night — that is, a 
 house with no pit. For this he was exposed 
 to something like a riot on the first night by 
 a number of people in a very comfortable 
 * upper circle,' who were assumed to be the 
 old and discontented pit-frequenters of the 
 Haymarket Theatre, who resented the alter- 
 ation as an attack upon their vested interests. 
 The only shadow of an excuse for this out- 
 break of theatrical protectionism was the 
 comfortable character of the lost pit. In one 
 of the worst-constructed houses ever built, it 
 was the one place where all those who were 
 fortunate enough to get seats could sit, see. 
 
28 The Pit 
 
 hear, and breathe. As I said years ago In 
 the AtheiicBum (the journal, not the club) : 
 
 I have been there and still would go, 
 'Twas quite a little heaven below. 
 
 The pit-visitors enjoyed this place for fifty 
 years at a too moderate price, while their 
 wretched superiors were ricking their necks 
 in the dress circle, or cramping their legs in 
 the private boxes. Now the turn of the 
 superiors has come ; but who has any right 
 to grumble? No doubt the stage-loafers in 
 Shakespeare's time, who lined the wings on 
 each side, who smoked and spat upon the 
 stage, and interrupted the performers, were 
 much hurt when their room was wanted by 
 Davenant and others for scenic display, and 
 they were sent into the front of the house to 
 find their level. Their position, however, 
 was different from that of the pit-claimants 
 at the Haymarket. When they were turned 
 out — or, rather, moved to another place — no 
 doubt the move was general, but the aboli- 
 tion of the pit at the Haymarket is only an 
 
The Pit. 29 
 
 experiment on the part of one manager out 
 of fifty. The days of theatrical monopoly 
 are over. Anyone can get a theatrical 
 license by applying at St. James's Palace, 
 paying the necessary fees, and getting the 
 usual two householders to become nominal 
 securities. Any music-hall defying or offend- 
 ing the magistrates, can become a theatre ; 
 and the peculiarity of this license is that it 
 gives an equal privilege to every speculator 
 and every building. The man who spends 
 a fortune in constructing a splendid theatre, 
 is In no better position than the man who 
 runs up a shed In which the sanitary and 
 dressing arrangements may violate every rule 
 of health and decency. This fact appears to 
 be so little known, that the philosophical and 
 usually well-informed Spectator appears to 
 side with the pit-claimants in Mr. Bancroft's 
 case, and talks about lessees being in the 
 enjoyment of a protected monopoly and 
 valuable privileges. The only privilege a 
 lessee possesses is the privilege of paying 
 heavy rates and taxes, and of paying fees to 
 
30 The Pit, 
 
 the licenser of plays for reading pieces which 
 may not be licensed. Mr. Bancroft, in some 
 quarters, has been accused of flunkyism, for 
 turning the pit into stalls ; but those who 
 accused him could not have known that he is 
 the first manager of the Haymarket Theatre 
 who has had the courage to ask the proper 
 market-price for the royal box — a box which, 
 though nominally royal, is generally used by 
 the royal household. 
 
AUTHORS AND MANAGERS. 
 
 N author (we may take it) Is a 
 person who writes and sells ^pieces/ 
 and a manager is a person who 
 buys and sells pieces. They stand precisely 
 in the same relation to each other as the 
 potato producer and the potato salesmen. 
 The commodity they make, sell, buy, and 
 sell is one much In demand. Fifty theatres, 
 more or less ; fifty managers, less or more ; 
 and four millions of people, in round num- 
 bers, in London alone are consumers of this 
 commodity. The ' provinces ' (in which of- 
 fensive term the whole of Ireland and Scot- 
 land is Included), with twenty-eight more 
 millions of people, are also consumers of this 
 
32 Authors and Managers, 
 
 commodity. Surveyors are now measuring 
 the ground, architects are preparing the plans, 
 and capitalists are finding the money (so I 
 am told) for more theatres, but no one is 
 buildinof a new author. The small and de- 
 voted band of six dramatic authors (more or 
 less) has been recently diminished by one 
 who has taken one of the fifty London 
 theatres, and has turned manager ; while 
 another, and the most fruitful and original of 
 our authors, has ao;-ain taken to the staofe, 
 and so diminished the hours during which 
 he can cultivate the dramatic potato. ' Re- 
 vivals,' however good and carefully done, 
 cannot go on for ever. The playgoer will 
 not always be fed upon hashed mutton. It 
 requires a superhuman faith in the great law 
 of supply and demand to go to sleep calmly 
 in the face of such a prospect. 
 
 I am not taking up my rusty pen, and 
 dipping Into my cobwebbed inkstand, to 
 frighten my unknown friends, the untried 
 authors ; my purpose is rather to encourage 
 these much-enduring, and sometimes much- 
 
Authors and Ala7iagcrs. 2,0 
 
 inflicting, writers. They produce bundles of 
 manuscript with amazing facility, but very 
 few of these bundles ever take the form of 
 acted plays. During the last seven years I 
 have looked at seven hundred bundles of this 
 description — an average of two a week — and 
 not one of them has been what It professed 
 to be — a play suited to the theatre which I 
 attempt to manage. I may have misjudged 
 some of these pieces, according to my lights ; 
 but. If so, other managers must have done 
 the sam.e, as I never heard that any one of 
 these rejected manuscripts became a success- 
 ful play at another London theatre. The few 
 — the very few — manuscripts that had the 
 apparent making of a play in them were 
 either not fitted to my company, my plans, 
 or my house. Rejecting one-half as utterly 
 worthless, as the production of men, women, 
 and children who had no vocation for play- 
 writing, the other half may have contained a 
 certain amount of cleverness. If this clever- 
 ness had been devoted to a careful study of 
 the theatrical market, to the character of 
 
34 Authors and Managers. 
 
 theatres, the plans of managers, the whims 
 of audiences, the pecuHarltles of actors, and 
 the composition of theatrical companies, and 
 if, after this study, twenty plays had been 
 carefully constructed and written, five of 
 these plays might have struck root, and the 
 others have withered where they were 
 planted. 
 
 The untried dramatic author never makes 
 a greater mistake than when he assumes that 
 the manager is blind and deaf to his merits ; 
 the manager is only too glad to find a new 
 play and a new writer ; but the managers 
 dealing in tragedies and melodramas are not 
 the people, as a rule, to look at so-called 
 ^musical pieces;' and managers dealing in 
 farces and musical pieces are not, as a rule, 
 the people to look at tragedies and melo- 
 dramas. It is worse than useless for an 
 untried writer to suggest an * Oriental 
 • extravaganza' to a manager, as pieces 
 of that description are almost written on the 
 stage, in consultation with manager, actors, 
 scene-painters, costumiers, and musical di- 
 
AtUJiors arid Managers. 35 
 
 rectors. The untried author has Improved 
 of late years In the matter of penmanship, 
 and In many cases he sends his play In a 
 printed form, which saves the manager's 
 time, and patience and eyesight. The 
 untried author, however, relying upon type 
 or good penmanship, Is sometlm.es too apt to 
 send in his plays as If he dealt in them 
 * wholesale and for exportation.' The 
 clearest handwriting I ever saw came to 
 me in the shape of three plays, sent in one 
 bundle ; and a letter, equally clear and busi- 
 ness-like, came to me within a week, and at 
 a busy season of the year, to know if I had 
 read these plays, and had decided on one or 
 all. Another gentleman was a little more 
 peculiar, not to say unreasonable. In the 
 morning he sent a bundle which appeared 
 to me to be written in Chaldee. In the 
 evening he caught me at the stage-door, and 
 seemed surprised that, as a scholar and a 
 gentleman, I had not fluently read his piece, 
 which was written in Gurrieys shorthand. 
 
 3—2 
 
ACTORS' SALARIES. 
 
 ANAGERS from time to time have 
 raised an outcry about the alarm- 
 ing increase of actors' salaries^ 
 and have attributed their bankruptcy, not to 
 the fact that they have failed to hit the public 
 taste in the selection of dramas or dramatic 
 exponents, but to the extreme rapacity of 
 ''the profession." They have shown a singular 
 ignorance of the laws of supply and demand. 
 They have seen theatres springing up in 
 every direction in town and country without 
 a corresponding increase in the number of 
 actors and actresses, and yet they have pro- 
 fessed to be astonished that salaries have 
 more than doubled in less than a quarter of a 
 
Actors Salaries. ^j 
 
 centi:r3\ They have refused to acknow- 
 ledge the fact that a performer is worth a 
 certain portion of his ^ drawing' power, 
 although they must know that an acrobat like 
 Leotard received /"^o a nlo^ht for his ten 
 minutes' performance at the Alhambra, and 
 that Blondln received ^loo for every one of 
 his high-rope ascensions at the Crystal Palace. 
 After making every allowance for the 
 diminished purchasing power of money in the 
 present day compared with fifty years ago, 
 there is still much in the salaries paid to the 
 leading actors and actresses in the ' palmy 
 davs of the drama ' that will strike theatrical 
 people as curious. Take Drury Lane, for 
 example, at the early part of the present 
 century (1802-3). The best-paid male actor 
 of the stock company was Jack Bannister, 
 who got £2^ a week, while Charles Kemble 
 had to be content with £11 2l week. Dowton 
 got ^12 a week; Pope, ;^io ; Suett, ^10; 
 Wroughton, ^10; Palmer, ^10; and these 
 salaries tapered down to much smaller sums, 
 like £6 and £^, which stood against the 
 
3^' A doits' Salaries, 
 
 names of Barrymore, Wewltzer, etc. Miss 
 Pope got ^12 a week; Miss Mellon, ^lo; 
 Miss De Camp, £"] ; while some of the ladies 
 were paid nightly. At Covent Garden John 
 Philip Kemble received ^^30 a week ; Charles 
 Kemble received ^12 a week {£1 more than 
 he got at Drury Lane) ; G. F. Cooke got 
 ;^25 ; Munden, £1^ ; Emery, ^9 ; Lewis, 
 £12; Johnstone, ;^io ; Knight, ^7; Blan- 
 chard, the same; Favvcett, ^10; Farley, 
 £6 , and others in proportion. Mrs. Sid- 
 dons received £2^ a week ; Mrs. Maddocks, 
 £Z ; Mrs. Glover, ^9 ; and Mrs. Litchfield, 
 ;^i5. It IS betraying no professional secrets 
 to say that neither Miss Ellen Terry nor 
 Mrs. Kendal would look at a salary such as 
 Mrs. Siddons was glad to take, while in the 
 country now on the sharing system they can 
 often make ten times what they make in 
 London. 
 
 The sudden and unfortunate collapse of 
 one of the great London theatres — a house 
 sometimes called the National Theatre — has 
 raised the question (a question which could 
 
Actors Salaries, 39 
 
 only exist in the theatrical profession) as to 
 the propriety or impropriety of taking or re- 
 fusing half-salaries. Theatrical people are 
 so hedged round with conventional and 
 peculiar customs, that it is almost impossible 
 to approach them as you would approach 
 other labourers. The benefit system is one 
 of these customs, and until this is abolished 
 it is difficult to believe that there is not some- 
 thing in the constitution of a playhouse com- 
 pany which removes them from the operation 
 of ordinary commercial laws. Few people, 
 however, outside the charmed circle, fail to 
 see the absurdity of throwing any blame on 
 any body of actors and theatrical workpeople, 
 or any members of that body, who refuse to 
 submit to a sudden reduction of fifty per 
 cent, on their salaries to sustain a falling 
 theatre in which they never had any interest 
 in profits. If it were the custom of managers 
 in thriving times to call their company 
 together and distribute bonuses or double 
 salaries on the score of the general prosperity, 
 there might then be some justification, in a 
 
40 Actor ^ Salaries, 
 
 time of trouble, for demandlnc^ services at 
 half the proper remuneration. This not being 
 the case (there is no record of such a case), it 
 is foolish and illogical to abuse, even by im- 
 plication, any members of a company who 
 refuse to act the moment they are told that 
 the manager is not in a position to pay their 
 salaries. The sentiment which is too often 
 imported into theatrical transactions generally 
 leads to some injustice, and the sooner actors, 
 authors, and managers accept their position 
 as traders, and nothing more, the better It 
 will be for the so-called ' dramatic profession/ 
 
INSOLENT PATRONAGE OF THE 
 
 STAGE, 
 
 iHERE Is no more unfortunate in- 
 stitution than the Stage. When 
 it is not being over-licensed and 
 over-reo-ulatecl, ic is being over-patronised. 
 OfficiaHsni looks after its morals, and Bumble- 
 dom attends to its drainage. A time may 
 come, perhaps, when Bumbledom will wish 
 to look after its morals as much as Officialism 
 looks after its architecture and sanitary 
 arrangements. At present, however, it is 
 spared that infliction ; but it is suffering from 
 another. The Church, as it is called, has 
 taken It in hand, and is trying to wean it 
 from its evil ways. Bishops preach at it, 
 
4 2 Insolent Patronage of the Stage. 
 
 and clergymen dally with It. No Social 
 Science Congress is considered complete 
 without a 'paper' on this unfortunate institu- 
 tion. The active missionary has had his 
 attention drawn to this new field for his 
 labours. The inevitable tract makes its 
 appearance, and is thrust under the nose of 
 the mummer. He reads it, or he lights his 
 pipe with it. If he reads it he is astonished 
 at the liberty allowed to pious printers. He 
 sees the name of the Deity used with a 
 flippant familiarity that would make a Lord 
 Chamberlain die with horror. He goes to a 
 church, and is astonished to hear what comes 
 from a privileged pulpit. He wonders why 
 the Stage is less privileged, and no one can 
 tell him. The press and/ the platform 
 astonish him still more. I am not speaking 
 of the ulcerated journalism of the day in con- 
 nection with the press, nor of the Hall of 
 Science, in the Old Street Road, in connec- 
 nection with the platform. Any average 
 newspaper, and any average discussion hall, 
 may well astonish the over-licensed, over- 
 
hisolcnt Patronage of the Stage, 43 
 
 regulated actor, who Is compelled to dance 
 his hornpipe In fetters. He reads free- 
 thought and hears free-speech on every side, 
 while he Is not allowed to open his mouth, 
 except at the bidding of a master of the 
 ceremonies. While the caricaturist runs 
 rampant In a hundred prints, he Is not allowed 
 to imitate the blinking beauty of Mr. Robert 
 Lowe, nor the sour earnestness of Mr. Glad- 
 stone's visage. The wart of Cromwell would 
 not be granted to him If Cromwell were 
 alive, any more than the historical ringlets of 
 a much more showy living personage. On 
 every side he Is surrounded by restriction, 
 and yet he wonders that certain people take 
 him for a dangerous vagabond. As long as 
 he Is over-licensed, and over-regulated to 
 this extent, and as long as he works patiently, 
 I may say almost humbly, under such re- 
 strictions, he can hardly be surprised that 
 * society ' looks at him with something like 
 timidity, or offers him patronage which Is 
 slightly Insolent. 
 
 The discussion raised in the pages of the 
 
44 Insolent Patronage of the Stage. 
 
 Times about the degradation of the Stage, 
 which resulted In the not very magnificent 
 offer of ^iioo towards regenerating this 
 unfortunate institution, was not a compHment 
 to the play-actor. It appeared in a paper 
 which generally puts Its dramatic ' notices ' 
 amongst the advertising lumber in Its supple- 
 ment. An editor who had any real respect 
 for the Staee would hardlv have admitted 
 such aimless and Impracticable twaddle Into 
 Ills columns, and patrons of the Stage who 
 really had Its welfare at heart would not have 
 made such feeble and Ill-considered proposi- 
 tions. 
 
 The belief In the efficacy of State pa- 
 tronage, or semi-State patronage, can only 
 exist In the minds of people who are fuddled 
 with the fumes of protection. The only thing 
 the State can do to any Institution, Is to suck 
 money from It in the shape of local or Im- 
 perial taxation ; and the best thing the State 
 can do to any Institution is to stand out of Its 
 Yv^ay. The Royal Academy Is not such a 
 shining example of the benefits of State 
 
Lisolcnt Patronage of the Stage. 45 
 
 patronage that anyone would wish to borrow 
 the system and apply It to the Stage. 
 
 The patronage of the Church, as It Is called, 
 may be equally well-meant, but Is no less an 
 impertinence. * In a country,' as the French 
 philosopher said, * which has forty religions 
 and only one fish-sauce,' it is just possible 
 that many people may question the right 
 of any one Church to call itself the Church. 
 The Stage may and does call Itself the Stage, 
 as the members of the Dramatic profession 
 call themselves the Profession ; but the right 
 of one Church to ignore all other Churches 
 is much more open to serious discussion. 
 The newly-born fancy of this one Church for 
 the Stage and its followers Is not a compli- 
 ment to the latter. It Is about on a level 
 with the politeness of a man in the gutter 
 who thrusts a tract Into your hands on the 
 presumption that you are going headlong to 
 the Devil. 
 
FIRES IN THEATRES, 
 
 HE lamentable fire at the Brooklyn 
 Theatre has brought down such a 
 flood of official, leading articles, 
 suggestions, and even insults on the heads of 
 theatrical managers, that it is only fair to 
 allow one of us space for a few words in 
 reply. Managers are so much accustomed 
 to be treated like the old man who 
 owned the ass in the fable, that they be- 
 come, perhaps, a litde deaf to advice ; but 
 there is no reason why * A Fellow of the 
 Chemical Society ' should say in the Times 
 that it is idle to hope that any plan will be 
 adopted to protect theatrical audiences. 
 The Chemical Fellow's plan is, of course, 
 
Fires in Theatres, 47 
 
 chemicals ; and if the Chemical Fellow will 
 turn his reforminor eye on the 'Sale of 
 Poisons Act/ and prevent country chandler's- 
 shopkeepers ladling out arsenic in the midst 
 of butter, cheese, and bacon, I will lay in a 
 ton of tungstate of soda to-m.orro\v, though 
 in practice I have found it a very uncertain 
 anti-inflammable aeent. 
 
 There are many questions which are more 
 or less unfitted for public discussion, and this 
 question of fires in theatres, I venture to 
 think, is one of them. No writer wants to 
 create a panic, and yet every article is help- 
 ing to raise one. 
 
 If our theatres are unsafe, the Lord 
 Chamberlain, his officers, the Metropolitan 
 Board of Works, the 6th and 7th Victoria, 
 cap. 68, the good sense and humanity of 
 theatrical managers, and other forces, are 
 quite able to provide a remedy. 
 
 It is quite possible that former Lord 
 Chamberlains may have licensed many 
 theatres that ought never to have been built 
 or licensed; but now that official attention 
 
48 Fires in Theatres, 
 
 has been drawn by the Brooklyn fire to this 
 fact, no .^ood, but much harm, may be done 
 by the pubh'catlon of ' regulations ' which 
 ought to be enforced before they are printed, 
 and not printed before they are enforced. 
 
 The public mind may be wrought up to 
 such a pitch of excitement that any hysterical 
 person may cause a serious accident In any 
 crowded building at any moment. Some of 
 the advice so freely be'stowed upon managers 
 might, with more advantage, be given to the 
 public In teaching them how to go Into a 
 building In a decent, orderly, and unselfish 
 manner. People who nearly trample each 
 other to death In going into a theatre are not 
 likely to act with any more calmness in 
 coming out. French playgoers have been 
 schooled for generations Into very different 
 behaviour ; but then phlegmatic Frenchmen 
 are so unlike excitable Englishmen. 
 
