THE stranger of culture noticing the combination of the word Music with the word Hall among the public advertisements of an accurate-minded race would naturally form the æsthetic conception of a noble building devoted to the most tender of the arts. And an unsophisticated mind might find some difficulty in realising the facts of the grandest civilisation in the world as they are.

A dazzling blaze of gas; the sharp clink of pewter pots and glasses; an incessant babel of voices, male and female, talking, shouting, and laughing, blended with the loud din of a stringed and brazen band; an army of hot, perspiring waiters, napkin on arm, and laden with bottles and glasses, perpetually running to and fro between a liquor bar and an audience of impatient tipplers; an insignificant-looking creature standing in the centre of a large stage and lustily stretching his lungs in the somewhat vain endeavour to make himself audible above the general clamour ;-such is the appearance presented by the interior of a Music hall at the moment of entering.

On looking round after the first general impression we see that the hall is long, wide, and lofty. Running round the greater part of it is a spacious gallery, on a level with which, and immediately overlooking the stage, are several private boxes. The upper portion of the auditorium is occupied by long, velvet-covered, high-backed

seats, called upon the programme fauteuils; the remainder of the hall being crowded with small marbletopped tables, surrounded by cane chairs, and provided with sugarbowls and match boxes. Down the whole length of the room great gaudy mirrors reflect the diverse physiognomies of a curiously miscellaneous audience. The brightly polished "bar" glitters with manycoloured bottles, cut-glass decanters, pewters, mugs, and flagons, from the tiny liqueur glass to the substantial quart pot. Behind the bar showy-looking damsels, whose natural charms the constant application of pearl powders, rouge, and blue pencil has pretty effectually destroyed, are busily engaged in ministering to the thirst of the audience. In the place usually appropriated to them, just below the stage, sit the members of the orchestra, and behind them, generally on a revolving seat, and with a tube of communication between himself and the prompter, sits the president or chairman. His business is to announce the performers by name in their order of appear

ance.

Meanwhile, the hall is filling rapidly. Let us take a hurried survey of those already present, who are enjoying their ease, pipe or cigar in mouth, liquor glass before them, and we shall see who are the main supporters of this establishment.

The earliest arrivals are chiefly of a humble order-small tradesmen and shopkeepers, who come

here, perhaps two or three times a week, often bringing their wives and daughters with them, and who spend the evening chatting politics with their friends, and reading the newspaper; country folk, up to town for a holiday, who take the music hall in their allotted round of sights, and seem to enjoy themselves considerably in a dazed, a dazed, bewildered sort of way. These latter hold the waiter in great awe, addressing him as "Sir," and taking any casual information he may choose to offer on the names and merits of the performers, with respectful gratitude. Linen drapers' assistants of the order meek and quiet, who, with their sweethearts, come very early-before the doors are opened so as to enjoy as much as possible of each other's society, for they must be home and in their respective beds before the performance is over. They take one glass of small beer between them, which lasts, in little alternate sips, throughout the evening. There is a goodly sprinkling of mechanics; of skilled and unskilled labourers; a miscellaneous lot of soldiers, sailors, grooms, jockeys, theatrical

supers" out of work, and the oddlooking rakings of the streets and public-houses who crowd the back of the gallery for the sake of a few hours' warmth and light.

Now let us take this humbler portion of the audience en masse, and ask, in a general way, what they are doing here? Wherein

lies the attraction of the music hall for the great body of our lower classes?

The reason seems to consist mainly in that love of partaking in any showy or exciting spectacle, simply as a spectacle, which is so distinctive a characteristic of the lower British orders. The people are blest with a remarkable faculty for gaping; they like to get together in a crowd, and stare at

something. It is impossible to walk for half an hour through a crowded thoroughfare of London and fail to be struck, possibly halfa-dozen times, with this popular propensity. Anything resembling a show collects a crowd in a moment. A man in a fit or a fallen cab-horse is sufficient excuse for the immediate assembling of a little mob, which congregates with no other purpose than to get a front place and gaze open-mouthed. No one is in any hurry to assist the policeman; but there is considerable excitement in standing around with your hands in your pockets, and treading on your neighbour's toes. The same crowd which follows, in a spirit of morbid speculation, the hearse in a funeral procession, pursues with equal excitement a wedding coach and a prison van.

