America, to make the polite society of Fifth Avenue and the coster of the Bowery and Fulton Market familiar with the coster of the Old Kent Road and the coster of Hoxton. Very clever as are two or three at least of the men who do low comedy in ways of their own in London halls, from the Eastern Empire at Bow to the Washington at Battersea, no one throws for a minute into the background-no one allows us to forget the gently incisive art of Mr. Chevalier, more especially as he exercised it before any one of his subjects became lachrymose--as he exercised it in Mrs. 'Enry 'Awkins, in the Little Nipper, and even if you like (though that was on the confines of exaggerated pathos) in My Old Dutch. I always used to think the Little Nipper was the greatest triumph of all. The pride of the man in his precocious offspring-the children of the streets are always, like Portia herself, as Shylock said of her, so much more elder' than their years-the quick-witted audacity and cheek' of the little lad to whom nothing is denied, when he affectionately and confidently asserts equality with his parents-these were in the Little Nipper so accurately observed, so very finely rendered.

It is right to say, of course, that the stage of the music-hall may fairly boast two or three other men whose performances are vivid, amusing, not wanting in good taste, and who observe life and render it.

But then at the music-hall the list is so short a one of men whom we can praise at all with cordiality. In the regular theatre, when you leave the masters, you find, beneath their rank, dozens and scores of serious, not unworthy students. At the music-hall, below the rank of the big men, you find, I must suppose, here and there a man who has something of his own to give you that you can enjoy and even profit by. But you find him rarely. No. The moment in which I have praised warmly is the very moment for saying that the men, generally, at the music-halls-I mean the singing men and the comedians, not the gymnasts and athletes who give the musichall a certain raison d'être, and bring into the Strand and Leicester Square an Olympic game,' as it were, up to date and fitted for the needs of London-that the men, generally, at the music-halls (unless, indeed, they are to be judged from the point of view of the gallery) are incomparably tiresome, incomparably dull-not seldom even revolting.

In discussing women-in estimating something of their charm upon the stage, if not exactly in weighing their pure artistic meritit may be that the average frequenter of the halls and the occasional visitor, whose interest in an art may be presumed to be more serious, stand more on common ground. The fact may bring a little undue tenderness into the verdict; but is it, after all, unfair, and is it not, at all events, true that the ladies of the music-hall profession do reach at least a higher average of charm and of attainment than the men? Here of course the accomplishment of the dance comes in, and

must be taken account of, as well as a certain amount of talent, which rarely, I fear, reaches to high accomplishment,' in vocalisation or comedy. Very few indeed of the music-hall singers (I am talking now of the ladies) would appear to have ever thought it necessary, in their song, to add Art to Nature--to have studied voice-production. And either the quality of the voice is often pitiably unmusical, or it is strained to hold its own against the too loud accompaniment of the band, or it is practically sacrificed to jerky, loud effects and gestures supposed to be telling. There are, of course, certain exceptions amongst them, one or two young people whose romping songs, whose graceful dances, have brought them lately from the Music-Hall to the Dramatic Stage.

The halls contain, no doubt, a fair proportion of young women whose intelligence includes humour. Here and there one of them, possessed of the seven devils of her music-hall energy, triumphantly cultivates the eccentric and bizarre. But the stage of the halls does not, it seems, present us with many women whose sense of humour is made manifest by any exhibition of their own observation of life; and vivacity, sometimes natural, sometimes forced-animal spirit or the semblance of it-may have to take the place of the real sense of comedy.

Here and there again-it may be in their occasional excursions into pantomime-one sees, in this or that young artist,' spontaneous fun and happy humour, more range, more delicate capacity than the music-hall has ever permitted her to show. And then one hopes, of course, that the Stage proper will become that artist's recognised and customary place.

But let me take my reader into my confidence, and tell him, now, that when I venture to express a pious hope of this sort, I never feel quite sure that it will be shared at all, or at all appreciated, by whatever person happens to be the subject of it. For there comes in that which we have always with us-there comes the great question of money; and it needs a pure theatrical success, important, unmistakable, quite out of the common, to permit to gifted youth at the theatre any such receipts as may be gathered by rushing over the town in a professional's brougham, and dancing at three halls every evening. And now that I have raised the question of money, let it be said incidentally that the receipts of the profession vary almost beyond the limits in which they vary in any other calling. There are those who hold themselves, or whose managers hold them, not insufficiently remunerated by the salary of an ordinary ballet-girl— about a guinea and a half a week. Four hundred a week was paid, I think, this season, to Yvette Guilbert at the Empire; and it is said that Chevalier has been able to refuse an engagement which would have brought him in eight thousand a year.