 Since you'" last allowed me to address you 
 
 * The Editor of the Times. 
 
Fires in Theatres. 49 
 
 on the subject of fires in theatres, the panic 
 has somewhat subsided ; but sufficient in- 
 terest, not to say anxiety, is shown in the 
 matter to prompt both Sir Wlhlam Fraser 
 and Mr. Onslow to question the Home 
 Secretary in the House of Commons. 
 
 No doubt in the fulness of time both these 
 gentlemen will get their official answers ; 
 meanwhile, perhaps you will allow me to 
 communicate the result of certain inquiries 
 and calculations which I have had made by a 
 friend of mine, an eminent actuary, accus- 
 tomed to confront sensational topics with the 
 strict logic of figures. The result of this 
 gentleman's researches Is, that in the whole 
 of England — In London and the so-called 
 provinces — for the last fifty years, with ill- 
 constructed, over-crowded, and badly sur- 
 veyed theatres, he can only find a record of 
 one solitary death from fire, and this unit of 
 mortality was not one of the public, and 
 hardly one of the players. Her name was 
 Eliza Twichell, a dresser of Ducrow's, who 
 might have escaped, but went back to fetch 
 
 4 
 
50 Fires in Theatres, 
 
 some things, lost her way, and was suffocated. 
 This one death from fire in fifty years 
 occurred in London In 1841, since which 
 time there has been no similar death In 
 London, with thirteen theatres burnt, while 
 in the so-called provinces, widi eight theatres 
 burnt, there has not been a slno^le death.'" 
 The explanation of this is, that the majority 
 of the theatres were destroyed during the 
 hours when no audience was present ; and I 
 may say generally that there is as little 
 chance of a theatre being burnt down during 
 the hours of performance as there is of a 
 person being burnt to death in the street at 
 Cheapside during the m.iddle of the day for 
 want of passers-by to see and extinguish the 
 fire. 
 
 * The recent destruction of the Theatre Royal, Dublin, 
 adds another death to this Hst — still not one of the public. 
 Poor Mr. Egerton died trying to save Mr. Gunn's theatre. 
 Simple-minded journalists have dreaded to think what 
 the loss of life would have been if the theatre had been 
 full, as it would have been a few minutes later. If the 
 theatre had been full there would have been no fire. The 
 house was burnt down by servants ' skylarking ' amongst 
 muslin curtains with a naked candle. 
 
Fires in Theatres, 5 1 
 
 .When my friend takes his unit of mor- 
 tality — the servant-girl burnt in 1841 — and 
 makes his calculations as to the playgoer's risk 
 of a fiery death while attending a theatre, he 
 comes to the conclusion that it is almost 
 absurd to state it ; and, taking it out of his 
 decimals, it may be put at about a billion 
 to one. If the London playgoer will pay 
 me a penny every time he goes to a theatre, 
 I think I could assure him a sum in case 
 of death that would be 'beyond the dreams 
 of avarice.' . , 
 
 4—2 
 
TOMFOOLERY IN LENT, 
 
 HE age of tomfoolery is not yet 
 extinct in France. Under the 
 name of the Carnival it still sur- 
 vives ; and though the variegated rowdyism 
 of the Second Empire, and still more of the 
 commonplace reign of Louis Philippe, is 
 miserably reduced, there are still enough of 
 jack - puddings, costumiers, coiffeurs, and 
 'property-makers* left to give it a feeble 
 appearance of life. The first Republic in 
 France did its best to stifle this combination 
 of May-day and Bartlemy Fair; but the 
 present Republic — probably wiser in its 
 generation — merely stands on one side and 
 watches this national folly as it dies a 
 
Tomfoolery in Lent, 53 
 
 natural death. The masked balls in the 
 over-decorated Opera-house, in which M. 
 Halanzier has been allowed to amass a 
 princely fortune, and bring the principle of 
 Government subventions into contempt, have 
 no more to do with the Carnival proper than 
 the Argyll Rooms had to do with Mr. 
 Tooth's ritualistic observances. They are 
 simply periodical orgies, organised on a 
 system for the purpose of making money. 
 Nearly all the dancers on the floor of the 
 theatre are paid servants of the Opera, and 
 the low-roofed ill-ventilated lobbies are filled 
 with a howling mob, in which the sweepings 
 of the demi monde 2SidL the Jewish riff-raff of 
 Paris predominate. Harry and Bill from 
 England, of course, are there, regardless of 
 expense, engaged in what they fondly believe 
 is the task of * seeing life ;' and wherever the 
 noise is the loudest and most idiotic, and the 
 jokes and gestures are the coarsest, the two 
 representative Cockney cads will be found. 
 In the streets of Paris the mildest sacrifice is 
 now made to do honour to the Carnival ; and 
 
54 Tomfoolery in Lent. 
 
 on Mardl-Gras a few red-nosed shivering 
 Watteau shepherds and shepherdesses, and 
 an occasional Pierrot or Pollchlnelle, who 
 seems afraid of his voice, and not on good 
 terms with his costume or character, are all 
 that relieve the dull monotony of every-day 
 life. 
 
 The Carnival is held In a little more 
 respect as you approach the borders of Italy ; 
 and a quiet town like Nice — a favourite 
 winter resort of Invalids — Is made drunk 
 with masquerading excitement for several 
 days. The Carnival here Is on,ly a parody 
 of the Carnival at Rome, but still the town 
 strives to do Its best ; and It Is not Its fault 
 if French sadness and English lumplness 
 together produce a not very satisfactor}^ 
 result. The well-advertised attractions of 
 the Carnival at Nice produce their usual 
 effect on the Parisian mind, and thousands 
 rush to be made happy by what Is called a 
 train of pleasure. Nothing apparently pleases 
 a Frenchman so much as being allowed to 
 travel for forty or fifty hours uninterruptedly 
 
Tomfoolery in Lent, 55 
 
 in a railway carriage, enduring any amount 
 of dirt and discomfort, and being allowed to 
 fight for a cup of coffee at a station in the 
 middle of the night like a half-starved casual 
 at a workhouse. This and more a train of 
 pleasure gives him, of course at a reduced 
 change. A train of pleasure always goes an 
 enormous distance for fifty or sixty francs, 
 there and back ; always starts either at day- 
 break or in the middle of the night ; always 
 stops at inconvenient stations, at inconvenient 
 hours ; and always arrives at a terminus when 
 every one has gone to bed. This is why It 
 is called a train of pleasure to distinguish it 
 from a train of business. 
 
 When the excursionist arrives at Nice 
 during Carnival time of the present year, he 
 finds much rain, more mud, and half the 
 population in gaudy bedgowns. On Lundl- 
 Gras, as he drives through the town, he gets 
 an occasional fiower thrown to him ; and on 
 ]\Iardi-Gras he gets pelted with showers of 
 pilules called confetti. The police of Nice, 
 having issued an order, are under the impres- 
 
56 Tomfoolery in Lent, 
 
 sion that these pilules are made of flour ; but 
 those who have been pelted with them are 
 equally, and perhaps more, certain that they 
 are made of plaster. The excursionist who 
 neglects to provide himself with a gauze 
 mask to protect his face and ears will be 
 irritated, if not hurt, and will begin to think 
 that the Carnival is a mistake and an ana- 
 chronism. He will be amused, if he glances 
 upwards at some of the hotel balconies, to 
 see middle-ao^ed Eno^lish fathers of families 
 engaged in feebly pelting some of the roy- 
 sterers in the streets. He will pass carriages 
 full of English boarding-school misses, who 
 are allowed to snatch a brief pleasure at this 
 Carnival time ; and he may possibly see an 
 unlicked English cub in the streets, whose 
 assaults are not strictly regulated by the 
 rules laid down by the authorities. At night 
 he will go down a very unromantic street — 
 dignified for the time being with the name of 
 the Corso — where his nose will detect, even 
 before his eyes, a few flaring oil-lamps that 
 would not create a sensation even at that 
 
Tomfoolery in Loit, 57 
 
 workman's Mabllle — the Elysee Montmartre. 
 Winding up with the terrible dissipation of a 
 five-franc masked ball at the municipal theatre, 
 he will take his return ride of thirty or forty 
 hours to Paris, more firmly convinced than 
 ever that the age of tomfoolery has not ceased 
 in France, and that the greatest tomfools are 
 the travelling English. 
 
OUR LITTLE WORLD, 
 
 gTjll^ARGE as the world doubtless is, 
 and easy as it now is to go from 
 
 '■^^='"*^ place to place, there are few of us 
 who do not live and move and have our 
 being in a very limited circle. We are drawn 
 towards a particular spot, and once there we 
 remain as fixed and immovable as the dog 
 tied to a stake. We dream of the great 
 world outside our narrow limits, but we work 
 with various deo^rees of contentment and sue- 
 cess on our little yard of space. As we have 
 been drawn there at first by some powerful 
 influence, so we proceed to draw others. Our 
 companions often strike root on the same 
 spot, and by degrees we found a special 
 colony in a great city. 
 
Oitr Little World, 59 
 
 My particular spot in the great world — the 
 spot on which I have been more or less 
 settled for years before the Gaiety Theatre 
 was built or thought of — is the spot on which 
 that theatre and its surroundings now stand. 
 The first periodical that ever excited my 
 literary ambition — the pioneer of all the cheap 
 weekly magazines — was published in the 
 Strand, at a little stationer's shop which now 
 forms part of the Field office. It was called 
 the Mirror, and its proprietor was a Mr. 
 Limbird. The Mirror died long before its 
 proprietor, and Mr. Limbird appeared to me 
 to look out of his small tradesman's window 
 wath dreamy wonder at the flock of magazines 
 and periodicals which fluttered round him. 
 
 At the corner of Wellington Street and the 
 Strand — belonging to the owners of the Field, 
 the Law Times, etc. — was the office of the 
 Critic, a journal of the AthencBiim t3'pe, to 
 which I was an occasional contributor. 
 
 My first serious step in literature, however, 
 was made in Hoicsehold Words, under the 
 editorship of the late Charles Dickens, and 
 
6o Our Little World, 
 
 the office of this journal (now the office of the 
 Army and Navy Gazette) stands next to the 
 stage-door of the Gaiety Theatre. If I were 
 to take a few bricks out of the back wall of 
 the room in which I was first introduced to 
 Charles Dickens, and in which I first began 
 my work as an author and a journalist, I 
 could look on to the stage of the Gaiety 
 Theatre, where eleven years ago I first began 
 my work as a theatrical manager. On the 
 other side of the theatre— in Catherine 
 Street — was the office of the Illustrated 
 Times, a weekly paper, half magazine — to 
 which, in company with Edmund Yates, 
 G. A. Sala, the Broughs, and scores of others, 
 I was a contributor under the editorship of 
 Mr. Henry Vizetelly. When the so-called 
 famine in London occurred in 1861, I was 
 asked by Mr. Algernon Borthwick to write a 
 series of articles in the Mo7ming Post on the 
 condition of the London poor, and these 
 articles were reprinted under the title of 
 * Ragged London,' and published by Messrs. 
 Smith, Elder, and Co. Looking out of my 
 
Our Little World. 6r 
 
 managerial room at the Gaiety Theatre, 
 across a narrow yard, I can almost see Into 
 the room at the Morning Post office, where 
 every night for about a fortnight I was 
 engaged In recording my melancholy expe- 
 riences as ' Our Special Commissioner/ 
 
 I may pass by the Athenceicm^ which is 
 published a few doors above the Gaiety In 
 Wellington Street, and to which I was an 
 occasional contributor, and proceed to my 
 first introduction to Mr. Toole. I was Intro- 
 duced to him at the corner of Wellington 
 Street, in the Strand, by the late Mr. H. Wid- 
 dicombe, and I found him living In chambers 
 at the Wellington Street entrance of the 
 Exeter Arcade, exactly on the site of the 
 present stage-door of the Gaiety. Here It 
 was that I discussed with him the prospects 
 of my first farce — ^The Birthplace of Podgers' 
 — which he ultimately produced at the 
 Lyceum Theatre, opposite. Here it was also 
 that he entertained me and our mutual 
 friend, Henry Irving, who had just made his 
 first appearance in London at the Princess's 
 
62 Our Little World. 
 
 Theatre, in a piece called ' Ivy Hair — an 
 adaptation by the late John Oxenford of * Le 
 Roman d'un Jeune Homme Pauvre.' As we 
 looked out of the window into the street, 
 Henry Irving hardly expected to become the 
 possessor of the theatre opposite, and I cer- 
 tainly never expected that a theatre would be 
 built for me almost underneath our feet. 
 
 My connection with the Lyceum Theatre 
 opposite did not finish with the production of 
 my first farce. I made my first appearance 
 as an amateur burlesque actor, and as an 
 amateur pantomimist on the same boards, in 
 both cases, of course, for a charitable object. 
 My * first appearance on any stage,' however, 
 was not made at the Lyceum, but at the 
 neighbouring Covent Garden Theatre, several 
 years earlier, and under somewhat peculiar 
 circumstances. Wandering one night past 
 the stage-door of old Covent Garden, I found 
 it open and unguarded, and with the boldness 
 and curiosity of youth (I am speaking of 
 1845), I darted in and found myself, in a few 
 seconds, amongst endless machinery and in 
 
Ottr Little World. 63 
 
 total darkness. Groping for some little time, 
 with half the romance of the 'Arabian 
 Nights' in my head, and an immense amount 
 of theatrical dust in my hands, I saw a 
 glimmer in the distance, and making towards 
 it, found it to be a gas-jet projecting from the 
 w^all. On the ground I saw a piece of brown 
 paper, and lighting this I guided myself still 
 further, until I came to some ladder-steps. I 
 mounted these, and pushed open a door 
 which admitted me to the back of the stagfe. 
 The whole house was before me, brilliantly 
 lighted, and full of people, but screened from 
 my view by a high wooden barrier which was 
 built across the stage. Climbing up this 
 barrier, by the aid of a few rough projections 
 and considerable skill in this kind of work, I 
 was soon able to look over the top, and I 
 found that I was an uninvited guest on the 
 platform at one of the great Anti-Corn Law 
 League Meetings. The speaker, I think, was 
 the late W. J. Fox, a short man with a Beet- 
 hoven head, and a practised orator. In a 
 semicircle behind him were Richard Cobden, 
 
64 Oi^r Little World. 
 
 John Bright, Colonel Perronet Thompson, 
 Milner Gibson, and many others whose faces 
 had been made familiar to me by popular 
 portraits. This was my first appearance on 
 any stage, but not my last, and I think I have 
 said enough to prove that I, at least, have 
 not wandered far from a given centre. 
 
MUSIC AND DANCING LICENSES. 
 
 F any ' Intelligent foreigner' found 
 it difficult to understand why- 
 London — a town of nearly four 
 millions of inhabitants — is now left without 
 one solitary Casino — he should attend the 
 annual Licensing Sessions of the Middlesex 
 Magistrates at Clerkenwell, and see the very 
 mixed, very numerous, and somewhat unruly 
 body of gentlemen who are appointed to 
 govern half the amusements of the greatest 
 city in the world. Here is a body, over four 
 hundred strong, representing in its working 
 majority every form of fussy respectability, 
 narrow-minded bigotry, hopeless ignorance, 
 
66 Music and Dancing Licenses. 
 
 wrought-iron prejudice, sour sectarianism, 
 puritanical zeal, and well-meaning obstinacy. 
 Nearly ninety of these Solons from Clapton 
 and Lycurguses from Stoke Newlngton at- 
 tended at the Sessions House one Friday, in 
 October, and in their struggle to obtain seats 
 hardly left room for the reporters and the 
 legal gentlemen, to say nothing of witnesses 
 and applicants. The cause, which brought 
 together so many of these chosen ones, Avas 
 what is called the ' Reserved List of Opposed 
 Licenses^ in which such places as the Argyll 
 Rooms and Evans's Supper Rooms stood 
 prominent. The foreigner we supposed to 
 be present would not have formed a very 
 high notion of our logic or decency, when he 
 saw one of the first law officers of the Crown 
 standing up with difficulty in the pen allotted 
 to counsel, and pleading, with all his ability, 
 to those ninety amateur judges, for the 
 renewal of a license for a somewhat notorious 
 property. Nor when a question arose — as 
 arise It did, under one of the standing orders 
 of the so-called Court — as to whether the 
 
Music and Dancing Licenses. 67 
 
 names of the magistrates should be taken 
 down as a permanent record of their indi- 
 vidual votes, would the behaviour of this 
 select ninety have impressed the foreigner. 
 A bear-garden — the House of Commons on 
 an Irish night — the betting-ring at Epsom — 
 anything involving the utmost noise and con- 
 fusion, would have been suggested to the 
 foreigner, rather than the judicial calm of a 
 Court of Law. At length, above the uproar, 
 their fully-expected decision was heard — ' in 
 spite of the value of the property, and the 
 able arguments of the first law ojfficer of the 
 Crown — we, being fifty or sixty of the select 
 body of the Four Hundred Middlesex Irre- 
 sponsibles, decline to grant any license (ex- 
 cept for drink) to the person applying, as 
 long as he lives, or bears the name in w^hich 
 he has made the application.' 
 
 This is how the Middlesex Irresponsibles 
 now treat the man whom they sustained for 
 years in a most valuable monopoly — the pro- 
 prietorship of the one Casino in London. 
 Passing this monopoly (7nimts the dancing) 
 
 5—2 
 
.68 Music mid Dancing Licenses, 
 
 on to * Evans's Supper Rooms' for about two 
 years, they decided to withdraw their patron- 
 age, and give it, for what it was worth, to 
 the Westminster Aquarium. 
 
 In plain EngHsh, having driven the objec- 
 tionable frequenters of the Argyll to Evans's, 
 they now drive them from Evans's to the 
 great Music Hall which nestles under the 
 shade of the old Abbey ; and next year (if 
 their warning means anything) they will drive 
 them from this stronghold into the arms of 
 some other lucky and favoured institution. 
 
 In the interest of virtue, while they uphold 
 the sacred rights of Gin and Beer, they limit 
 music as much as possible, and are deter- 
 mined to put down dancing. A foremost 
 member of the Four Hundred Irresponsibles 
 in this crusade against dancing, is a worthy 
 gentleman who is, we believe, connected 
 with a theatre which was one of the first 
 to popularise the cellar-flap break-down. 
 Dancing is doomed in London — not only 
 dancing by the public, but dancing before the 
 public, except at theatres. The mild and 
 
Music and Dancing Licenses. 69 
 
 harmless dancinor entertainments at the 
 * Oxford,' with the crackjaw names, are never 
 more to be seen in this world — at least, as 
 long as the Four Hundred Irresponsibles are 
 endured by the public. The * Pavilion' is 
 warned — the Aquarium is warned, that ballet- 
 dancing is prohibited, and the definition of 
 ballet-dancing is to come from an ignorant 
 policeman. As much Gin as you like, patient 
 British public, as much Beer as you like, but 
 very little music and no dancing. This is 
 the country of pot-houses. Brewers and gin- 
 distillers command a majority in the House 
 of Commons, and we draw one-third of our 
 wasteful expenditure from national drunken- 
 ness. This is why music must be kept down, 
 and dancing sternly prohibited. 
 
