As in the material or mechanical features of the show there are mysteries of the most interesting and instructive kind, so, too, the personal features of the realm of entertainment—the great world of amusement—contain much that will not only surprise, but will tickle the unsophisticated. By lifting the veil the least bit, the reader can have a peep at the most attractive of the events and incidents that go to make the romantic career of an actor or actress. There are various little things that look simple and innocent enough when they appear in the shape of a newspaper paragraph that contain a world of meaning to the initiated. There are methods of getting and keeping players before the public of which the latter know no more than they do of the wife of the man in the moon. There are flagrant scandals mingling with the innocent revels of these masquerading people, and there are, too, some of the saintliest, sweetest, manliest and womanliest of individuals in a profession that almost the entire world looks upon with the wildest suspicion, and whose bright names and fair fames can never be tarnished by the iniquitous doings of persons lower and less respectable in character. In all that will be written here regarding the dark side of theatrical life, I wish it distinctly understood that there is no desire or intention to cast even the slightest reflection upon the honored and respected members of a grand profession, and wherever a seemingly sweeping and uncomplimentary statement may be made, the reader will be kind enough to add a saving clause in favor of all those who do not deserve such condemnation. In the concert saloon, the variety den, the boys' theatre, and the numerous other dives in which vice parades boldly and nakedly, will be found ample field for trenchant and graphic writing. These pits of infamy flourish everywhere, and are as freely patronized as the charms of their female attractions are freely displayed; the girls in short dresses, in gleaming tights, with padded bust and cotton-rounded limbs, their seductive wiles, their beer-thirstiness, their reckless familiarity with male friends and strangers, alike from the beardless boy of fourteen to the bald and withering roué, the ample freedom with which they throw themselves into the arms of victims and give themselves up to the most outrageous revels; the female minstrel gang and the break-o'-day girls, who supplement their sins on the stage with subsequent and even more surprising iniquity in the hop or dance that follows the show—all these phases of the lower strata of theatrical life, as being more productive of interesting secrets of a so-called stage, must be touched upon, that the reader may be able to contrast the extremes of the amusement world, and understand that in mimic as well as real life, there are abject misery and squalid sinfulness while, above all, shines the grand and stainless character of the noble and pure-minded people who bring genius and virtue to the profession of which they are bright, shining ornaments.
CHAPTER II.
A THEATRE OF SHAKESPEARE'S DAY.
If some of the old Greek dramatists could shake together their ashes and assume life, they would open their ancient eyes to look upon the beauty, comfort, and charming symmetry of the first-class theatre of the present day. The ancients were at first obliged to put up with representations given upon rude carts; afterwards stone theatres were constructed, with the performers placed in a pit in the middle space, but no such effort at decoration, or to provide for the convenience of spectators, was to be seen as is to be found everywhere now. The plays, too, while they may have been delightful to our Hellenic predecessors, would hardly draw a corporal's guard at the present time, when spectacular melodrama is all the rage, and the only chorus the average theatre-goer cares to see is the aggregation of pretty girls in entrancing tights, and with the utmost scantiness of clothes to hide their personal charms, who sing the concerted music in comic opera. This is the kind of chorus that sends a thrill of ecstacy through the heart, and around the resplendent dome of thought of the much-maligned modern bald-head. The strophe and anti-strophe of the ancient drama would set the nineteenth century citizen crazy as a wild man of Borneo. The ancient drama was gradually replaced by the ecclesiastical drama—the mystery or miracle play—an example of which remains to us in the celebrated "Passion Play," performed at Obarammergan at stated intervals, and over the projected production of which, in this country, there was so much trouble that the play was never produced. In this style of drama, events in the life of the Savior, or the great mysteries of the church, were the topics dealt with by the saintly playwright, and the actors personated characters ranging from the Devil up through the various grades of saintliness and angelic beatification to God Almighty himself. The miracle play flourished during the middle ages, and survived down almost to the Elizabethan period, when Shakespeare appeared upon the scene; and with his advent there came a revolution, the outgrowth of which is the present perfect and beautiful theatre. The change in the style of plays brought a change in the style of places for their representations, and while the Bard of Avon was making his reputation in the dramatic line, the Globe and Blackfriars were leading the way to advancement in the matter of theatrical structures. They had performances on Sunday in those olden times, and while good Christians were worshipping God in their sanctuaries, the undevout Britons of the "golden age" were worshipping Thespis in his.
Let us drop back into a theatre of the Shakespearian epoch, some Sunday afternoon when the weather is fine, and you will not be compelled to stand bare-headed in the pit. Let us go to the Globe. It was situated on the Bankside. It was a wooden building, of hexagonal shape, open to the sky, and partly thatched. To a little tower-like projection from the roof was fastened a staff of no inconsiderable height, from which always fluttered the flag of England. Windows were sparsely distributed here and there, on each side of the building, while over the door was displayed the figure of Hercules bearing the globe upon his brawny shoulders. Whether the mythological giant came with his terrestrial burden to dedicate, in propria persona, this temple to the mightiest of the muses, or whether the whole thing was only a cunning contrivance of some skilful artisan, embodying the conception of a clever play writer, history does not record.
Whenever a play was to be enacted, the entrance to the Globe was always jammed with footboys, eager for a chance to hold a gentleman's horse, or lounging gallants, who collected to show themselves and to ogle the ladies as they entered. It was a lively spectacle, as stiff dames and ruffled noblemen, poor artisans and sleek gallants, wits and critics, footmen and laborers and ragged urchins stepped forward to pay the admittance fee of a shilling or a sixpence, or to make a respectful offer of their credit, which was usually most disrespectfully condemned as unlawful tender. It was a lively sight as gouty old gentlemen flourished huge batons over the scraggy heads of malicious boys who jostled them purposely; as titled old dames in immense flaring petticoats endeavored to smooth their noble wrinkles, and look mincing and modest under the impertinent gaze of the bedizened