A street artist, kneeling on a scrap of matting, with his little bag of coloured chalks, tracing figures of birds and fishes on the pavement; a juggler balancing knives and balls; a mountebank wriggling himself out of a knotted rope; a party of negro minstrels, or a Savoyard with a dancing bear; a German band, or the soloist on a coffee-pot-for each and all someone has invariably a spare moment. There is nothing in the shape of a spectacle, from a procession of royalty to an organ-man with a monkey, which does not successfully appeal to the gaping element in the British constitution.

We need probe the physiology of lower humanity no deeper than this to appreciate the popularity of the music hall with the masses. A large proportion of the audience are attracted here solely by love of lazily contemplating the performance, whilst drinking and smoking, and gossiping with their friends. The music hall is nothing if not a show; the people are nothing if

not show-loving. The difference between the music-hall show and the street sight is that for the former a trifle is paid for the privilege of sitting down and being free of the move on" of the policeman.

Lolling in the fauteuils are numerous representatives of the order "swell." One is struck, indeed, by the number of pseudofashionable young men who appear to be regular habitués of the music hall. There is significance in the fact; and were anyone to ask why, seeing there are good theatres, good operas, good concerts, good lectures, in London, do these youths seek their pleasure here, one would be compelled to answer that they either do not care for the "good of amusement, or, being sated with brighter pleasures, take the music hall as a sort of makeshift, a convenient lounge where one may sip brandy and smoke cigars for an hour or two before seeking those more exciting haunts known only to the votaries of midnight plea sure. Without the means of amusement in themselves, and having exhausted all legitimate sources, they find a certain sympathetic pleasure in contemplating the antics of the Lion Comique.

But neither the middle and lower classes, nor the swells, are the real supporters of the music hall. The true backbone of the establishment is that peculiar specimen of London society who, in manners, habits, and dress, may honestly boast, with Richard the Third, that he is "himself alone." The intelligent readers will perceive that the London snob is referred to. The snob, or the cad, is in a great degree the outcome of cheapness. Cheap readymade clothes, cheap hats, cheap neckties of a very bright colour, cheap patent boots, cheap canes with blue silk tassels, and an unlimited quantity of remarkably

cheap manners, have contributed to produce this feeble copy of the Swell," who is otherwise familiar to Londoners as the "irrepressible 'Arry."

Standing here at the top of the hall, and looking round, we may perceive that he greatly outnumbers the two other classes we have noticed put together. By the easy familiarity of his bearing it is manifest that he is no stranger. Take the specimen close beside us. His hat is very much on one side, and his hair is tightly plastered down underneath it. Wrapped about him from head to foot is an Ulster overcoat, at least one size too large about the chest. He has just smoked a large cigar which must have cost him at least twopence, and he is at this moment serenely sucking the knob of his cane. This gentleman and his. brethren represent and uphold the music hall. Its gilded panels, its painted pillars, its illuminated ceiling appeal to his innermost love of all that glitters and glares. The full-length mirrors reflect to a nicety every turn of his back. The sparkling gas shows to advantage the large check pattern of his coat. He calls for another glass of what he genially terms" the old thing," he beams upon the barmaid who draws it, and, lighting another cigar he nudges a friend with the remark that he "just about means to go it to-night, old pal." He is the despair of civilisation, and offers no loophole even to the parson.

So much for the audience; let us turn to the stage.

In criticising a dramatic performance, we have to consider the positions in regard to it occupied relatively by author, actors, and audience. But in the miscellaneous items which form the entertainment of a music hall, the literary composition is so entirely a secondary matter that, excepting in one

or two instances, reserved for future notice, we are justified in leaving it altogether out of the question.

For the rest, we have a company of performers with but little real talent, and an audience who are here as much for purposes of smoking and drinking as of taking any serious part in an entertainment. When people are united in the common desire for something bright and clever, they generally succeed in obtaining it; and when people don't care a grain of mustard seed whether their entertainment is good or bad, they usually arrive at something which is neither one thing nor the other, but for the most part a hotch-potch of stupidity and vulgarity.

The first part of the programme is devoted to the lesser stars. There is a nigger interlude, consisting of some rather coarse dialogue, songs, and dances. One little fat man, with a very ragged coat, and a dilapidated carpet-bag, bangs upon a table with a bulgy umbrella, and says, "By golly." This is the London edition of a negro. After him comes some one in a hat without a rim, swallowtail coat, and knee breeches. He sings a song in which shillelaghs, shamrocks, and "praties are confusedly mixed, says "Arrah bedad," calls the audience collectively "mee buoy," and assures us that "divil take him, but he is

a raal tight gossoon." This is an

ideal Irishman. Then there is a gentleman who sings patriotic songs, and who alternates between a lugubrious fear that "the glory of England has departed," and a manly assurance that the roar of the British Lion shall soon be heard

From Greenland's icy mountains
To India's coral strand.