THEATRICAL LICENSES, 
 
 HE recent short discussion in the 
 House of Lords on the question 
 of dramatic and musical licenses, 
 may be regarded as the first timid recognition 
 of an agitation which must eventually end in 
 a reform of those imperfect laws which at- 
 tempt to govern theatrical property. I use the 
 term property advisedly, because I have an 
 impression that it is the one thing thoroughly 
 respected in this country. By theatrical pro- 
 perty I mean the capital and labour now em- 
 ployed in providing dramatic and musical 
 entertainments for the British public. The 
 
Theatrical Licenses^ 71 
 
 magnitude of this Interest — shall I say vested 
 interest ? — may be gathered from the fact 
 that In London alone the theatres, music- 
 halls, and concert-rooms represent a capital 
 of nearly three millions sterling (one-half of 
 which belongs to the theatres), to say nothing 
 of the immense amount of labour which this 
 capital employs. There is scarcely a theatre 
 of any importance in London which contri- 
 butes less than ^1000 a year to the country 
 in imperial and local taxation, or has not 
 several persons In its employment that are 
 paid as highly as Secretaries of State of the 
 first, second, and third degree. A popular 
 * first low comedian ' gets a Lord Chancellor's 
 wages, and a popular second low comedian 
 is rewarded with a better salary than the 
 Manager of the General Post Office. And 
 yet, while the newspapers are constantly in- 
 sisting upon the importance of these interests 
 as educational instruments, the laws which 
 govern them persist In treating their repre- 
 sentatives as a collection of * rogues and 
 vagabonds.' The theatres still dance their 
 
72 Theatrical Licenses. 
 
 hornpipes in the political fetters imposed 
 upon them by Sir Robert Walpole ; while 
 the music-rooms are governed by an Act 
 ostensibly framed to put down Moll Flanders 
 and her tribe, but really meant to stop the 
 singing of Jacobite songs in the pot-houses 
 of 1750. With your permission, sir,"' I pro- 
 pose in two or three letters to give a state- 
 ment of the present position of affairs, with a 
 few suggestions for their remedy which will 
 probably be brought before Parliament ; and 
 I will commence with the anomalies of the 
 building licenses. 
 
 The Lord Chamberlain exercises his power 
 of licensing buildings within the metropolitan 
 borough under the 6th and 7th Vict., cap. 68. 
 Yet even within those limits there are two 
 theatres, Drury Lane and Covent Garden, 
 which exist without any license at all. 
 Covent Garden claims to be entitled to this 
 favoured position by virtue of the patent 
 granted by Charles 11. to Sir William 
 Davenant in 1662 ; but the regular descent 
 "' The Editor, Daily Telegraph. 
 
Theatrical Licenses. "jt^ 
 
 of this patent to the present proprietors has 
 never been proved, and it is more than 
 doubtful whether the virtues of the patent 
 have not long since evaporated. Mr. Payne 
 Collier states that he had seen a document 
 in which the patentees surrendered their 
 rights to Queen Anne, agreeing in future to 
 hold under the ordinary license. Certain it 
 it is that during the last five years of Queen 
 Anne's reign no theatre was open under any 
 patent of Charles II. As regards Drury 
 Lane^ the Lord Chamberlain's officials have 
 (as I shall show in a future letter) denied 
 that it is empowered to open without a 
 license; yet, since 1837, its proprietors have 
 defied the Lord Chamberlain's authority. 
 Further confusion is created by the fact that 
 the vast districts of Chelsea, Kensington, 
 Fulham, and Hammersmith, having been 
 created a Parliamentary borough since the 
 passing of the Theatres Act, is outside the 
 Lord Chamberlain's jurisdiction. The Court 
 Theatre, for example, has no license from 
 the Lord Chamberlain, and therefore cannot 
 
74 Theatrical Licenses. 
 
 be punished by him for breach of his regu- 
 lations, as his officials have again and again 
 declared that, practically, the only means of 
 punishing a manager is to refuse to renew 
 his annual license. The two pretended 
 patent houses are, of course, in the same 
 position, though they are not by any means 
 the only favoured theatres. In every im- 
 portant provincial town there is what is 
 called a patent theatre, which is distinguished 
 from its rivals in the same town by a license 
 or patent under the Privy Seal for twenty- 
 one years. There is no reasonable excuse 
 for renewinof these invidious distinctions, 
 yet they are regularly renewed as they 
 fall in. 
 
 This curious muddle is still further aggra- 
 vated by the introduction of a third kind of 
 license. That is to say, besides the patent 
 under the Privy Seal and the Lord Chamber- 
 lain's annual license, there is the license of 
 the magistrates, who, except in the metro- 
 politan boroughs, and in the case of the pro- 
 vincial patent houses, license all theatres 
 
Theatrical Licenses, 75 
 
 throughout the kingdom under the Lord 
 Chamberlain's Act of ParHament (6th and 
 7th Vict., cap. 68), and all music-halls and 
 concert-rooms in London and throughout 
 the country under the 25th Geo. II., cap. 36 
 — the Anti-Jacobite Act before alluded to. 
 But, inasmuch as the Anti-Jacobite Act has 
 made it a penal offence to give a musical 
 entertainment before five o'clock in the after- 
 noon in any building licensed under that Act 
 — the punishment being a total loss of 
 license for ever, without the option of a fine 
 — another curious complication arises. Under 
 the general sanction of the Home Office, 
 which sanction goes no further than the 
 boundaries of the city of Westminster, the 
 Lord Chamberlain is persuaded to come to 
 the rescue of these illegal musicians, and to 
 orive them a permit, under no Act of Parlia- 
 ment whatever, to break another Act of 
 Parliament passed for the discomfiture of 
 Moll Flanders and the Jacobites. As to 
 the legality of this permit, distinguished 
 legal authorities differ. Some ' Law Officers 
 
76 Theatrical Licenses. 
 
 of the Crown' think It unassailable, while 
 others think It worthless. In any case, Its 
 operation Is very limited ; and though It pro- 
 fesses to protect St. James's Hall, It can- 
 not reach as far as Oxford Street, so that 
 the harmless Polytechnic Is threatened on 
 all sides as a ' disorderly house,' and the 
 Oxford Music Hall Is careful to open for 
 so-called * morning performances ' at five 
 minutes past five o'clock In the afternoon, 
 by Greenwich time, as certified by Professor 
 Glalsher."* 
 
 If these complications are not enough, 
 there are plenty of others. Under an Act 
 of William IV., every theatre Is a licensed 
 public-house during the hours of performance, 
 without the vexatious restrictions now im- 
 posed upon licensed victuallers. As long as 
 Shakespeare lasts in the house, the ginshop 
 attached to the premises can be kept going ; 
 and if an actor happens to be engaged who 
 
 =!^ A short tinkering Act has removed this absurdity 
 from the Statute-book, but lefr the worst Act of ParHa- 
 nient ever passed untouched in other respects. 
 
Theatrical Licenses. "jj 
 
 takes what I may call a stately view of 
 ' Hamlet/ there Is nothing to prevent the 
 theatrical public-house, under the theatre 
 roof, being kept open until two o'clock on a 
 Sunday morning. A ' systematic keeping * 
 open of a theatre for drinking purposes in 
 London might lead to a remonstrance from 
 the Lord Chamberlain ; but the provincial 
 theatres of all kinds, as buildings, are beyond 
 his jurisdiction, though here, as in all other 
 theatres, no play or other entertainment can 
 be performed without the previous sanction 
 of the Examiner of Plays — that is, the Lord 
 Chamberlain's subordinate, acting under his 
 authority. As the Lord Chamberlain, how- 
 ever, never goes to law, and cannot, of 
 course, withdraw a license which has been 
 granted by the local magistrates, curious 
 examples might be given of the Examiner's 
 authority being blindly obeyed in one district 
 and openly defied in another. Political 
 jokes forbidden by him in London have been 
 uttered night after night in Liverpool, and, 
 I am bound to add, without any of those 
 
,78 Thealj^ical Licenses. 
 
 tremendous consequences which alarmists 
 had anticipated. 
 
 Supposing, however, the supervision of 
 the theatres to be perfect and complete, there 
 still remain the music-halls, which, taking 
 London and the whole country, are more nu- 
 merous than the theatres. All kinds of songs, 
 dances, monologues, duologues, illegal ' stage- 
 plays,' within the meaning of the Act, and 
 entertainments flourish in these places, without 
 any paternal supervision. Even the dreaded 
 subject of politics is here as free as in the 
 pages of Punch. What are called 'topical 
 songs' are nightly sung, in which Mr. 
 Disraeli and Mr. Gladstone are handled 
 roughly or tenderly, according to the whim 
 of the singer, and, again, no tremendous 
 consequences are found to ensue. If a 
 censorship of the stage is really needed, it 
 would appear to be here, and not at the 
 Lyceum or the Prince of Wales's that it 
 would be urgently required. I propose to 
 deal further with this portion of the subject, 
 and also wath the so-called patent houses, 
 
Theatrical Licenses. 79 
 
 and the survey of theatrical buildings, In 
 future letters. 
 
 My last letter having exhausted the ano- 
 malies of the building licenses, and just 
 touched upon the office of the Licenser of 
 Plays, in my present letter I propose to 
 examine the value of his office, and also to 
 deal v/ith the survey of theatres. There is 
 not, as far as I am aware, anyone who 
 advocates the right of actors either to act or 
 speak indecency or immorality on the stage, 
 and the only question is whether the anoma- 
 lous functions of the Lord Chamberlain are 
 the best sort of check that human ingenuity 
 can devise. Indecency ought no more to be 
 tolerated on the stage than in the shop 
 windows or secret drawers of Holywell 
 Street ; but w^hile in these quarters It Is 
 effectually suppressed, we are always hearing 
 that under the Lord Chamberlain's rule it 
 flourishes practically unchecked. The Mar- 
 quis of Hertford, in a recent speech, did 
 
So Theatrical Licenses. 
 
 indeed lay claim to have raised the stage 
 from the degraded position into which it had 
 fallen under his Whig predecessors ; but the 
 blessings of a Tory Government cannot be 
 expected to be always vouchsafed to us, and 
 it is painful to think that on his lordship's 
 own authority this guarantee for public 
 decency has hitherto proved — and so, of 
 course, may prove again — a broken reed. 
 It must never be forgotten that the censor- 
 ship of the stage is maintained at no little 
 sacrifice of principle. To make the supply 
 of dramatic entertainments depend not on 
 the demand, but on the will of the Lord 
 Chamberlain, is clearly contrary to the free- 
 trade doctrine ; and it is, therefore, at least 
 incumbent on the admirers of the present 
 system to show that all that is good in it 
 could not be obtained by less objectionable 
 means. The subjection of the whole body 
 of dramatic authors to the tutelage of the 
 Lord Chamberlain's deputy involves even a 
 greater sacrifice of principles which English- 
 men have learned to cherish. It is the last 
 
Theatrical Licenses. 8i 
 
 rag of a censorship of literature and art still 
 remaining, and on that score alone it might 
 perhaps be worth while to put up even with 
 some amount of inconvenience for the sake 
 of getting rid of it. It has the peculiarly 
 odious feature of treatlnor our dramatic 
 authors as presumptive violators of decency, 
 and throwing upon them, as a condition of 
 exercising their faculties, the onus of showing, 
 in every instance, that their presumed tend- 
 encies towards blasphemy and indelicacy 
 have been sufficiently restrained. The in- 
 terference of the licenser is undoubtedly 
 exercised in these times in a less irritating 
 way than of old ; but very recent examples 
 may nevertheless be cited of objections so 
 ridiculous that they can only be explained 
 by the over-anxiety of Examiners who are 
 placed in the cruel position of being com- 
 pelled not merely to permit, but positively to 
 sanction, everything that Is said and done 
 upon the stage. The solemn order from the 
 Lord Chamberlain to omit every allusion to 
 ' Mr. Lowe and the Match- tax ' Is well re- 
 
 6 
 
82 Theatrical Licenses. 
 
 membered. Such exclamations as ^ Zounds !' 
 and * Bodlklns !' were at one time strictly 
 prohibited, and another licenser would never 
 permit any allusion to ' Angels ' on the stage. 
 How keenly some authors feel this Court 
 supervision is evidenced by the case of Sir 
 Martin Arthur Shee, who withdrew his 
 tragedy of Alastor at Covent Garden, even 
 after it had been rehearsed, rather than 
 submit to excisions, which necessarily Implied 
 that he had been guilty of some violation of 
 decorum. He published the prohibited 
 passages in self-defence, clearly showing the 
 then Lord Chamberlain to have been in the 
 wrong. The late Mr. Shirley Brooks, when 
 examined before the Select Committee in 
 1866, complained that he had not been 
 allowed to produce a dramatized version of 
 Mr. Disraeli's ' Coningsby/ because, as the 
 then Lord Chamberlain complained, it ' was 
 a kind of quasi-political piece, exhibiting a 
 sort of contrast between the manufacturinof 
 people and the lower classes.' A play in 
 these days may be worth ^10,000, or even 
 
Theatrical Licenses. 83 
 
 more. It follows, therefore, that the Lord 
 Chamberlain has at least the power to practi- 
 cally inflict a fine to that amount, and this 
 without any public proceedings at which the 
 culprit could defend himself by counsel or 
 otherwise, without appeal, and without any 
 obligation on the part of his punisher even 
 to state the reasons of his decree. 
 
 I am aware that there are many persons 
 who think that dramatic literature and art 
 differ from other literature and art, and that 
 they cannot safely be allowed that freedom, 
 subject to punishment for libel or for viola- 
 tions of decency, which has now happily 
 been conceded to all other kinds of authorship 
 and art. The arguments, however, they 
 adduce differ but little from those which 
 once were used in England, and are still 
 used in some other countries, to defend a 
 censorship of the press. We are told that 
 the Examiner of Plays in these times executes 
 his disagreeable office with discretion, and 
 that few plays are absolutely forbidden ; but 
 the objection to a kick or a pull of the nose 
 
 6—2 
 
84 Theatrical Licenses. 
 
 is not always to be measured by the amount 
 of physical pain which it causes. In the 
 case, at least, of Sir Martin Shee, there was 
 a sense of honour and dignity involved which 
 I am unwilling to assume that dramatic 
 authors of our time are less quick to feel. 
 In the days of Milton, the great author 
 fretted under his ' literary bondage/ though 
 he acknowledged that it was ' of the greatest 
 concernment to have a vigilant eye how 
 books demean themselves.' It may, in 
 like manner, be conceded that it is desir- 
 able to watch the stao^e and dramatic lltera- 
 ture ; but whether the existing machinery is 
 the best for this office is a widely different 
 question. 
 
 The Licenser of Plays may not irreverently 
 be compared to a scarecrow, and the necessity 
 for his maintenance may be a fair subject of 
 debate ; but the necessity for a careful survey 
 of theatres and concert-rooms in the interest 
 of public safety is a matter upon which there 
 can scarcely be two opinions. As far as the 
 Lord Chamberlain is concerned, this survey, 
 
Theatrical Licenses. 85 
 
 until very lately, was undertaken in London 
 by the Licenser of Plays and other untrained 
 officials, while the patent theatres throughout 
 the country were probably left without the 
 slightest architectural supervision. A practical 
 builder has lately been attached to the Lord 
 Chamberlain's office in a touch-and-go sort of 
 way ; but I am not aware that he is paid or 
 instructed to pursue his investigations beyond 
 the Lord Chamberlain's portion of London. 
 Those theatres and concert-rooms that are 
 licensed by the magistrates in town and 
 country may be the safest buildings in the 
 world, and the magistrates may be in posses- 
 sion of evidence to that effect ; but the 
 general opinion in the public mind — when it 
 takes the trouble to form an opinion on these 
 trivial subjects — is that this branch of licensing 
 work is sadly neglected. Whenever a great 
 calamity occurs, like the destruction of the 
 Cathedral at Santiago, the newspapers point 
 at once to Exeter Hall, as they have pointed, 
 under pressure, any time during the last five- 
 and-twenty years, but without obtaining any 
 
86 Theatrical Ltceiises. 
 
 reform of an acknowledged evil. The internal 
 danger from fire at Exeter Hall, considering 
 the nature of the entertainments given, may 
 be very small ; but panics are as often created 
 in public buildings by external as by internal 
 fires. When Her Majesty's Theatre was 
 burning, the reflection caused a stampede at 
 the Alhambra, though the two buildings are 
 at least a quarter of a mile apart ; and it is 
 easy to imagine what would happen at 
 Exeter Hall if any of the surrounding houses 
 happened to be on fire.^' 
 
 The Lord Chamberlain's survey of 
 theatrical buildings is open to much im- 
 provement, and if I were writing under a 
 different signature I could give a thousand 
 details in support of this opinion. In 
 discussing this question it must never be 
 forgotten that the Lord Chamberlain licensed, 
 and renewed the license for many years, of 
 the Gallery of Illustration, a variegated 
 
 "^ The Metropolitan Board of Works is now era- 
 powered to survey theatres, music-halls, and other places 
 of public amusement. 
 
Theatrical Licenses, 87 
 
 tunnel suspended in the middle of a block 
 of houses on a steep incline, and approached 
 by passages such as no cautious person could 
 regard with anything but horror. This 
 building — if building it could be called — is 
 now happily destroyed, but its faults are well 
 represented by a certain London theatre 
 approached by a long and curious subter- 
 ranean passage of low pitch and abrupt 
 angles, in which four or five hundred people 
 may have to struggle at any moment I am 
 the last to wish to damp the new-born 
 licensing zeal of the Lord Chamberlain, 
 which dates from the Committee of 1866, 
 before which time the increase of theatres 
 was checked at St. James's Palace by a 
 protectionist theory about the * wants of 
 neighbourhoods ;' but it is hardly fair to 
 those theatrical capitalists who have spent 
 their money freely in ' exits and entrances * 
 to sanction the opening of buildings which 
 violate every principle of public safety. 
 
 In my next and last letter I propose to 
 give a short history of the so-called patent 
 
SS Theatrical Licenses. 
 
 theatres, about which much misapprehen- 
 sion appears to exist, and a few sugges- 
 tions for the reform of the present licensing 
 chaos. 
 
 Having dealt with the anomalies of the 
 building licenses, the value of an official 
 censor of dramatic literature, and the survey 
 of theatres and concert-rooms, in my two 
 former letters, I now propose to conclude 
 my statement of defects requiring immediate 
 reform with an examination of the so-called 
 * Royal patents ' which are claimed by the 
 proprietors of Drury Lane and Covent 
 Garden. The importance of these patents 
 in connection with the licensing system was 
 indicated the other nio^ht in the House of 
 Lords in the answer of the Lord Chamber- 
 Iain to the questions put by the Duke of St. 
 Albans. 
 