As for the order of dancing seen at the music-halls-except for

some survivals at the Empire and Alhambra-most of it is French, or has, at least, affinity with French methods rather than with the Italian operatic dancing for which La Scala yet remains the greatest training-place. The French say it takes ten years to make a fine comedian. We English have it—although Miss Vera Beringer is going to prove the saying untrue-that nobody is fit to play Juliet till she is unable any longer to look it.' And in Italy they say—the masters at La Scala say-it takes ten years to learn to do much more upon your toes than other people do upon the soles of their feet. The Italian art, however, such as it is-and I am bound to say that, perhaps because I am ignorant, I am not particularly fond of it is something more than painfully acquired agility. The merit of such dancing is not obvious. It wants a trained spectator as well as a trained performer. It is a conventional art, in which every movement has a meaning the Italians understand. It is a language of the stage which has been handed down, like Masonic secrets. But, as has been implied already, there is perhaps no reason to be sorry for what must be described as its decline in England. In the English or French skirt or step dance, there is more grace, more joy. At least these give us the quick and lissom and unfettered movement of the whole elegant figure, and swaying lines of supple drapery, and changeful hues.

At music-halls, the songs, or those with the best chances of being popular, are written, chiefly, by only two or three writers; and to this fact sometimes is attributed what must be called their painful monotony, or, at the least, unhappy paucity, of theme. You have the mother-in-law, and the mother-in-law, of course, is a nuisance and an obstacle. You have the deceiving husband. You have the deceived, or the deceiving, wife. Every one, it seems, is busy in doing that which he pretends not to be doing, yet which all the world assumes that he is certain to do. Along with these outworn themes, from which one would fain seek relief in some fresh observation of life and of the passing manners of the day, you have, occasionally, if the hall is 'popular' rather than fashionable, some very broad compliment to what are called the 'working classes' as the base the inevitable, priceless, base-of society's column; and you have, in times especially of excitement, appeals to patriotism, some of which are sound, but some of which make one think of M. de la Rochefoucauld's remark that there are 'few of us who have not sufficient strength to bear the misfortunes'—yes, even if those misfortunes be the wounds and death of other people.' The effect of familiarity and poverty of theme in the actual songs of the music-halls, is minimised, it is true, to some extent, by the measure of 'gag,' of fresh and personal matter, which the best comedians of the music-hall-and many who are not the best-allow themselves to introduce. But, after all, of the songs of the music-hall it has got to be said,

in parting from them, that the greater part of their comedy is based on coarseness, and that if you can imagine the relation of the sexes deprived altogether of its carnal side, or, if you will, that carnal side accepted once for all as healthy and above board and so not open to innuendo or comment, the song of the music-hall would at a stroke be deprived of half of its material.

And now, with perfect frankness, though, as I hope, with no great lack of tolerance or charity, I have spoken of some of the characteristics of the entertainment. That entertainment cannot, as a whole, claim to be elevating or refined. There are particulars in which it is worthy of praise; details, too, for which it is to be energetically blamed. I praise it for the occasional daintiness of its appeal to our natural senses of pleasure; and blame it for the little call it makes on our intelligence, and yet more for its too easy acquiescence in the grosser view of Life which is taken, undoubtedly, by no small part of its habitual patrons. Much that it affects to be, it cannot fairly claim to be; but whatever be its qualities or its merits, its variety, its elasticity, no one can contest. And herein lies, one may suppose, its hope for the Future. The managers of music-halls— though, of course, not at bottom more intelligent are less conservative than average managers of theatres; they vie with each other-many of them—in the presentation of the new thing, whatever the new thing may be.

One of the newest things just now is the popularisation of discoveries. That is better than such feats of the acrobat as involve some danger and little skill-great jumps, for instance, in which, though pluck is there, there is very little besides-feats which are little real test of endurance or of strength, and which, unlike some other acrobatic feats which one witnesses with joy at the same places, permit no exhibition of the disciplined and graceful and finely modelled form. Far better is it too- -a thousand times better-than the 'turn" of the extraordinary animal, subdued and trained-taught, as recent accounts tell us, to do wonders on the stage at the cost often of only too much cruelty before the footlights have been faced, or when the curtain has fallen. There are music-halls which put before us-and the audience takes great interest in them—the revelations of the X rays. The Kinetophone is not at the halls yet, perhaps; but it is probably on the way to them. The Kinematograph is already at more than one of them, showing a stormy sea, the Thames at Waterloo Bridge, the race for the Derby. Panoramalike almost in continuity, but, after all, like nothing but life itself, the actual scene, the actual world, there flash before you nine hundred and fifty instantaneous records in a minute, blending in an effect that is that, really, of your very presence on the Downs. The house holds its breath till it is over; cheers lustily the moment it is done. No sagacious person would suggest, of course, that the entertainment of

song and dance and of the observation of Life, more or less comic generally-in rarest instances a little tender-shall yield place in any great measure to the popularised science of the Polytechnic. That suggestion is for the doctrinaire who takes no account of what Humanity is made of-of its need, sometimes, of simple pleasure, simple fun. But, certainly, these recent discoveries of science—their popularisation at the music-halls-opens new doors: spreads out a new vista. Anything that brings a better class of people to the performance has an influence in improving the performance as a whole. It is the business of the music-hall manager to see to it, that, not only in material things, but in Art and Tone, his entertainment (which the million now-a-days flocks to) travels steadily upon the 'up-grade.'

FREDERICK WEDMORE.