This performer is chiefly remarkable for the care he bestows upon

his gloves. He comes out in a dress coat, which does not fit him very well, and begins to put a glove on his left hand. After drawing it on with a tender care, which experience has taught him is necessary, he keeps it well in view of the audience, holding the other tightly clasped in his hand. On retiring at the conclusion of his song, there is loud applause.

One

Coming on again to repeat the verses, we observe that he has put both gloves on in recognition of the honour. But to wear two gloves at once is extravagance; and before the first verse is over one is removed, the same reverential process being gone through as in the putting on. Another verse, and the unused glove is getting limp and uncomfortable. more, and the second glove is removed; and now, both being neatly smoothed out are carefully returned to the tail coat pocket of the owner, who pats them occasionally to be sure that they are quite safe. A plump lady and her slim daughter are the next performers. They treat us to a pretty little love song, in which the daughter, with much sly ogling of the audience, and many little giggles and rouged-capped blushes, relates to her mother, the capture of her (the slim daughter's) heart by a certain. tall young gentleman, with fair hair and a beautiful moustache. To her the mother, in maternal reproof, replies that it is all very wrong, and that she (the slim daughter) is a very naughty girl, she is. But in another stanza the naughty girl discloses how that, though love alone incited her to pledge her plighted troth, the tall young man has whole drawers full of bank notes, and a house in Eaton-square, of which the mother shall have the second floor all to herself. On this, mamma not

only relents, but proceeds also, with some matronly ogling of the audience, to school her artless offspring in the wiles of love, enforcing her precepts by apt illustrations of the admirable manner in which she enticed and trapped her (the slim daughter's) dear departed father. Then they sing a final verse together, in which the slim daughter urges all other slim daughters present to follow her example, and secure without delay tall young men with beautiful moustaches and rolls of bank notes; and the plump mother expatiates on the delights of second floors in Eaton-square. After this there are a few steps of a dance, in which the matron joins, with an elasticity surprising for her (apparent) years, and finally the two sidle off together, highly contented with themselves and their performance. What is technically known as the female interest is remarkably strong at the music hall. There are young girls and elderly mothers, like the above, who, in low dresses, singly and in couples, sing so-called "society "

songs, serio - comic songs, sentimental songs, and love

songs.

village

There are others, again, who take male parts; so that, when a young girl appears in ordinary burlesque costume of short silk jacket, satin tights, and pink or mauve boots, you know that she is a village swain, roaming (in satin tights) through the meadows at even to meet his loved one under a hawthorn hedge. And when another damsel, with a profusion of yellow ringlets, trips on to the stage, in scarlet cloak, short petticoats, and grey stockings, you may lay odds with yourself, even before her song commences, that this is an Irish Maiden. Many of these girls are really pretty, but very few of them can sing. From what vast source

the music hall manager recruits his fair supporters I do not know; but, if one might venture a conjecture, the general run of barmaids, milliners' assistants, and the "young ladies" of large wholesale establishments, would seem to offer a wide field for his choice. A girl has a pretty or a saucy face, a trim or a plump figure, an easy unconventionality of manner with the other sex, and, preferring the collective admiration of an entire audience to the homage of half-adozen danglers, calls upon manager. The manager asks her if she can sing, and being, of course, answered in the affirmative, sends her to the leader of the orchestra for trial. This would seem to be by no means a difficult ordeal, judging, at least, from the number of voiceless ladies who grace the music-hall stage.

a

Once through her examination, however, the aspirant, if she be ordinarily "smart," makes rapid progress in the good favour of her audience. She quickly learns their requirements, and the experience of a few weeks is sufficient to perfect her in the rather pronounced little winks, nods, and eyebrow gestures which give emphasis to the words. of her song. The female singers, indeed, quickly fall into the manner of their male brethren, and acquire that unpleasant slangy drawl and general looseness of attitude which prevail so largely just now on the burlesque stage of the theatre.

Now they are slinging across the stage a slack rope, upon which, when fastened, there mounts a very corpulent man in the dress of a French soldier. Standing on one leg upon the cord, he goes through a pantomime engagement with an invisible German; presents arms, lowers to the charge, fires, receives an invisible wound, falls, springs up again suddenly, flings off his coat, waistcoat, and trousers, reveal