 The Killigrew and Davenant patents were 
 not patents granted to any particular play- 
 
Theatrical Licenses. 89 
 
 house. In modern times the license Is 
 granted to the building. In the old days the 
 licenses were granted to the Individual. 
 What King Charles II. did In 1662 was to 
 empower his well-beloved Thomas Kllllgrevv 
 and Sir William Davenant, their heirs and 
 assigns, to gather together companies of 
 players, and to perform plays in a theatre to 
 be built or set up when and where they 
 might find convenient in London, West- 
 minster, or the suburbs. For anything that 
 appears to the contrary, the possessors of 
 these patents, or any one to whom they 
 chose to transfer their powers, might at any 
 period since have built, not merely in Drury 
 Lane or Covent Garden, but anywhere 
 between Limehouse and Chelsea. In point 
 of fact, theatres were built at various times 
 in five different localities, under these patents 
 — namely, in Drury Lane, Lincoln's Inn 
 Fields, Dorset Garden, Little Lincoln's Inn 
 Fields, and Covent Garden. The patentees 
 regarded them as monopolies, and so they 
 appeared to be on the face of them, for the 
 
90 Theatrical Licenses. 
 
 patents expressly declared that none but 
 Davenant and Killigrew were to presume to 
 set up theatres either in London or West- 
 minster. Even down to the present century 
 the patentees were accustomed to claim, and, 
 in some degree, were successful in maintain- 
 ing, an exclusive right to perform the regular 
 drama, but in practice the Crown had never 
 regarded itself as precluded from granting 
 other patents. The very year after the Killl- 
 grew and Davenant patents were granted 
 (in 1663), Charles II. granted another patent 
 to a man named Jolly, and the two monopolists 
 were compelled to allow him ^4 a week on 
 condition of his not exercising his pov/ers. 
 Monopoly, however, was not yet considered 
 sufficiently complete. In 1682, the two 
 companies — the Killlgrew, which had set up 
 at Drury Lane, and the Davenant, which 
 performed sometimes in Lincoln's Inn Fields, 
 and sometimes in Dorset Garden — agreed to 
 unite, and Drury Lane became then their 
 principal theatre. In the deed by which this 
 union was effected, it was covenanted that 
 
Thcah'ical Licenses. 91 
 
 the two patents were *to remain one for 
 evermore ;' and they did remain united, 
 though their monopoly was rudely invaded 
 by King William III., who granted a patent 
 for another theatre In 1695. 
 
 The fact that Kllligrew built his theatre 
 on the site of the present Drury Lane, 
 coupled with the circumstance that Drury 
 Lane, to this day, claims to be the patent 
 house authorised to keep open for ever 
 without license, under the old grant to 
 Kllligrew, not unnaturally Invests this theatre 
 with a sort of sacred character. But In all 
 this there Is a confusion of Ideas. The truth 
 is, that In the year 1 709 Drury Lane ceased 
 to be connected In any way with the Kllli- 
 grew patent. Christopher Rich, who was 
 the then manager, represented the patentees, 
 but the buildine Itself belonored to different 
 proprietors, and it happened that in this year 
 it became the Interest of these proprietors to 
 turn out Rich with his patents, which had 
 been suspended in consequence of a quarrel 
 with the Lord Chamberlain's Office. Rich 
 
92 Theatrical Licenses, 
 
 had given offence to that functionary, who, 
 by a high-handed exercise of power, had 
 * silenced ' the house, as the phrase was, and 
 Rich was compelled to obey. It was at this 
 juncture that a man named Collier was en- 
 abled to obtain a license to perform plays 
 from Queen Anne, and being thus em- 
 powered, while Rich was not, the landlords 
 of Drury Lane naturally preferred Collier as 
 a tenant. Neither Rich nor any of his suc- 
 cessors ever returned to Drury I.ane, which 
 thenceforth, for a period of 127 years, until 
 the advent of Mr. Alfred Bunn, was kept open 
 upon short licenses, or rather patents, granted 
 from time to time by Queen Anne, George I., 
 George II., and George III., and, so far 
 from claiming connection with the Killigrew 
 and Davenant patents, was carried on in 
 direct opposition to them. The successive 
 managers of Drury Lane, Sir Richard Steele, 
 Colman, Garrick, and Sheridan, all acknow- 
 ledged the temporary character of their 
 privilege by applying for a renewal of their 
 patents from time to time as they expired. 
 
Theatrical Licenses. 93 
 
 This was still the condition of affairs In 1816, 
 when again a patent for twenty-one years 
 was obtained for Drury Lane by Mr. Whit- 
 bread. This patent expired in 1837, and 
 then, for the first time since the reign of 
 Queen Anne, Drury Lane, under the manage- 
 ment of Mr. Alfred Bunn, neglected to 
 renew its patent. Mr. Bunn tells us in his 
 Memoirs, that when he announced his pro- 
 gramme for the following winter, he received 
 a missive from ' the harpies of the Lord 
 Chamberlain's OHice, demanding to know by 
 what authority I had presumed to announce Its 
 opening.' Bunn replied that since the last 
 renewal the proprietors of Drury Lane had 
 purchased of Covent Garden the patent 
 granted to Killigrew b}^ Charles II., which 
 was described as ' the dormant patent.' The 
 Lord Chamberlain's office were quite pre- 
 pared to expect this answer. They were 
 well aware that when Sheridan was anxious 
 to raise funds for rebuilding Drury Lane he 
 had found himself In a difficulty, owing to 
 the fact that he had no license or patent 
 
94 Theatrical Licenses, 
 
 except one that had only a few years to run. 
 Capitahsts were naturally shy of subscribing 
 half a million of money on so precarious a 
 foundation, and hence a clever Idea occurred 
 to the ingenious author of ' The School for 
 Scandal.' The Kllllgrew patent had been 
 dead and burled nobody knew how long ; 
 but to the sanguine mind of Sheridan, 
 anxious to raise half a million of money, It 
 appeared possible to recuscltate It. There 
 was, at all events, somebody who claimed to 
 be legally possessed of this ancient document, 
 In the person of Harris, then proprietor of 
 Covent Garden. To understand how Harris 
 got it we must go back to 1709, when Rich, 
 with his patents from Charles H., was turned 
 out of Drury Lane, and Collier, with his 
 license from Queen Anne, was put In his 
 place. Rich did not venture to dispute the 
 Lord Chamberlain's right to * silence * him 
 and his company ; but when Queen Anne 
 died, five years later, he got leave from 
 Georo^e L to start In the theatrical business 
 again, and accordingly built another theatre 
 
Theatrical Licenses, 95 
 
 in Lincoln's Inn Fields, of which his son 
 was manager for many years. Rich was 
 then in possession of the Davenant patent ; 
 he, probably, also represented the pro- 
 prietors of the Kllllgrew, and he is stated 
 to have subsequently purchased the Killi- 
 grew for the trifling consideration of 
 *^ioo and a hogshead of claret.' The 
 patents, being thus combined, more than once 
 changed hands, but from the year 1742 only 
 one theatre was opened under them — 
 namely, Covent Garden, which v/as supposed 
 to represent the Davenant patent. Any way, 
 when Sheridan was desirous of resuscitatingr 
 a patent, it was understood that it was the 
 Killigrew patent which was considered to 
 have been dormant, and this the proprietors 
 of Covent Garden were willing to sell if they 
 could get anybody to buy It. The sum of 
 ^16,000 was agreed to be given for it — a 
 price, in those days of protected theatrical 
 monopoly, so infinitely below the value it 
 would have possessed if its virtue had been 
 indisputable, that it might well in itself 
 
96 Theatrical Licenses. 
 
 suggest doubts. Then came the unpleasant 
 business of examining the title. The counsel 
 for the Drury Lane proprietors, Messrs. 
 Pigott and Bernard, reported, as well they 
 might, that * after so long a union the 
 powers of the patent to Killigrew were not 
 exercisable separately ;' whereupon Francis 
 Hargreaves, the eminent counsel for the 
 vendor, significandy suggested, as ^ worthy 
 of consideration,' whether it would not be 
 convenient to relieve the counsel for the 
 intended purchasers of the patent to Killi- 
 grew, *and also myself, as counsel for Mr. 
 Harris/ from investigating the matter. This 
 hint appears to have been taken. The ar- 
 rangement was accordingly agreed to, and 
 the item that Drury Lane was to pay 
 ;^ 16,000 for the Killigrew patent was em- 
 bodied in the Act for rebuilding Drury Lane 
 Theatre. This was in 18 10. Never- 
 theless, the entire purchase-money was not 
 forthcoming, and the new Drury Lane 
 opened, in fact, under a patent from 
 King George III., which dated from Sep- 
 
TJicatrical Licenses, 97 
 
 tember, 18 16. That the proprietors of 
 Drury Lane had subsequently paid the 
 ;^ 1 6,000 with interest was perfectly well 
 known in the Lord Chamberlain's Office, 
 where it was also perfectly well known that it 
 was intended to use it as a means of escaping 
 for ever from the necessity of applying either 
 to the Crown for a patent or to the Lord 
 Chamberlain for a license. But the Lord 
 Chamberlain's Office had clearly determined 
 not to recognise it. The Comptroller, Mr. 
 Baucott Mash, appeared before the Parlia- 
 mentary Committee in 1832, and distinctly 
 stated that Drury Lane existed only under a 
 patent from King George IIL, and that the 
 Killigrew patent was united with the Dave- 
 nant, and could not be separated. Even as 
 late as 1866, Mr. Spencer Ponsonby Fane, 
 of the Lord Chamberlain's department, in 
 his ' Memorandum on Theatres,' observed 
 that ' the license granted to Betterton was 
 renewed from time to time, and at last con- 
 verted into a patent of twenty-one years' 
 duration ; and it was under this authority, 
 
 7 
 
98 Theatrical Licenses. 
 
 and the KilUgrew and Davenant patents 
 united in one, that the Theatres Royal 
 Covent Garden and Drury Lane kept their 
 position for so many years.' Why, then, 
 have successive Lord Chamberlains put up 
 with Mr. Bunn's defiance, and permitted 
 Drury Lane to remain to this day without 
 a license ? There seems to be no answer 
 except the often-repeated statement that the 
 Lord Chamberlain has no funds for going 
 to law. 
 
 The police authorities, if they chose to 
 act, have as much power to punish indecency 
 in theatres and music-halls in this country as 
 the police have in America, but they are 
 under the impression that these matters are 
 seen to by the Lord Chamberlain and the 
 magistrates, and therefore remain passive. 
 The Lord Chamberlain and the mao^istrates 
 fail to regulate theatres and music-halls pro- 
 perly, yet do enough to take away all moral 
 responsibility from the managers of those 
 establishments. It is possible for human 
 ingenuity to reduce the present licensing 
 
Theatrical Licenses. 99 
 
 chaos to something like order, and it is the 
 duty of a Government which spends one 
 hundred milHons a year to attempt this task 
 without delay. We affect to govern half 
 the globe, and ought not, therefore, to be 
 frightened at a few ' difficulties of detail,' 
 as the Lord Chamberlain puts It, in devising 
 some uniform plan for the regulation of 
 theatres and concert halls. It Is absurd for 
 one authority to refuse a license to a building 
 for stage-plays on the ground of bad exits, 
 while another authority permits the public 
 to assemble within the same walls In any 
 numbers to listen to music or public oratory. 
 It Is absurd for magistrates who license 
 throughout the country, including theatres 
 and music-halls, at least fifty times as many 
 buildings as the Lord Chamberlain licenses 
 and the Crown has patented, to meet only 
 once a year, so that their licenses once given 
 can be abused for twelve months without 
 any fear of punishment. It is absurd for 
 these licensing magistrates, as far as music- 
 halls are concerned, to work under an Act of 
 
loo Theatrical Licenses, 
 
 Parliament which has never clearly defined 
 whether * music and dancing ' mean the 
 dancing- of the public In a ball-room style, or 
 the dancing of paid performers on a public 
 stage, while this latter dancing has been 
 attacked by another Act of Parliament which 
 cannot settle whether ballet Is or is not a 
 * stage-play,' and therefore illegal under the 
 former Act of Parliament. It is absurd for 
 these magistrates to persist in licensing only 
 one casino''' In London, thereby giving a 
 golden monopoly to one individual ; and it is 
 absurd that those elegant entertainments 
 called 'poses plastiques,' as long as they are 
 unaccompanied by a little harmless music^ 
 should be carried on without requiring any 
 license. It is absurd that a theatre like the 
 Court Theatre, because it happens to be a 
 few yards west of a particular line, should 
 have been able to defy the Lord Chamber- 
 Iain's authority, even for twenty-four hours, 
 as in the case of the * Happy Land,' 
 
 "^ This one casino is now no more, and London, with 
 four millions of inhabitants, has no public dancing-room. 
 
Theatrical Liccmr,^\,. , ; i ' ' , »' i "ii^\ \ />"', 
 
 until Scotland Yard and the Home Office 
 came to the rescue of the insulted officer 
 of the Crown ; and it is absurd that the 
 Lord Chamberlain, when the vexed ques- 
 tion of the observance of Ash Wednesday 
 arises, should have a mouldy and pro- 
 bably worthless parchment shaken in his face 
 by one of the so-called patent theatres, the 
 value of which could be tested in a few days 
 by a legal process. It is absurd that the 
 Examiner of Plays is empowered to strike 
 out passages in dramatic works represented 
 at a hundred theatres, which passages can be 
 read or acted at ten thousand music-halls, 
 delivered from twenty thousand public plat- 
 forms, and printed and circulated in a million 
 books, pamphlets, and newspapers. It is 
 absurd that morning concerts'" should only 
 be rendered legal in Westminster, and in no 
 other part of town or country, by a Lord 
 Chamberlain's permit of doubtful legality 
 authorised by the Home Office ; and it is 
 absurd that the Lord Chamberlain is em- 
 
 * See foot-note, p. 76. 
 
''^j62''\ , , . Tkeairical Licenses. 
 
 powered to create any number of public- 
 houses, as long as they are theatres, at any 
 period of the year, while the licensing magis- 
 trates can only create public-houses during 
 two or three days in March, and can only 
 grant music and dancing licenses once a year 
 in the month of October. 
 
 It is often easier to point out absurdities 
 than to suggest the best way to remove them, 
 but in this case the task is not so difficult. 
 The control of public amusements, at the 
 present time, is a task requiring the undivided 
 attention of a well-organized department. It 
 ouofht to be concentrated in the hands of a 
 public officer, and not an officer of the 
 Crown, whose powers ought to be defined 
 and enlarged, whose subordinates, especially 
 surveyors, ought to be numerous, and who 
 ought to be responsible to the Home Office. 
 The defect of the Lord Chamberlain's 
 authority is that it is at once too large and too 
 limited. It is too limited an area, and too 
 large in discretionary powers. We have 
 checked arbitrary power in this country at 
 
Theatrical Licenses. 103 
 
 the cost of much blood and treasure, and 
 there is no reason why it should hold on to 
 existence in the person of a Lord Chamberlain. 
 Lord Chesterfield's memorable protest 
 on the passing of Sir Robert Walpole's Act 
 of 1737, is probably not forgotten. ' If the 
 players are to be punished,' he said, ' let it be 
 by the laws of their country, and not by the 
 will of an irresponsible despot.' The present 
 abuse of this discretionary power is shown in 
 the case of x\sh Wednesday. No warrant 
 for even the general observance of this day 
 can be respected in a Protestant country, and 
 the restrictions on the players, and players 
 only, which are powerless under the present 
 licensing system over one-fourth of London 
 and nearly the whole of the country, have 
 litde more than the antiquity of a century to 
 recommend them even to the lovers of old 
 observances. The present Lord Chamber- 
 lain, vv'ithout being pressed by his Act of 
 Parliament, has extracted a promise, under 
 pressure, from every manager within his 
 jurisdiction, not to open theatres in any form 
 
104 Theatrical Licenses. 
 
 on Ash Wednesday — a logical but oppressive 
 proceeding — while former lord chamberlains 
 were content only to suspend stage-plays on 
 that particular day which in future ought to 
 be known in the calendar as St. Thespis the 
 Martyr. 
 
MR. PHELPS AT THE GAIETY. 
 
 R. PHELPS'S first appearance at 
 the Gaiety Theatre was in the 
 week before Christmas, 1873, 
 when he was engaged to give eight special 
 representations of certain old comedies in 
 conjunction with Mr. Charles Mathews, Mr. 
 J. L. Toole, Mr. Hermann Vezin, Mr. Lionel 
 Brough, etc. He made his first entry as 
 Dr. Cantwell in the ' Hypocrite,' Mr. Toole 
 playing Mawworm for the first time after a 
 very short period of study, and the rest of 
 the characters being represented by Miss 
 Farren and members of the Gaiety Company. 
 This piece was played for six nights to the 
 largest receipts ever known at the theatre, 
 
io6 Mr. Phelps at the Gaiety. 
 
 and the following three nights were devoted 
 to Colman's comedy of ' John Bull,' with Mr. 
 Phelps as Job Thornbury, Mr. Toole as 
 Dennis Brulgruddery, Mr. Charles Mathews 
 as the Hon. Tom Shuffleton, Mr. Hermann 
 Vezin as Peregrine, and Mr. Lionel Brough 
 as Dan, supported by the general company. 
 The receipts were equally great for these 
 performances, and the orchestra was utilised 
 for extra stalls. Mr. Phelps, unlike Mr. 
 Charles Mathews, did not consider himself 
 injured by appearing in this combination, and 
 this short preliminary engagement was the 
 forerunner of many others v/hich were equally 
 pleasant and profitable to both of us. As in 
 Mr. Charles Mathews's case, there were no 
 written agreements between us, but we per- 
 fectly understood each other's views ; and 
 from December 1873, to the day of Mr. 
 Phelps's lamented death, he considered him- 
 self more or less engaged to me, and never 
 thought of any public appearance without 
 coming to consult me. At first I used his 
 invaluable services at my Saturday matinees, 
 
Mr. Phelps at the Gaiety. 107 
 
 and at these he played a number of his best 
 comedy parts, intermixed with Cardinal 
 Wolsey and Shylock. He avoided Sir 
 Pertinax Macsycophant in ' The Man of the 
 World' for nearly four years, and I never 
 pressed him to play it. He told me he 
 thought it was the most trying part in the 
 whole range of the British drama, and when 
 he felt physically equal to it he would let me 
 know. The time came at last, after one of 
 his long fishing holidays, and the result was 
 a very fine performance of his great comic 
 masterpiece. 
 
 When Mr. Toole went to America in 1874, 
 and I had the Amphitheatre in Holborn and 
 the Opera Comique in the Strand under my 
 direction, in addition to the Gaiety, I was 
 enabled to offer Mr. Phelps a night engage- 
 ment at the Gaiety. We produced * The 
 Merry Wives of Windsor' at Christmas, 
 1874, with scenery by Mr. Grieve, and 
 original music by Mr. Arthur Sulli- 
 van. Mr. Phelps played Falstaff, and asso- 
 ciated with him in the cast were Mr. 
 
To8 Mr, Phelps at the Gaiety. 
 
 Hermann Vezin, Mr. Arthur Cecil, Mr. 
 Righton, Mr. J. G. Taylor, Mr. Belford (one 
 of his old Sadler's Wells company), Mr. 
 Forbes Robertson, Miss Furtado, Miss Rose 
 Leclercq, and Mrs. John Wood. Probably 
 the most pleasant member of the company 
 was Mr. Phelps. He had an amiable faculty 
 of * making himself at home.' When he first 
 joined the regular Gaiety company — a com- 
 pany not generally associated with the so- 
 called ^ legitimate drama' — he behaved as if 
 he had been amongst them all his life ; and 
 with the company mentioned above — some of 
 them specially engaged for the * Merry Wives 
 of Windsor' — he was soon on the very best 
 of terms. Instead of sitting in state in his 
 dressing-room, he passed much of his time in 
 the green-room, and entered into all the 
 little amusements of the place in the most 
 pleasant manner. Fines were instituted to 
 punish those who were found tripping in the 
 text of Shakespeare, and once or twice Mr. 
 Phelps was caught (on evidence probably not 
 very trustworthy), but he paid his fines cheer- 
 
yJ/r. Phelps at the Gaiety. 109 
 
 fully. The money was ultimately spent in a 
 bowl of punch. 
 
 One result of his Gaiety engagement was 
 that he was induced to come a little out of 
 his domestic retirement. I persuaded him to 
 become a member of the Garrick Club, and 
 Mr. Arthur Cecil persuaded him to take a 
 continental tour, as, with the exception of his 
 visits to Berlin and Dresden, he had never 
 been out of his own country. He was much 
 impressed with Paris and Italy — with what 
 he called the ' stage-management' of the 
 brilliant city, and the beauty of the Alpine 
 scenery. 
 
 He played at the Gaiety during his various 
 engagements, in addition to the parts pre- 
 viously mentioned, Sir Peter Teazle (re- 
 peatedly). Bottom the Weaver, Jacques, Lord 
 Ogleby, Richelieu, etc. His mind was very 
 active, and he was always ready to study a 
 new part. At one time he thought of play- 
 ing Bill Sykes in a proposed version of 
 * Oliver Twist' by Mr. Andrew Halliday. If 
 he had been ten or fifteen years younger, he 
 
i I o Mr. Phelps at the Gaiety. 
 
 would probably have taken a West-end 
 theatre, and repeated the experiment which 
 he carried out so nobly at Sadler's Wells. 
 He had no conservative prejudices against 
 anything new, and the last time he was 
 within the walls of a playhouse was at the 
 Gaiety theatre. 
 
CHARLES MATHEWS'S LAST 
 YEARS LN LONDON. 
 
 LTHOUGH Charles Mathews had 
 been on the stage for more than 
 forty years, he made no secret of 
 the fact, that in spite of his great and pecuhar 
 talent and his personal popularity, he had not 
 found it a very lucrative profession. His 
 attractive power as an actor was rarely dis- 
 associated from his or Madame Vestris's 
 theatrical speculations, and the result was, 
 that what he made as a comedian he lost as 
 a manager. After Madame Vestris's death 
 he went to America, where he contracted a 
 second marriage, and on his return to 
 England, in conjunction with his wife, he 
 
I T 2 Charles Mathews, 
 
 attempted to revive the form of entertainment 
 which his distinguished father had made 
 popular. What were the financial results of 
 this experiment I am not in a position to 
 state, but he soon gave up ' entertaining ' 
 and returned to the stage, accepting an 
 engagement under the management of Mr. 
 Benjamin Webster, and played principally at 
 the Olympic. Then came his projected tour 
 round the world, and the grand farewell 
 benefit that was given to him at Covent 
 Garden Theatre. 
 
 In 1872 I received a communication from 
 him, from America, expressing a wish to 
 play at the Gaiety Theatre on his return to 
 England. I replied that I should be de- 
 lighted to receive him. I was in Liverpool 
 in July, transacting some business, when I 
 received a telegram early one morning, saying 
 that he had arrived and wished to see me the 
 same day at four o'clock in the afternoon to 
 make the engagement. I came to town by a 
 morning express train, and punctually at the 
 appointed time he bounded into my room. 
 
Charles Mathews. 1 1 3 
 
 looking certainly ten years younger than he 
 did before he left England. We wasted very 
 little time in settling details : no agreements 
 were drawn up, no letters asked for or given; 
 a mere verbal contract was taken on both 
 sides. I made a memorandum in a diar)', 
 and we both started off in different directions 
 ■ — Charles Mathews to Baden-Baden, and I 
 to Vienna — the same night. We never saw, 
 and heard very little from each other, till the 
 beginning of October, and on the 7th of that 
 month Charles Mathews made his re-appear- 
 ance in England, after his long absence, at 
 the Gaiety Theatre, in ^ A Curious Case ' and 
 * The Critic' His reception was the most 
 enthusiastic burst of feeling I ever witnessed 
 or can imagine, and the one who seemed the 
 least moved by it was the chief actor. He 
 played for ten weeks, going through many of 
 his favourite parts, ' Used Up,' ' Married for 
 Money,' 'Cool asaCucumber/ 'Gameof Specu- 
 lation,' etc., and though the bulk of the company 
 were sent to the country, as he required very 
 few to support him, the receipts were larger 
 
 8 
 
114 Charles Mathews. 
 
 than any previously taken in the theatre — 
 amounting to nearly ^/^i^ooo per week. His 
 second engagement, after a long country 
 tour, for he hated to be idle, was for live 
 weeks in the summer of 1873, followed by 
 five weeks in the autumn of the same year, 
 when he played 'The Liar,' '• Patter v. Clatter,' 
 *Used Up,' 'Mr. Gatherwool,' 'Married for 
 Money,' ';^ 1,000 a Year,' ' Cool as a Cucum- 
 ber,' ' Aggravating Sam,' and ' Little Tod- 
 dlekins.' This engagement was nearly as 
 successful as the first one. 
 
 In the December of v'^']^, wishing to end 
 my first lease of the Gaiety Theatre with 
 becoming splendour, I prevailed upon Charles 
 Mathews to play the Hon. Tom Shuffleton 
 in 'John Bull' in combination with Mr. Phelps, 
 Mr. Toole, Mr. Vezin, and others. He re- 
 luctantly consented, but considered that he 
 had done himself Irreparable injury as a 
 'star' in forming an item in such a cast, 
 though only for three nights. In the summer 
 of 1874, after his country tour, he appeared 
 again at the Gaiety for seven weeks, playing 
 
Charles Matheivs. 115 
 
 old material, ' Married for Money,' * The 
 Critic,' ' Mr. Gatherwool,' ' Used Up,' ' The 
 Nice Firm' (in conjunction with Mr. Arthur 
 Cecil), ' Game of Speculation,' ^ Cool as a 
 Cucumber,' and ' Patter v. Clatter.' This was 
 a good engagement, but not so good as the 
 previous ones. Charles Mathews now went to 
 the country for more than a year, and prepared 
 himself for his next engagement by writing a 
 new piece, * My Awful Dad.' He made his 
 first appearance In this piece at the Gaiety 
 on Monday, Sept. 13, 1S75, and played It, 
 supplemented by ' Mr. Gatherwool,' with im- 
 mense success for eight weeks. During this 
 engagement he was prevailed upon to over- 
 come a strong prejudice against morning per- 
 formances, and he appeared at two inatindes 
 during the eight weeks, and at one special 
 matinee before his departure for India. This 
 Indian engagement was a great social if not 
 a financial triumph, and on his return, he 
 re-opened at the Gaiety in * My Awful Dad ' 
 and ' Cool as a Cucumber ' on Monday, April 
 17th, 1876, playing for fourteen weeks. 
 
 8—2 
 
it6 Charles 31 at hews. 
 
 The close of that year and the early part 
 of 1877 he spent, as usual, working in the 
 country, and on his return to town, finding 
 that I could not take him in at the Gaiety 
 owing to a season of French plays, he went to 
 the Opera Comique, then under my manage- 
 ment, and played for nine weeks in 'My Awful 
 Dad,' ' The Liar,' ' The Cosy Couple,' etc. 
 This was his last engagement in London. On 
 Saturday night, June 2nd, he made his last ap- 
 pearance on the boards of a London theatre. 
 The results of these eiMit enp-ao^ements 
 spread over six years were eminently satis- 
 factory to both of us. The gross receipts 
 were nearly ^40,000, out of which he 
 received more than ^10,000 for playing 
 about 354 times. Our business, what little 
 we had, was transacted in the most pleasant 
 manner possible. There was no fuss, no 
 squabbling, and no agreements ; he took my 
 word and I took his, and no engagement 
 during my ten years of management, apart 
 from the question of profit or loss, has given 
 me more personal gratification. 
 
HOW THE ELECTRIC LIGHT 
 CAME TO LONDON, 
 
 OWARDS the close of 1877 a 
 couple of huge lamps, burnino;- a 
 very brilliant white light, made 
 their appearance In front of the Grand Opera 
 in Paris. Even in a city so well illuminated 
 as Paris these lamps attracted general atten- 
 tion, and inquirers were told that the system 
 employed was a Russian patent, with the 
 invention of which a gentleman named 
 Joblochskoff was credited. By degrees the 
 new luminary spread in Paris, as was natural 
 amongst an intelligent and energetic people 
 not fettered with too much local self-govern- 
 ment The Joblochskoff lamps were soon 
 
ii8 The Elective Light, 
 
 seen on each side of the new Avenue de 
 rOpera, at the Orangerie pubHc gardens, at 
 the Arc de Triomphe, the Chatelet Theatre, 
 and other places of importance. The parochial 
 mind in England was not yet sufficiently acted 
 upon, and it was not until an experiment 
 with the Joblochskoff machinery was an- 
 nounced at one of the great docks at the 
 East-end of London that the gas companies 
 became aware of the existence of this formid- 
 able rival. The usual result followed. A 
 small panic in gas shares immediately took 
 place, for no particular reason, as no inquiry 
 had been made; and this panic immediately 
 subsided after it was known that the ex- 
 periment, from a variety of causes, was a 
 comparative failure. The gas companies, 
 representing in London alone about twelve 
 millions sterling of capital, sank once more 
 into a placid sleep. One vestry issued a 
 report, a discussion took place at the Institute 
 of Civil Engineers ; but no one introduced the 
 light to the London streets, although it had been 
 burning in Paris for more than nine months. 
 
The Electric Light, 119 
 
 Towards the close of June, 1878, the 
 manager of a prominent London theatre*^ — a 
 house devoted more to the persistent amuse- 
 ment of the public than to the cultivation of 
 a very high standard of dramatic art — decided 
 to close his doors for redecoration. The 
 house had been kept open almost uninter- 
 ruptedly for nearly ten years, and it was 
 thought that at last four weeks might be 
 spared for artistic repairs. The manager, 
 a somewhat energetic, not to say restless, 
 individual, even before his house was closed, 
 began to consider how he could utilise his 
 enforced holiday, so as to reopen with a new 
 sensation, and it occurred to him. that the 
 * electric light ' would be a good thing to 
 introduce in London for that purpose. It 
 did not occur to him that it was hardly the 
 proper function for a theatrical manager to 
 act as a pioneer in this matter in a city 
 governed by forty or fifty vestries and a 
 Metropolitan Board of Works, with an 
 annual rating that is fast treading on the 
 
 * The Gaiety. 
 
I20 The Electric Light, 
 
 heels of the imperial taxation, and with gas 
 companies, as before stated, representing 
 twelve milllcns of capital. He did not stop 
 to argue, he went to Paris, and sought out 
 the leading director of the Joblochskoff light. 
 He was politely received by that gentleman, 
 and was offered his invention for the whole 
 of England at the moderate sum of ^350,000 
 English money. The theatrical manager was 
 hardly prepared with the sum at a moment's 
 notice, and he suggested a preliminary trial 
 of the light at a handsome royalty; this 
 suggestion was not acceded to, but was 
 treated with polite contempt. He was dis- 
 appointed, but not defeated. He offered a 
 liberal sum for a few weeks' experiment, and 
 then was candidly told that the Joblochskoff 
 light could not be shown in London, as an 
 intermediate machine, with which it had to 
 be worked, was the subject of a Chancery- 
 suit about an infringement of patent. 
 
 In this extremity the baffled manager 
 made further inquiry, and found that the 
 Joblochskoff light was not the only one in 
 
The Electric Light. 1 2 1 
 
 the Paris market. He found, in fact, the 
 Lontin light, the inventors of which had not 
 had the money and influence to get possession 
 of the principal street in Paris, but who had 
 to be content with illuminating the station of 
 the Lyons Railway and the goods depot of 
 the railway of the West. This, as far as he 
 could judge, was equal in effect to the 
 Jobbchskoff, while he was told that it had 
 many advantages in point of economy and 
 adaptability, and had been preferred in a 
 kind of competition in the Hippodrome. 
 Luckily he found that a friend— a well-known 
 banker in Paris— had a small interest in this 
 treasure, having assisted the inventor at 
 starting; and through him he arranged for 
 the exportation to England of the necessary 
 machinery, lamps, wire, etc., and two experts 
 to establish and manage the lights. 
 
 Arrivin^j- home in the midst of builders 
 and decorators, his work began again. To 
 set the French machinery in motion (an 
 enormous revolving magnet and electrical 
 coil) he required the aid of a powerful steam- 
 
J 22 The Electric Light. 
 
 engine cf not less than 20-horse power. 
 This is not a machine easily found in a cellar 
 or fitted up in a garret, and the manager had 
 to look round his immediate neighbourhood, 
 as his electrical machines would not allow 
 him to go farther than 500 yards; and the 
 farther he went, the greater the expense for 
 connecting-wire. He went to an old friend, 
 the proprietor of a fashionable organ, and 
 stated his requirements ; but as the paper 
 had only one steam-engine, the proprietor — 
 who hates machinery — was naturally timid 
 about having this tampered with. 
 
 The manager again went his ways, and 
 looked in at many printers', bookbinders', 
 etc., finding that half the houses in his locality 
 were full of steam-engines, but not of the 
 requisite horse-power. At last he approached 
 the proprietor of a popular journal at some 
 little distance from his premises, and succeeded 
 in persuading this proprietor to give him a 
 footing in his engine-room, and to allow him 
 to make the necessary alterations in the 
 engines. When the magnet and distributer, 
 
The Electric Lio-JU. 12 
 
 c!> 
 
 weighlncr about four tons, had been got with 
 difficulty into their position near the engine, 
 they had to be imbedded in masonry, and 
 then the Parish authorities had to be appHed 
 to for permission to open the roadway to 
 convey the wires underground to the points 
 of illumination. When this consent was 
 obtained and the work done, the case of 
 French lamps was opened, and it was found 
 that everything breakable had been smashed 
 to atoms in transihc. A lamp- maker had to 
 be found to construct another, and better, 
 set of lamps in forty-eight hours, and on 
 Thursday night, August ist, 1878, about 
 midnight, the light was successfully rehearsed; 
 and on the following night at nine o'clock, 
 the Strand, about the centre, was publicly 
 lighted with the electric light, and has been 
 so lighted every night since from about 
 eight o'clock to eleven.'" This light, which is 
 artificial daylight, with a dash of moonlight 
 in it, is produced on a large scale at about 
 half the cost of gas, and is without smell, 
 
 * This light was discontinued in May, 1879. 
 
124 The Electric Light. 
 
 without heat, and Is not destructive of colours. 
 When all the theatrical managers, publicans, 
 and advertising tailors in London have 
 secured this light for their premises, the fifty 
 vestries, the Metropolitan Board of Works, 
 and the gas companies with the bloated 
 capital, will think there is really something 
 in it. 
 
^^^.^ 
 
 ^St^ 
 
 A TALE OF TWO CHIMNEYS. 
 
 I. — Edendale. 
 
 iF anyone in searching the pages of 
 a railwav-auide, or looking over a 
 map of England, had come upon 
 the name of Edendale, such a name would 
 have conjured up a vision of an earthly 
 paradise. Such a vision would have been a 
 delusion. Edendale was a living proof that 
 the world is made by one power — Ormuz, 
 the Spirit of Good, and furnished by another 
 power — Ahriman, the Spirit of Evil. In 
 London the furniture takes the form of 
 stucco, railway-viaducts, and semi-detached 
 villas — in Edendale it took the form of fac- 
 
126 A Tale of Two Chimneys. 
 
 tones. Edendale stood in two central 
 counties, KIcklngshIre and Gouglngshire. 
 Its population was rough, and Its amusements 
 were coarse and revolting. The latter con- 
 sisted of dog-fighting, cock-fighting, and 
 occasional bull-balting six days a week, and 
 prize-fighting on the top of the moors on 
 Sunday. Fighting in those parts meant 
 kicking, biting, and gouging, as well as 
 pummeHIng, and few working men In Eden- 
 dale were without physical traces of these 
 encounters. The Bishop of the diocese, the 
 clergy of the district and the parochial mag- 
 nates of the town, all knew of these brutalities, 
 but instead of stopping them, they formed a 
 society for the Reform of the Stage and the 
 Elevation of the Drama In London. 
 
 No man, woman, or child in Edendale 
 ever saw the sky above the town, except 
 when a general strike came and stopped the 
 smoke of the furnaces. Though its gutters 
 ran blacking, and its canals were shiny with 
 chemical scum, its inhabitants were the 
 proudest people in Kickingshire and Gouging- 
 
A Tale of Two Chimneys. 127 
 
 shire, and for this reason — it had not only 
 the tallest chimney, but the tallest nest of 
 chimneys in both the counties. It had 
 alkali works, iron works, metal works, 
 potteries — all kinds of works ; and, seen 
 from a short distance, its chimneys looked 
 like a forest of masts in one of the great 
 docks. Its aristocracy were measured by 
 these standards. The owner of a hundred- 
 foot chimney looked down upon the owner 
 of one of fifty feet ; the family of an eighty- 
 foot chimney proprietor almost refused to 
 associate with the family of a forty-foot pro- 
 prietor, and a thirty-foot chimney had been 
 cut at church by a chimney twice its height. 
 The tallest chimney in the town was one 
 hundred and forty-seven feet, and its owner 
 had, in consequence, been seven times Mayor 
 of Edendale. 
 
 II. — The Mayor's Daughter. 
 
 The Mayor of Edendale had a sad, stone, 
 brown-coloured mansion in what miofht be 
 
1 23 A Tale of Two Chimneys. 
 
 called the half-mourning outskirt of the town ; 
 a place where a few sturdy, obstinate shrubs 
 had determined to exist In spite of the un- 
 favourable atm.osphere of the neighbourhood. 
 In this mansion lived his only daughter, a 
 young lady of eighteen, whose education and 
 appearance were somewhat showy, and who 
 had gathered her notions of the romantic side 
 of life from the cheap periodicals she bought, 
 without her father's knowledge, at the lolllpop- 
 shop, and read, without his knowledge, in 
 her bedroom. This style of reading. It may 
 be Imagined, did not Increase her respect for 
 the business — that of alkali making — In 
 which her father was encraeed, while It led 
 her to look with less unfavourable eyes on 
 the more artistic manufactories of the district. 
 Amongst these establishments was a small 
 electro- plating factory, not far from her 
 father s house, which v/as owned and worked 
 by a young man whose capital bore no pro- 
 portion to his ambition. This young man 
 had many opportunities of seeing the Mayor's 
 daughter, as the one walk in Edendale that 
 
A Tale of Two CJiinineys. 129 
 
 was free from old coal-mines and other pit- 
 falls was near his factory and her house. 
 The usual result followed. They were * en- 
 gaged ' to each other without any thought of 
 their relative positions. He looked upon her 
 as the flower of Edendale ; and she looked 
 upon him as the only artist in a crowd of 
 sooty manufacturers. 
 
 III. — -The Young Electro- plater. 
 
 The time came at last when the young 
 Electro-plater had to meet the old Alkali- 
 manufacturer, face to face, and ask for his 
 daughters hand. The young man's recep- 
 tion was not encouraging. He represented 
 what, at present ? — A chimney, fifteen or 
 twenty feet high, and a business that was 
 more ornamental than substantial. The 
 young Electro-plater assured the Alkali- 
 manufacturer, the father, and the mayor, that 
 his sentiments were real metal, if his busi- 
 ness was electro-plating, but this remark did 
 not have anything like the same favourable 
 
 9 
 
130 A Tale of Two Chwtneys. 
 
 effect upon the father as it had had pre- 
 viously upon the daughter. The young 
 Electro - plater was not only bowed out 
 of the house, but it was even suggested 
 that he should leave the town, and the young 
 lady was sent to Scarborough, in the care of 
 a severe and watchful female relative. The 
 inhabitants of Kickingshirc and Gouging- 
 shire always go to Scarborough. 
 
 IV. — Self-help. 
 
 The young Electro-plater w^as downcast, but 
 not beaten. He went home and read all the 
 books he could find upon ' self-help/ * self- 
 made men,' etc., and was much comforted by 
 the account of a spider that fell down fourteen 
 times in the presence of a king of Scotland, 
 before it reached a corner of the ceiling- to 
 make its web. More by accident than 
 design he put his hand upon a volume con- 
 taining the lives of great inventors, and this 
 turned his thoughts into another channel. 
 Why should he not become an inventor "^ In 
 
.1 Talc of Two Chimneys. 131 
 
 his own business? Why not? A 'great 
 inventor'? Why not? Electro-metallurgy 
 was in Its infancy, was it not ? Most things 
 are In their infancy when an inventor turns 
 his eye upon them. While the young 
 Electro-plater was asking himself questions, 
 and giving himself answers, he fell asleep, 
 and dreamt of Ingenious processes, producing 
 miraculous results. 
 
 V. — Labour in Vain. 
 
 When he awoke he found his Ideas had 
 vanished, but his determination still re- 
 mained. He resolved to tread in the foot- 
 steps of the great inventors of the past, as 
 others had trodden before him. He got up 
 at four o'clock in the morning, and lived on 
 a very spare diet; but the only result was 
 that he was very sleepy all day, and very 
 hungry towards night. He took long walks, 
 which ended in nothing. He ruminated in 
 corners, which also ended In nothine. He 
 spent money in models of machiner)^ which 
 
 9—2 
 
132 A Tale of Tzvo Chimneys. 
 
 also ended In nothing. He read many 
 books, which also ended in nothing. He 
 read accounts of more modern inventors — 
 particularly of a celebrated American — who 
 was accustomed to work without food or 
 sleep for the best part of a week, then to cry 
 ' Eureka/ and go to bed for three days and 
 three nights. The young Electro-plater, it 
 is needless to say, did not try this experi- 
 ment. After two or three weeks spent in 
 fruitless attempts to pierce the secrets of 
 nature, it occurred to him to consult a few of 
 his superior workpeople — men who had the 
 mechanism of his art or trade at their finofers' 
 ends. His workshop was not large, but it 
 contained men of several countries. Amongst 
 them was a German, a Frenchman, an Irish- 
 man, and a Scotchman ; and it was curious to 
 notice how they preserved their national 
 characteristics, though surrounded by the 
 natives of Kickingshire and Gougingshire. 
 The Scotchman was idle, drunken, impulsive, 
 and generous to a fault, and always in small 
 financial difficulties. The Irishman, cold- 
 
A Tale of Two Chwineys. 133 
 
 blooded, thrifty, and prudent, had always a 
 respectable balance at the Savings' Bank, 
 was always the most active worker at over- 
 time, and always ready to lend money to his 
 more needy fellow-labourers at usurious in- 
 terest. The Frenchman was the most 
 melancholy workman ever seen in Edendale 
 — taking his pleasure sadly, even on a fete- 
 day, while the volatile German was the 
 harlequin of the district, and the leader in 
 every sport that required little thought but a 
 vast quantity of animal spirits. These were 
 the experts consulted by the young Electro- 
 plater in his difficulty. He also consulted a 
 variety of small learned professors, and one 
 very big learned professor who had once 
 read a paper on Electro- metallurgy before a 
 Royal Society. The working model that 
 had been made in consultation with the four 
 experts, and which appeared to be very near 
 the threshold of a great discovery, was shown 
 to this big professor at a private conference 
 at the factory. The big professor's remarks 
 were not hopeful. He first demonstrated 
 
134 ^ Tale of Two Chiinncys. 
 
 that there was nothing new under the sun. 
 He next demonstrated that the proposed in- 
 vention was not required, as Electro-metal- 
 lurgy was simply perfect. He then proved 
 that the machine he had been examininof 
 could never realise the dreams of Its con- 
 structors. He further proved that if it did 
 it would be a most immoral machine, and 
 productive of incalculable mischief to capi- 
 talists, working people, and the investing 
 classes. His five listeners were more or less 
 depressed, and went their several ways. 
 The Irishman went home to drink toast-and- 
 water, and calculate his week's profits on 
 money-lending ; the Frenchman went home 
 to take a couple of liver pills, and the 
 Scotchman and German went rolling off to- 
 gether to the * Fettlinof Pitman ' to take a 
 festive lesson in clog-dancing. The young 
 Electro-plater retired moody and silent to 
 his countinof-house to look over the last 
 letter he had received from the Mayor*s 
 daughter at Scarborough, and to consider 
 whether it was worth while spending any 
 
A Talc of Two Chimneys. 135 
 
 more time and money In struggling with an 
 obstinate invention. 
 
 VI. — The Blithering Idiot. 
 
 In every town, with very few exceptions, 
 there is a young man of doubtful age and 
 weak intellect, who is known as the local 
 idiot. In French towns he generally hangs 
 about the chief church or cathedral, and 
 shows his idiocy by collecting as many 
 charitable pence in a day as an industrious 
 labourer can earn in a week. In English 
 towns he usually gets more kicks than half- 
 pence, and he is not accustomed to hang 
 about the church-doors, because in England 
 the church-doors are only opened for a few 
 hours on a Sunday. He haunts pot-houses 
 with more success, and is seen with a regu- 
 larity that almost approaches sanity, every 
 pay-day, outside the factories. 
 
 Edendale had one imbecile of this descrip- 
 tion, who was sometimes alluded to as Daft 
 Davy, but more frequently as the Bllthenn^' 
 
136 A Tale of Tzvo Chwineys. 
 
 Idiot. This almost useless person had been 
 taken into the factory of the young Electro- 
 plater, out of charity, one bitter winter when 
 trade was not very flourishing in Edendale, 
 and once there^ he had remained as furnace 
 lad, and was occasionally allowed to act as 
 deputy understoker. He gradually got the 
 run of the factory, like a house-dog, the 
 workmen believing that he had animal in- 
 stincts which kept him out of harm. 
 
 VII. — The Discovery. 
 
 It was about three o'clock in the morning 
 when the young Electro-plater came out of 
 his counting-house. Before leaving the 
 factory, he thought he would walk round and 
 see if everything was as it should be at 
 night. He took his lantern, and went almost 
 unconsciously to the workshop where he had 
 left his model after it had been exhibited to 
 the big professor. Before he reached the 
 workshop he noticed that it was lighted 
 dimly from within, and creeping cautiously to 
 
A Talc of Two C/immeys. 137 
 
 a window which commandeid the whole place, 
 he saw the blithering idiot on his knees, play- 
 ing vacantly with the precious, but hitherto 
 unsuccessful, piece of mechanism. 
 
 His first impulse was to rush in and 
 strangle the person of weak intellect, but this 
 impulse was soon checked by a startling dis- 
 covery. The blithering idiot, by turning the 
 whole machine topsy-turvy, and working it 
 backwards instead of forwards, had hit upon 
 the secret which had eluded all the practised 
 intellect that had been brought to bear upon 
 it. The blithering idiot only sang a drivel- 
 ling song, and went to sleep by the side of 
 the great discovery. 
 
 VIII. — Finale. 
 
 In a few weeks the electro-platers of England 
 were aware that their trade had been revo- 
 lutionised by an Edendale electro-plater, who 
 had not even the recommendation of age ; 
 but they had nothing to do but to pay the 
 royalties demanded. In a year or less the 
 
138 A Tale of Two ChiDineys. 
 
 young Electro-plater possessed a chimney at 
 least twenty feet higher than any in Eden- 
 dale, and he was consequently duly qualified 
 to marry the Mayor's daughter. He married 
 her, and, as most right-thinking persons will 
 admit, he judiciously kept the real history of 
 the important discovery to himself. He was 
 made a F.R.S., and had various foreign 
 decorations ; while the blithering idiot was 
 securely provided with three meals a day and 
 extras for the remainder of his natural life. 
 
THE MYSTERY OF A DRESS- 
 COAT. 
 
 ^^.HERE has always seemed to me to 
 be something peculiar — an air of 
 mystery — about a dress-coat. I am 
 not at all surprised to find that the new 
 school of acrobatic demons — the Girards, the 
 Phoites, and suchlike performers, are attired 
 in this unsightly but popular garment. I can 
 imagine the gaunt form of Mephlstopheles 
 posing gracefully on one leg with his finger 
 on his lips, and the lappets of his dress-coat 
 haneincr between his lef^^s in a form which 
 Lord ivlonbocldo thought was once a distin- 
 guishing characteristic of man, and which 
 mankind have always regarded as a necessary 
 ornamep.r. of devils. 
 
1 40 The Mystery of a Dress-coat. 
 
 In less important society — amongst 
 Thames pilots, for example, it has always 
 seemed very strange to me that dress-coats 
 are held in such high esteem that the task of 
 conducting a vessel safely from the London 
 Docks to the open channel, is seldom at- 
 tempted without one. 
 
 Why the Irish peasant should have such a 
 passionate love for this garment, that nearly 
 all the old dress-coats of England are ex- 
 ported to Ireland, is a fact that I should like 
 some student of that singular country to 
 explain. 
 
 Why the licensed victualler should nearly 
 always have his street holiday-suit made in 
 the form of dress clothes is another fact that 
 requires explanation. Individual eccentri- 
 cities en this point I pay little heed to. 
 
 I once knew a gentleman who was always 
 in a fit state to go to the opera, who was 
 once discovered on a Hio^hland moor in black 
 dress clothes, and who once went to South- 
 ampton in a similar suit, and suddenly 
 shipped himself for America with no other 
 
The Mystei'y of a Drcss-coaf. 141 
 
 luggage. This gentleman, however, was not 
 the representative of a class, and his conduct 
 has no bearing on that of the pilot, the Irish 
 peasant, and the licensed victualler. 
 
 One summer's afternoon I was travelling 
 from York to Edinburgh, and as the day was 
 very warm I took my place in a third-class 
 carriage. My fellow-passengers were a very 
 respectable, quiet old lady, who said nothing; 
 a boy who spoke the most incomprehensible 
 Scotch, and who was being sent, labelled like 
 a parcel, from the extreme south of England 
 to the extreme north of Scotland ; and an old 
 woman who was very drunk and given to 
 preaching. 
 
 The somewhat incoherent piety of this last 
 lady kept me pretty well amused as far as 
 Newcastle, at which busy station our carriage 
 was enriched with another passenger, who 
 took the place of the righteous over- much. 
 He was a little dumpling man, in a maudlin 
 good-humoured state of intoxication, who had 
 nothing remarkable about him except his cos- 
 tume. His boots were tolerably thick, and 
 
142 The Mystery of a Dress-coat. 
 
 quite appropriate for travelling, but in other 
 respects he was very curiously attired. 
 
 His trousers were glossy black, he had on 
 a somewhat dirty and crumpled white waist- 
 coat, an equally crumpled white shirt, and a 
 more crumpled white necktie, worn very much 
 awry, in the style assumed by comic actors 
 who imitate drunkenness in farces. Over 
 this soiled foundation of evening dress he 
 wore a rather shabby coat, which was not 
 exactly shooting-coat, overcoat, or frock-coat, 
 but a mixture of all three, and the colour of 
 dirty gravel. 
 
 The point about the man, however, which 
 struck me as most peculiar, and gave me 
 most trouble m deciding who and what he 
 was, was his luggage. This consisted of a 
 dress-coat and nothing else — a black dress- 
 coat, which he carried across his arm when 
 he came into the carriage, as most people 
 carry their railway rugs. 
 
 When he had seated himself in a corner 
 near one of the doors, he began to deal with 
 this coat in a very singular manner. He first 
 
The Mystery of a Dress-coat. 143 
 
 rolled it in a kind of square bundle, and tried 
 to sit upon it as upon a cushion, but the rest- 
 lessness of the railway traveller soon pre- 
 vailed, and he changed his position. He 
 then took the coat and wedged it between 
 the back of his head and the wall of the 
 carriage, as a kind of pillow, and this arrange- 
 ment seemed to comfort him for the space of 
 about ten minutes. At the end of this time 
 his fit of drowsiness was over, and the bundle 
 — the dress-coat — was pulled from, behind his 
 head and thrown, v;ith no signs of regard, on 
 the seat beside him. 
 
 I looked at the despised and ill-treated 
 garment, and I looked at its owner, but 
 although my brain had been pretty active for 
 the last half-hour in trying to solve the 
 mystery, I was still baffled. 
 
 One or two theories presented themselves. 
 . One was that the man had been attendine a 
 funeral, followed by the reading of a will, had 
 been disappointed at receiving a small legacy, 
 or no legacy at all, and had come away dis- 
 gusted with the whole ceremony and the 
 
144 ^/^^ Mystery of a Dress-coat. 
 
 trappings belonging to it. A glance at his 
 hat at once dispelled this idea. It was rough, 
 shabby, and somewhat crushed, and it had no 
 vestige of crape upon it. 
 
 The mysterious traveller, after a few 
 seconds' reflection, noAV turned his attention 
 to the boy in the carriage, and soon found 
 that he was being sent on a long journey, 
 with no food, no money, and a third-class 
 ticket. The mysterious traveller then im- 
 mediately plunged his grubby hands into the 
 more mysterious pockets of the mysterious 
 dress-coat, and produced a large pear and 
 what appeared to be a portion of a pcttd de 
 foic gras. These he gave to the boy in a 
 muddled, good-humoured way, and while 
 watching the youth's enjoyment of the meal, 
 he fell upon the seat in a recumbent posture 
 and was soon asleep again, with the dress- 
 coat somewhere underneath him. 
 
 During this short and restless slumber his 
 dreams seemed to be hovering about the 
 dress-coat, and he clutched that garment 
 several times, when he was able to find it, in 
 
The Alystery of a Dress-coat. 145 
 
 a rather convulsive manner. Once he got it 
 down between his legs, and with something 
 very like an impatient kick he sent it on to 
 the dirty iloor of the carriage. 
 
 Every movement increased my interest in 
 the man, and my inability to solve the 
 problem. Why did he treat the dress-coat 
 in this manner ? Had he won it in a raffle ? 
 Had he taken it out of pawn, and was he dis- 
 satisfied with his bargain ? Both these 
 theories, and several others, were only en- 
 couraged for a moment until I reflected that 
 the other parts of his dress^ with the excep- 
 tion of the gravel-coloured coat he wore, were 
 in harmony with this garment, if he would 
 only wear it. Why would he not wear it ? 
 
 The journey from Newcastle to Edinburgh 
 by a slow train is a long process, and I had 
 ample time for reflection. When we got to 
 Berwick he woke up, and looked, with no 
 signs of anxiety, for the missing coat, which 
 he found under the seat. Having found it, 
 he propped himself against the open window, 
 and as he sat with his face to the wind, he 
 
 lO 
 
146 The Mystery of a Dress-coal. 
 
 used the dress-coat recklessly as a kind of 
 comforter. 
 
 By this time his drunkenness had nearly 
 disappeared, and he became excessively — ■ 
 almost obsequiously — polite and attentive. 
 His manner was so encouraging that once I 
 was nearly tempted to ask him a plain ques- 
 tion which would have satisfied my vulgar 
 curiosity. I hesitated, and the opportunity 
 was lost. We arrived at the Edinburgh 
 station, and I saw him walk — or rather roll — 
 away with the mysterious dress-coat thrown 
 carelessly over his arm — the problem un- 
 solved, as I thought, for ever. 
 
 * * -rr -jc- 4:- 
 
 Thls was not to be. A few days later I was 
 walking through one of the rooms of the 
 Royal Pibroch Hotel, when my delighted 
 eyes fell upon my peculiar fellow-travellen 
 This time he had no coat over his arm — in 
 fact he had nothing on his arm but a shirt- 
 sleeve ; he was washing up some of the hotel 
 
The Mystery of a Dress-coat. 147 
 
 glasses. I saw the solution at a glance. He 
 was a waiter who had been lent to the 
 managers of a banquet at Newcastle, and the 
 dress-coat was part of his borrowed livery. 
 
 10 — 2 
 
HOW TO MANAGE A CERTAIN 
 PARASITE, 
 
 HERE was a time, no doubt, in the 
 history of the world when the 
 umbrella was used merely as an 
 article of necessity — was carried out only 
 when it was very hot or very wet, and was 
 unfolded only as a protection from the sun or 
 rain. When Jonas Hanway introduced this 
 implement into England some time about 
 the middle of the last century, it is on record 
 that it was long regarded with contempt and 
 suspicion, and was only timidly used by a 
 select few who ventured to brave the ridicule 
 of the general public. This state of things 
 has long been changed. The umbrella has 
 
How to Manage a Certain Parasite. 149 
 
 lono- ceased to be the distlno-uishinor mark of 
 the fop or the man of fashion. It has out- 
 lasted eye-glasseSj walking-sticks, and many 
 other fripperies. It has become a constant 
 companion of people of all ages and both 
 sexes. It has become even more than this. 
 So close is its present connection with the 
 human person, that it may fairly be taken 
 out of the category of furniture and called a 
 parasite. 
 
 The management of this parasite has now 
 become so important for the comfort of 
 society, that, in order to promote the 
 greatest happiness of the greatest number, 
 I venture to make a few suo^orestions. 
 
 On rising in the morning, the umbrella 
 should be taken from the head or foot of the 
 bed, where, of course it has been placed 
 over night, and should be carefully dusted 
 before its owner takes a bath. It should 
 then be properly aired at the fire in the 
 breakfast-room, supposing the time to be 
 winter, side by side with the muffin-rack and 
 the morning newspaper. In the height of 
 
1 50 How to Manage a Certain Parasite, 
 
 summer it should be laid in the sun — in a 
 conservatory if possible. In the winter, in 
 place of receiving the perfume of flowers, it 
 may be sprinkled with a few drops of ean de 
 Cologne or Ess bouquet. 
 
 At the breakfast-table it may be placed 
 upright by the side of its owner's chair, or 
 (which is preferable) it may be laid across 
 the end of the table, where the white cloth 
 will throw it into beautiful relief. 
 
 After breakfast, when its owner goes to 
 business, or for a morning walk, the umbrella 
 will, of course, take its rightful place as an 
 implement of attack or defence. The um- 
 brella exercise, like the broad-sword exercise, 
 would require a whole chapter to itself, but a 
 few hints may be given which may probably 
 be useful. 
 
 In walking along a crowded street the 
 umbrella may be used as a drover's goad, 
 held loosely in the hand, at right angles with 
 the body. In this position it is very effec- 
 tive in stirring up people who happen to be 
 in its owner's way. Placed under the arm — 
 
How to Manage a Certain Parasite. 151 
 
 the left arm is preferable — with the point 
 slightly raised in the air in an oblique direction, 
 it is very effective in clearing the pathway, 
 especially if its owner turns half round as 
 frequently as possible. In pointing out any 
 objects of interest in the street — any public 
 buildings, or things of that kind, to country 
 cousins, the umbrella is invaluable. It should 
 be held up from the body, like the sword 
 of an officer leading a storming party, and 
 should be waved on high as much as pos- 
 sible. If any sudden shower should come 
 on, the umbrella should be carefully placed 
 in a cab, and sent on in advance to its 
 owner's destination. Its owner will probably 
 v;alk. It is scarcely necessary to advise the 
 owner to see that the straw in the cab is not 
 damp. 
 
 In the office, the restaurant, or the club, 
 the umbrella should never be parted with for 
 an instant. It should be carried into every 
 room and placed upon every seat. No place 
 is too good, and few places are good enough 
 for it. It must not be supposed from this 
 
152 How to Manage a Certain Parasite. 
 
 remark that I am In favour of a too costly 
 decoration for the umbrella. I think if it is 
 jewelled in twelve holes, that is quite suffi- 
 cient for all ornamental purposes. 
 
 In the theatre, the church, and the concert- 
 room, the umbrella should be treated with 
 the same consideration. If by any chance it 
 falls across the narrow gang- ways, and throws 
 people down, so much the worse for the 
 people. If any injury comes to the umbrella 
 in this position, the owner either has or should 
 seek a remedy at law. We have Law Courts, 
 Appeal Courts, and a House of Lords. An 
 action has been going on for the last six 
 years about a thumb pinched in a carriage- 
 door on the Metropolitan Railway, and surely 
 an injured umbrella is of more importance 
 than an injured thumb. 
 
AS SAFE AS THE BANK. 
 
 AM not a very orood hand at telling 
 a story, and I think one of your 
 literary fellows, if I had given 
 him the tip, would have done it much better. 
 They can dress up a slight incident with a 
 lot of description, while a thick-headed duffer 
 like me can only give you a report as dry as 
 a blue-book or a pamphlet on marriage with 
 a deceased wife's sister. 
 
 I think you knew Charley Scotson of the 
 Grenadier Guards, the one who married a 
 rich widow in Manchester. Charley and I 
 belonged, among other clubs, to the Thespis 
 ' — a place where they nearly always pilled 
 
154 ^^ Safe as the Bank. 
 
 an actor, while they elected a lord or a 
 Guardsman as a matter of course. 
 
 Well, one day Charley came into the 
 Thespis in high glee, and slapping me on 
 the back he said : ' Sportsman ' (he always 
 called me ' Sportsman '), ' I want you to dine 
 with me to-night, and I'll bet you a fiver you 
 don't name the place.' 
 
 Of course I named all the out-of-the-way 
 clubs I could think of, and was always wrong. 
 At last I gave the matter up. 
 
 ' You old idiot,' said Charley, ' it's the 
 Bank of England.' 
 
 ^ What place ?' I asked, thinking he was 
 joking. 
 
 * The Bank of England,' he repeated. 
 ' The fact is, the Governor and Company of 
 that excellent institution wish to get me out 
 of the hands of the sixty per cent, gentry, 
 -and they thought the best way of beginning 
 was to stand a dinner.' 
 
 ' None of your chaff,' I said. ' Where is 
 xhe Bank of England ?' 
 
 ' Be hanged if I know,' replied Charlie, 
 
As Safe as the Bank, 155 
 
 'but it's the other side of Temple Bar — 
 somewhere near Whitechapel. I've got to 
 be on ofuard there to-niorht with a detachment 
 of men, and I suppose some of my fellows 
 will know the way.' 
 
 I found that Charley really meant business, 
 and I agreed to dine with him, and we picked 
 up another pal — little Truffles — to make a 
 party of three. Little Truffles was great on 
 the subject of the dinner. He had dined at 
 the Munching House, the Soapboilers' Hall, 
 and a lot of other swell City places, and we 
 should never have dragged him off the sub- 
 ject of Turtle and Madeira if he hadn't seen 
 a young lady pass the club window connected 
 with the Horse-collar Theatre, and he was 
 bound to run out and present her with a 
 flower. 
 
 The evening came at last, and about seven 
 o'clock Truffles and I found ourselves in a 
 hansom-cab, going with all possible speed in 
 the direction of St. Paul's Cathedral. It was 
 just getting dusk, and nearly all the people 
 on each side of the way were coming towards 
 
156 As Safe as the Bank. 
 
 us, hurrying away from the City. I was not 
 much impressed with the public and private 
 buildings we passed, and least of all was I 
 impressed by the squat building we drew up 
 before, and which our cabman told us was 
 the * Bank of Hengland.' I looked at Truf- 
 fles, who was adjusting a flower in his coat, 
 and said something disrespectful of the great 
 bullion shop. 
 
 ' You may call it baths and washhouses/ 
 said little Truffles, * but every square foot of 
 ground it stands upon is worth a cool thou', 
 or somethinof more.' 
 
 ^ Then all the more wasteful,' I returned, 
 ' not to build higher. Half a million a year 
 ought not to be thrown away in this style, 
 even by the Bank of England.' 
 
 We entered the sacred portals of the 
 Temple of Gold, as you literary fellows 
 would say, and passed through a small 
 garden. I pointed to a very sooty shrub, 
 and asked Truffles if he would ^ive a 'cool 
 thou' ' for the bit of black stuff it was growing 
 in. 
 
As Safe as the Bank. 157 
 
 ' Get out,' said Truffles, an eminently 
 practical and rather greedy young man ; ' I 
 want my dinner.' 
 
 We were ushered into Charley's den (I 
 can call it by no other name), and found him 
 awaitinof us in his mess suit. His sittingf- 
 room was a little, dark, half-underground 
 place suggestive of beetles, the sort of 
 apartment that is generally given to that 
 unfortunate person called a ' housekeeper ' in 
 a lodging-house in St. James's. His bed- 
 room, a smaller apartment attached to the 
 den, had most of the features of a condemned 
 cell at a penitentiary. 
 
 * Charley,' I said, ' I cannot honestly con 
 gratulate you on your quarters.' 
 
 ' Only here for a night, Sportsman,' he 
 said, ' and the grubbing, I'm told, is awfully 
 good ; but I confess I could do with a little 
 less solid gold in the cellars and a little more 
 gilded splendour in the decorations.' 
 
 We sat down to dinner, and immediately 
 facing me, high up against the low ceiling, 
 was the lower portion of a window, through 
 
158 As Safe as the Bank. 
 
 which I could see a pair of boots walking to 
 and fro on what appeared to be a parapet. 
 
 ' What the devil's that, Charley ?' I asked. 
 
 ' Enough to give a fellow the jumps,' added 
 little Truffles. 
 
 ' It's only one of my men/ returned Charley, 
 ' a sentinel watching for an expected attack of 
 omnibus conductors, cabmen, and City waiters 
 on our fortress.* 
 
 When Charley had given this explanation, 
 my attention was drawn, for the first time, to 
 our waiter — a short, thick-set man, wearing 
 about as obvious and bad a wig as we gene- 
 rally get served out to us at an amateur 
 performance. He appeared a little hurt at 
 Charley's allusion to City waiters in the 
 above connection, and said, ' If directors 
 didn't rob banks more than City waiters 
 robbed banks, it would be better for those as 
 was interested in banks ' — or something to 
 that effect. 
 
 ' Halloa, my friend,' said Charlie, ' I am 
 afraid I've trod on your corns. Are you a 
 servant of the Bank ?' 
 
As Safe as the Bank. 159 
 
 ' Not me/ replied the waiter, * Fm sent In 
 by Messrs. Giblets, the grub contractors, 
 who supplies all the dinners — your dinner, 
 everybody's dinner !' 
 
 ' How do you mean '^everybody's dinner" ?' 
 
 * I means everybody In the City belonging 
 to a corporation. The way they stuffs their 
 ungodlles Is simply beastly, when you knows 
 what a lot of poor devils Is starving.' 
 
 We were amused by this waiter, and during 
 the progress of the dinner we continued to 
 draw him. 
 
 ' You seem to be rather a Radical,' I said. 
 
 'What's that ?' he asked. 
 
 ' A person who has very little respect for 
 those in authority.' 
 
 * What, the beaks ?' he said ; * not me, 
 I've seen too much on 'em. Here they goes 
 and builds a lot of safes in a wault in the 
 City to put their valyables in, and then to 
 add hinsult to hinjury they advertises these 
 safes as burglar-proof, as if burglars was the 
 only thieves the public ought to be afraid of. 
 Why, I've stood behind chairs and 'elped old 
 
'i6o As Safe as the Bank, 
 
 genelmen to turtle, and goose, and port-wine, 
 and champagne wine, as could have given 
 Bill Sykes the bank we're now in, and 
 then licked him off his legs at fust-class 
 robbery.' 
 
 ' I don't think,' said little Truffles, in a 
 rather thick voice (he had been drinking 
 strong wine rather freely), ' that we ought to 
 lishen to these stay mens from this person. 
 My gran-fa was an Esh-Indy director.' 
 
 ' Nonsense,' said Charley, who enjoyed the 
 fun. ' Your grandfather may have been a 
 saint, but it doesn't follow that all directors 
 are as spotless as he was.' 
 
 Little Truffles evidently meant to reply, 
 but at that moment he fell off his chair as if 
 he had been shot, and we had to carry him 
 into Charley's sleeping den and put him on 
 the bed. 
 
 Coming out of the bedroom rather sud- 
 denly I noticed, or fancied I noticed, our 
 Radical waiter fumbling mysteriously with 
 the wine, and taking this in connection with 
 little Truffles's sudden attack, I resolved, I 
 
As Safe as the Bank, 1 6 1 
 
 scarcely knew why, to be cautious and 
 watchful durlnof the remainder of the 
 dinner. 
 
 'Some gents, if they're at all weak,' said 
 the waiter, ' can't stand our wines. The old 
 blokes in the City are well seasoned, and 
 they laps 'em like milk ; but they plays old 
 gooseberry with the younger visitors.' 
 
 This speech had the effect of sending 
 Charley's head into a bumper of Burgundy, 
 as he was rather proud of his drinking 
 powers ; and in a few minutes he followed 
 little Truffles, and fell on the floor. 
 
 ' Dear- a -dear}/ me,' said the Radical 
 waiter, as he helped to carry Charley into 
 the inner den, * I begin to feel a little giddy 
 myself. How do you feel, sir ? It must be 
 somethin' in the hatmosphere.' 
 
 As he made this remark in a very innocent 
 way he had to stoop to lift Charley's left leg 
 on to the bed, and in stooping, his wig fell 
 off, exposing a cropped head of iron-grey 
 hair that had either been cut in Paris or the 
 House of Correction. He was not a thing 
 
 ir 
 
102 As Safe as the Bank. 
 
 of beauty, by any means, and In his limp 
 white choker and greasy black suit he looked 
 like a converted prize-fighter who had taken 
 to the dissenting pulpit, or a rackety parson 
 who had taken to burglary and the prize- 
 ring. I had very little time to admire the 
 change in his appearance, for a dizziness 
 came over me, and I sank into what I sup- 
 posed was an easy-chair, but which I after- 
 wards found was a hip-bath. When I partially 
 recovered my consciousness I found myself 
 seated again at tlie dining-table, with Charley 
 and little Truffles in their old positions, but 
 as helpless as puppets. The table had been 
 arranged for smoking ; the lamp was turned 
 down ; the boots of the sentinel were no 
 longer still pacing before the fragment of a 
 window, and the mysterious waiter had dis- 
 appeared. I went to the door and found it 
 locked ; I shook both my companions with 
 no effect, and by this time the fact dawned 
 on my rather muddled intellect that we had 
 all been trapped. Before I could pull myself 
 together to grasp this idea in all its bearings 
 
As Sa/c as the Bank. 163 
 
 I had to go into the sleeping-den and sluice 
 my head with cold water, and after this 
 pick-me-up I came to the conclusion that the 
 mysterious waiter not only meant burglary 
 but was now doing It. 
 
 Feeling that it was perhaps dangerous to 
 make a row, and utterly useless to try to 
 rouse Charley and little Truffles, I attempted 
 to force the door, but found it too strong for 
 me. My next hope was the windows, and 
 here I was a little troubled. The one In the 
 sitting-room was only large enough to allow 
 of the exit of the smallest chimney-sweep, 
 and I was full-bodied, and thirteen stone 
 weight. I looked in the sleeping-den, and 
 found a glazed outlet about three feet square, 
 protected by thick rusty Iron bars that were 
 pretty far apart, but not far enough to allow 
 my passage. While I was looking at this 
 window, and thinking how I could overcome 
 this serious difficulty, a heavy form appeared 
 outside, and I heard the rasping of a file. I 
 was in the dark, and could not be seen. I 
 waited breathlessly for the result of this 
 
 1 1 — 2 
 
164 y^s Safe as the Bank. 
 
 operation, quite prepared to sink into seem- 
 \v\^ Insensibility If necessary. It was not 
 necessary. A heavy iron bar was taken 
 away in a few minutes (I never found out 
 for what purpose), and an opening was made 
 through which I could squeeze myself. I 
 waited until all was quiet again, and then, 
 mounting on a table, I got through the 
 window and dropped into a dark stone 
 passage. 
 
 I hesitated for a few moments as to what 
 steps I should now take, until I heard 
 smothered voices In the distance, and I then 
 groped my way In the direction of the sound. 
 I reached what I believed to be one end of 
 the passage, and, slightly pushing open a 
 door, I saw in a dimly-lighted room the 
 Radical waiter engaged in suppressed alter- 
 cation with a small copy of himself — a bull- 
 headed boy about twelve or fourteen years 
 of age. 
 
 * You're a disgrace to your parents, that's 
 what you are,' said the Radical waiter. * I'm 
 ashamed of yer — thoroughly ashamed of yer. 
 
As Safe as the Dank, 165 
 
 The principal thinor I leaves yer to bring, yer 
 goes and leaves behind/ 
 
 * You might have brought it yourself/ 
 answered the boy, sulkily ; ^ I'd quite enough 
 to carry as it was.' 
 
 * Go it — go it !' replied the Radical waiter. 
 ' Cheek your poor father, who's fed you on 
 the fat of the land. You're not fit to hold a 
 candle to your poor brother/ 
 
 ' Who wants to hold a candle to him ?' 
 retorted the sweet youth. 'He's a pretty 
 lot — ain't he t Where is he now ?' 
 
 ' Never mind where he is : I only wish he 
 was here !' 
 
 I gathered from this conversation that the 
 absent youth was pacifying an offended 
 country In some model prison, while the 
 father was dolne his best to send the other 
 and visible youth on the same road. The 
 visible youth soon made himself invisible, for 
 he plunged out of the room through a door 
 at the other end, slamming it behind him. 
 The father, looking more like a Methodist 
 parson than ever, muttered something about 
 
t66 As Safe as the Bank, 
 
 a thankless child being sharper than a turtle's 
 tooth (at least, I understood him to say so) ; 
 and then, taking a lantern and a bar of iron 
 (I presume the bar that had been wrenched 
 from the window), he disappeared through a 
 low-vaulted opening in the wall, and I quickly 
 but silently followed him. He was evidently 
 familiar with the place, and I was not, so I 
 soon lost him in the winding passages. I 
 listened for the sound of footsteps or some 
 other and more burglarious sign of his 
 whereabouts, still feeling my way along the 
 wall. After an anxious time, which appeared 
 to be eternity, as you literary gentlemen 
 would put it, I turned a sharp corner, and at 
 the end of another and shorter passage I saw 
 what I supposed to be his light glimmering 
 through the keyhole of a doorway. I made 
 for the keyhole and peeped through. He 
 was alone, as far as I could see, in a black 
 vault containing a number of sacks. I had 
 tracked, him to his lair. I knew nothing 
 about the Bank of England, and cared less, 
 but I felt that this fellow had no ricrht to 
 
As Safe as the Bank, 167 
 
 gorge himself with other people's bullion, 
 especially after the revolutionary sentiments 
 he had expressed at the dinner-table. Be- 
 sides, I had been a guest, more or less, of 
 the Governor and Company of the Bank ; I 
 had eaten their food and drank their wine — 
 some of the finest wine I had ever tasted — 
 and I thought the least I could do would be 
 to save them half a million. I rushed upon 
 the ruffian without further reflection, and in 
 my eagerness I upset and extinguished the 
 lantern. He was not disposed to surrender 
 quietly, and, as I expected, was very mus- 
 cular if a little puffy. I was not exacdy in 
 what is called good condition. We rolled 
 over the sacks, got up, fell down ai^ain, 
 hugged, pulled, tugged, tore our clothes ; 
 did everything but wresde properly. I had 
 been taught wresding by a celebrated pro- 
 fessor, but to perform any of my feats it was 
 necessary for my opponent to put himself in 
 a certain recognised position, and this the 
 Radical waiter never did. At last, when I 
 thought I had got him safely, he tripped me 
 
1 68 As Safe as the BomJc. 
 
 up in a most effective but utterly unscientific 
 manner, ran out of the place, and left me 
 wallowing among the gold. 
 
 What happened afterwards I cannot relate 
 with quite as much pleasure. I consider I 
 was very badly treated by the Bank "autho- 
 rities, and at times I am almost inclined to 
 agree with the Radical waiter's sentiments, 
 and to hold that they hushed the matter up 
 for some sinister reason. They as good as 
 stated that the vault I was in was the wine- 
 cellar of the Bank — stored with rare old vine 
 — and that the sacks contained nothing but 
 old corks, which they always kept to prevent 
 frauds upon the public. I need scarcely say 
 that I consider such a story ought to be 
 reserved for the special use of the youngest 
 marines. They denied that any bar had 
 been filed and taken from a window ; but 
 they admitted that a somewhat solid form 
 must have forced itself between two existing 
 bars. Altogether I think they behaved 
 
As Safe as the Bank. 169 
 
 devilish badly in the matter, and Charley 
 Scotson behaved even worse, for he took the 
 Radical waiter Into his service as a buder 
 when he setded at Manchester. They chaff 
 me most Infernally at the ' Rag ' and the 
 * Guards ' when any fellows are ordered on 
 guard at the Bank. They swear the Bank 
 wine has never been so strong or so good 
 since that memorable occasion. 
 
PLAIJV ENGLISH. 
 
 [^"^^ N a country like England, where 
 words are more respected than 
 deeds — where spades are not 
 objected to as long as they are not called 
 spades, and where the term spade is objected 
 to whether it represents the thing spade or 
 not, it is the duty of every rightly constituted 
 being to throw as much light as possible on 
 the English language. The poor clown who 
 wallows in the sawdust of the circus cannot, 
 of course, be expected, in this particular, to 
 rival the usefulness of the bishop in the 
 pulpit ; but as one bishop, in financial value, 
 is equal to fifty clowns, so one clown may be 
 regarded as equal to the fiftieth part of a 
 
Plain English. 171 
 
 bishop. If one grain of wheat is found in a 
 bushel of chaff, the bushel of chaff has not 
 been collected in vain ; and, in the hope that 
 this one grain of wheat may be discovered in 
 the following definitions, they are now put 
 forward as a contribution to a new philo- 
 sophical dictionary. 
 
 Client. — One who knows his case. 
 
 Attorney. — One who has to be taught by 
 the client. 
 
 Barrister. — One who has to be taught by 
 the attorney. 
 
 Judge. — One who has to be taught by the 
 barrister. 
 
 Jury. — A body that has to be taught by 
 the judge. 
 
 Oath. — A ceremony invented to save men 
 of honour from the necessity of telling 
 the truth. 
 
 Bail. — An invention to save rich criminals 
 from the grip of justice. 
 
172 Plain English. 
 
 Detective. — A man who receives three 
 pounds a week, and is expected to show 
 intehigence and honesty that would be 
 cheap at twenty. 
 
 Land. — Almost the only property which 
 gentlemen may steal without being 
 transported or losing caste. 
 
 Annexation. — A fine word for robbery of 
 this character. 
 
 Missionary. — The pioneer of annexation. 
 
 Workhouse. — A terminus for third-class 
 passengers. 
 
 Hospital. — A workshop for repairing 
 Nature's slopwork. 
 
 Indigestion. — The Divine Afflatus, 
 
 Dyspepsia. — The punishment of pros- 
 perity. 
 
 Education. — A little rowing and less 
 Greek. 
 
 Tea. — The dissipation of the temperate. 
 
Plain Eucrlish. 
 
 I o 
 
 Drunkenness. — The most profitable vice 
 that a Chancellor of the Exchequer has 
 to deal with. 
 
 M.P. — An amateur legislator who has 
 passed no apprenticeship to his business. 
 
 Laws. — Amateur regulations made by the 
 aforesaid legislator for the government 
 cf the universe. 
 
 Government. — The blue- bottles on the 
 chariot-wheel. 
 
 Tory. — A rich Liberal. 
 
 Liberal. — A poor Tory. 
 
 Demagogue. — A word used to frighten 
 naughty little Tories who refuse to say 
 their Conservative prayers. 
 
 Communist. — A much-abused Frenchman 
 who asked for Local Self-Government. 
 
 Vestryman. — A statesman in the wrong 
 place. 
 
 Statesman. — A vestryman in the wrong 
 place. 
 
1 74 Plain Evglish, 
 
 Abdication. — A polite word always used 
 to conceal the fact that an unpopular 
 monarch has been kicked downstairs. 
 
 Empress. — Queen in two syllables. 
 
 Music-hall — A term of reproach applied 
 to the chosen nursery of the British 
 Drama. 
 
 BuRLESQUoPHOBiA. — A new disease which 
 has seized dramatic critics and caused 
 them to rave about high art. 
 
 Legitimate Drama. — A drama whose 
 authors are dead, and whose copyrights 
 have expired. 
 
 Chamberlain. — A functionary in England 
 who regulates court millinery and 
 dramatic literature. 
 
 House. — An instrument of torture In- 
 vented by builders. 
 
 Dry Wine. — Physic in a convivial bottle. 
 
 Nuisance. — Anything which I detest and 
 you probably adore. 
 
Plain Enolish. 
 
 /D 
 
 Panic. — An attempt on the part of in- 
 solvent debtors to make the Government 
 pay their debts. 
 
 Telegraphic Cable. — Three mllHons' 
 worth of wire, with a cheap clerk at one 
 end and a ' street Arab' at the other. 
 
 Channel Boat. — A vessel built to diminish 
 the distance between pitch and toss and 
 manslaughter. 
 
 Figures. — Instruments mven to us to con- 
 ceal the state of our affairs. 
 
 History. — One side of a question. 
 
 Hydrophobia. — A peculiar kind of mad- 
 ness which seizes men and causes them 
 to kill dogs. 
 
 Grey Hair. — A boon given by Nature to 
 quacks. 
 
 Suicide. — The wanton destruction of a 
 taxpayer. 
 
 Murder. — The same. 
 
176 Plain English, 
 
 Rule Britannia. — A term which has cost 
 England more than eight hundred 
 milHons sterHng. 
 
 War. — The madness of one man and the 
 idiocy of milHons. 
 
 Theatrical Manager. — A licensed dealer 
 in legs, short skirts, French adaptations, 
 Shakespeare, taste, and the musical 
 glasses. 
 
y UP ITERS APPRENTICESHIP. 
 
 ANY years ago, in my juvenile 
 days, when I was in my tens of 
 thousands — the ' teens ' of the 
 governing classes — my respected parent, 
 called by most people the Ground Landlord, 
 came to me, and said : 
 
 'Junior, it is high time that you went to 
 work, and prepared yourself for that station 
 in life to which, in due time, it will please 
 the gods to call you.' 
 
 ' Senior,' I replied, ' I am quite ready. 
 V/hat work, and what workshop T 
 
 Most people who know the Universe, 
 would have expected one of three replies — 
 an x\merican Hotel, a London Opera House, 
 
 12 
 
17^ Jupiter s Apprenticeship. 
 
 or a French Theatre. It is no secret that 
 the American people regard the successful 
 hotel manager as a Heaven-born Adminis- 
 trator, fit at any time to run for the 
 Presidency. It is no secret that the English 
 people have an equally high opinion of a 
 successful zmp7^esariOj and that the French 
 people have even a higher opinion of a suc- 
 cessful Administrateur-General of Theatrical 
 Affairs. This being the case, I confess I 
 was rather surprised when my respected 
 Senior made no allusion to either of these 
 enterprises, but sent me down to earth with 
 a letter of introduction to the editor of the 
 most important of all important journals. 
 
 The office of the most important of all 
 important journals did not oppress me with 
 its splendour. It was situated up a back 
 alley in a rather depressed and depressing 
 part of the city of London, and I required 
 the services of an intelligent street arab to 
 guide me safely to its doorway. There was 
 an old-fashioned air about the place, remind- 
 ing me of a City Almshouse, and one or two 
 
yupiter's Apprenticeship. 179 
 
 soot)' trees, standing in a kind of courtyard, 
 helped to nourish this impression. 
 
 After a Httle delay — not more than could 
 be expected under the circumstances — I was 
 admitted into the presence of the Editor of 
 the great journal, and, though I was treated 
 with every politeness and consideration, I 
 was somehow made to feel that my respected 
 parent was not the only Jupiter. After a 
 few preliminary remarks of a commonplace 
 character, I was asked one or two leading 
 questions as to my qualifications for the 
 work I was about to undertake. 
 
 ' I hope,' said the gentleman, whom I will 
 call the Omnipotent We, * you are not 
 troubled with any fixed principles, and, 
 above all things, I hope you are not a 
 Doctrinaire P 
 
 I replied that my mind was like a lump of 
 putty, ready to take any impression that the 
 Omnipotent We thought proper to stamp 
 upon it. 
 
 ' You have the pen of a ready writer ?' 
 
 I hoped so. 
 
 12 — 2 
 
i8o Jupiter s Apprenticeship. 
 
 ' You can write with equal spirit on one 
 side or on the other ?' 
 
 I hoped so. 
 
 ' Let us suppose a case,' continued the 
 Omnipotent We. * I admit, an extreme case. 
 Let us suppose that we are living in the 
 time of Charles the First. Let us suppose 
 that the King has just been beheaded. Of 
 course, we have a special report of the 
 execution, by our own correspondent, and 
 probably one or two other accounts by spec- 
 tators, and equally, of course, we have to 
 comment in a leader on the important event. 
 We catch the popular feeling of the hour. 
 We speak of the defunct monarch as a man 
 whose word could never be trusted — as a 
 king who systematically violated the most 
 cherished principles of the Constitution. 
 While we degrade the defunct King, we 
 uphold his executioners, and we speak of 
 Oliver Cromwell in terms of the highest 
 respect. In three days, a marked change 
 occurs in popular feeling, or, at least, we 
 have every reason to believe that such a 
 
yupiters ApprcnticcsJdp. i8i 
 
 change is impending. On the third day, 
 therefore, we write another leader, in which 
 we speak of the defunct King as His Sacred 
 Majesty — a Royal Martyr, etc., while we 
 abuse his executioners as regicides, and hint 
 that a brewer of weak ale, at an obscure 
 villaee in the East of England, is not a fit 
 person to be a Lord Protector. Do you 
 catch my idea ?' 
 
 I thought I did. 
 
 ' Then take those two themes, and work 
 them out by to-morrow.' 
 
 I did as I was told, and brought my work 
 the next day for examination. 
 
 ' Hum — hum,' said the Omnipotent We, 
 not unapprovingly ; ^ these leaders are very 
 fair, and we shall be able to make a very 
 good working journalist of you ; but they 
 have one fault, which you will see in a 
 moment, when I draw your attention to it. 
 In the leader of the third day you have 
 alluded to the leader of the first day, and 
 endeavoured to explain and justify — I admit 
 very cleverly — your change of opinion. This 
 
1 82 Jttpiters Apprenticeship. 
 
 you should not have done. You should 
 never allude to the past, unless it serves 
 your purpose. A journalist is nothing if not 
 infallible. The public have short memories, 
 and you should not attempt to improve them. 
 I observe, too, that you hesitate in one or 
 two of your statements of fact, as if you were 
 not quite sure of your history.' 
 
 I replied that I was not quite sure of my 
 history. 
 
 ^ All the more reason,' continued the 
 Omnipotent We, ' why you should adopt a 
 decided tone. You must never forget that, 
 whatever your shortcomings may be, you are 
 addressing an audience a trifle more ignorant 
 than you are yourself. When I was at 
 college, I had a tutor, who taught me 
 Hebrew. For some months I believed in 
 him, until a fellow- collegian told me some- 
 thing that led me to doubt the depth of his 
 learning. I taxed him with an imposition, 
 and he at once admitted it. " But you teach 
 me Hebrew," I said. " I do," he replied. 
 " How do you do it ?" '[ I will tell you. 
 
yupiters Apprenticeship. i8 
 
 o 
 
 What I learn to-day, I teach you to-morrovv ; 
 and I always keep a lesson ahead of my 
 pupils. 
 
 To acquire what was called the mechanism 
 of my art, I was put in the sub-editor's office, 
 where I had to condense reports, select items 
 of news, and perform other similar duties. 
 The contributors who o^ave me the most 
 trouble were those jackals of journalism 
 vulgarly called the ' penny-a-liners.' They 
 indulged not only in flights of fancy, but in a 
 style of writing that was often a little too 
 luxuriant. They had a stock of paragraphs 
 always on hand, and, if I wanted to fill up an 
 odd corner, I selected one of these without 
 inquiring too curiously into the truth of their 
 statements. ' Remarkable Cases of Longevity ' 
 were great favourites with these writers, and 
 the family of seven in Norfolk, whose united 
 ages amounted to ^v^ hundred and eighty-six 
 years, often figured in the most important of 
 all important journals. 
 
 Amongst accidents the 'Infuriated Ox' 
 was an old favourite, because it gave an 
 
184 yupiters Apprenticeship. 
 
 opportunity of inserting a few delicate adver- 
 tising allusions. 
 
 I knew, before I looked at the manuscript^ 
 what the 'Infuriated Ox' was doing. 'The 
 excited animal now pursued its maddened 
 career along Tottenham Court Road, where 
 it stopped, for a moment, opposite the cele- 
 brated emporium of Messrs. Maple and Co.,. 
 the world-renowned upholsterers, and played 
 sad havoc with a crate of very valuable 
 furniture, just packed by this eminent firm, 
 to be sent, by special order, to His Excellency 
 the Right Honourable Lord Lytton, the 
 Viceroy of Her Gracious Majesty's Empire 
 of India,' etc. The 'Infuriated Ox' nearlv 
 always destroyed property of this character. 
 I was tender — perhaps too tender — v;ith 
 these reports, as I felt that the liner had his 
 living to get, the same as the Omnipotent 
 We. 
 
 In the office, or department, where I was 
 then working, there was one very old official, 
 of fabulous age, who would not take a pension, 
 but preferred to wander about the place^ 
 
ynpitcrs ApprcnliLCsJiip. 185 
 
 under the belief that he was necessary to the 
 very existence of the great journal. He 
 remembered the paper in its youthful days, 
 and professed to be familiar with every 
 detail of its history, even from its cradle. 
 Occasionally he took me into his confi- 
 dence, and told me much that I was curious 
 to know. 
 
 * We run after kings and ministers, now,* 
 he said, ' and feel that we are the governing 
 power of the State, but I remember the time 
 when we were much more anxious for the 
 good-will of cooks and housemaids. Adver- 
 tisements are our life-blood, and advertise- 
 ments we have got in thousands, but there 
 was a time when they came slowly, when they 
 had to be watched for, and touted for, when 
 he ' — pointing to an old-fashioned portrait on 
 the wall — ' stood, so to speak, with his apron 
 on behind the counter, and bowed even to 
 his humblest supporters. Now, we treat our 
 advertisers as if we conferred a favour on 
 them by accepting their announcements. No 
 one would suppose, from our manners now, 
 
t86 yupiters Apprenticeship, 
 
 that our proprietors have been in Newgate 
 and the pillory for libel.' 
 
 ^ The public like to be snubbed,' said an 
 eccentric member of the staff, who was 
 known in the office as the Encyclopaedical 
 contributor. He wrote upon all things with 
 astounding ease and rapidity, but, I am sorry 
 to say, had very little respect for his profes- 
 sion. 
 
 ' Half our criticism in the paper consists of 
 snubbings administered to literature, science 
 and art, and the more we snub them the 
 more they like it. Take our dramatic 
 criticism, for example. We rarely insert it 
 until it has become a week old, and then_, in 
 live cases out of ten, we bury it in the 
 supplement. The dramatic profession, instead 
 of resenting this, only advertises in our columns 
 with all the more vigour.' 
 
 ' My orders,' I replied, ' are clear on this 
 point ; if anything is to stand over, or to be 
 left out, it is dramatic notices.' 
 
 ' Exactly/ returned the Encyclopaedical 
 One, ' and yet you draw from thirty to forty 
 
jfupiiers Apprenticeship. 187 
 
 thousand a year income from public amuse- 
 ments. You chronicle the petty crimes of 
 tenth -rate pick -pockets ; you report the 
 twaddle of tenth-rate parliamentary orators, 
 you publish so-called ^* weather forecasts," 
 wdiich are about as trustworthy as your 
 political prophecies, and yet you cannot find 
 room for the doings of play-actors. The 
 truth is, you despise play-actors. You are 
 too busy trying to govern the universe, to 
 bestow much attention upon such wretched 
 caterpillars. When you had' to send round 
 to the theatres, and beg and pray, and even 
 pay heavily, for those advertisements, you 
 thought and acted differently.' 
 
 I protested against the assumption that I 
 despised the stage. 
 
 * My dear fellow,' replied the Encyclo- 
 paedical One, ^ you only copy your editor, 
 probably, without knowing it. We cannot 
 expect a sub-editor to pay much respect to 
 play-acting, when the dramatic critic is told 
 to write what he likes, so that he spells the 
 
1 88 Jupiter s Apprenticeship. 
 
 names correctly, and saves the editor from a 
 flood of correspondence from a number of 
 very inferior people.' 
 
 Many arguments like this I had with the 
 Encyclopaedical One, and I found that I 
 generally got the worst of it. I reported 
 these conversations to my chief, and he told 
 me to pay little attention to them. 
 
 ' Our friend/ he said, ' is a very clever 
 fellow; but a very bad journalist. He 
 wants discipline. He wrote over the grave 
 of one of our most trusted contributors — a 
 writer whom we shall probably never be able 
 to replace — '' He taught his grandmother to 
 suck eggs." A man who could do that, is 
 not a fit guide for a young and rising 
 journalist, like yourself, and I advise you to 
 avoid him.' 
 
 I did not seek the companionship of the 
 Encyclopaedical One after this ; but I found 
 that he was not by any means the most 
 dangerous member of the staff His opinions 
 may have been too independent for the great 
 
Jupiter s App7'enticeship. 1S9 
 
 and important journal, but his actions were 
 governed by honesty of purpose, i could 
 hardly say the same of one contributor — the 
 head of a department — who had gradually 
 grown into a greater man than the Omnipo- 
 tent We. This was the City Editor, the 
 money-article writer, who proved how diffi- 
 cult it was to serve Jupiter and Mammon. 
 He made the paper a mouthpiece for a family 
 of financiers, who, in return, made him richer 
 than the Omnipotent We, or the Omnipotent 
 We's master. For years we were only the 
 play-things of these City money-grubbers, 
 when we fondly imagined we were governing 
 the universe. It was a very severe blow to 
 our pride, though it did not affect our pockets. 
 Once before in the history of the paper we 
 had been treated in a similar way, but the 
 offender made a little reparation, by commit- 
 ting suicide. In this case, the traitor merely 
 resigned, and the paper tried to avenge itself 
 by abolishing its City office. 
 
 I passed my apprenticeship on the whole 
 
190 y^ipiters App7^enticeship, 
 
 very pleasantly, and when I had served my 
 time and returned to my native kingdom, I 
 carried with me, in one particular, a very 
 hio^h opinion of my brother journalists. I 
 regarded them as men of the broadest toler- 
 ance. This may have been due to the 
 colourless nature of their opinions, but that 
 was immaterial. The result was the same, 
 no matter by what process it was arrived at. 
 I found that my Senior's standing rules for 
 entry into Elysium enacted, that people with 
 any fixed views should be carefully classified, 
 and made to live together for the sake of 
 harmony, while persons with no views were 
 allowed to circulate freely, as they were not 
 likely to pick quarrels. I obtained leave for 
 journalists to be accepted as belonging to 
 this latter class, without any delay or cross- 
 examination. I never had any cause to 
 regret what I had done. The great questions 
 of the Universe were never discussed with 
 any party feeling, and the only disputes that 
 ever arose were on such trifling matters as 
 
ytipiters Apprenticeship. 191 
 
 horse-racing or play-acting. The * prophets * 
 were always naming horses that never won a 
 race, and the critics were always condemning 
 plays that ran a twelvemonth. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD, SURREY. 
 
April, i83o. 
 
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