The Brookhaven leader. [volume] (Brookhaven, Miss.) 1883-1891, 1885-12-03
LIFE OF A BALLET GIRL
Hard Work and Poor Pay Amer the
Novelty Has Worn on.

rsan Francisco News-Letterl
The ballet girl niay be said to sell her
liberty entirely for small sum. IL she
is singer she earns $40 or $l2 a week
- generally SO, and her work Is as fol-
lows Rehearsals are called at 10 sharp
every morning, when she must sing
i'll or well-until 2 or 8 in the afternoon,
bringing her lunch in her hand. She
then goes home tired out-possibly some
distance from the theatre. Arrived,
there is always something to be done =
some dress to alter to q good fit, lace to
wash, ribbons to iron, stockings to
mend, or tights to dye-if it's not one
thing, it's another. These little matters
take up her time till supper, which is
scarcely down her throat when she must
rush off to her work, from which all tho
pleasures has long since departed. The
girls dress in crowded, close rooms, and
as every one is for herself, there is
general scrimmage, often tight, for
place.
The performance closes at II, and it
is 12, sometimes o'clock, ere her poor
tired limbs are safely resting in her bed,
from which she must rise early to go
again through the same programme,
day in and day out, night in and night
out; not even Sundays is always exempt
from rehearsal, and never from evening
performance. If the ballet girl is ten
minutes she is fined bits; if she is too
ill to attend performance, she forfeits
81; if she finds a substitute, she must
pay her her own salary, and thus the
ballet girl is bo nd, body and soul, to
the theatre day and night, for $40 a
week, ladies. Ten dollars a week for
the life of fresh young creature, who
can never take a holiday, never feel
free to roam in the country by pleasant
paths, en- Dying her youth and life. Ten
dollars a week, while the star, IL a
brilliant one, takes 81, 900 night. The
irony of the situation might tempt one
to laugh, if it we're not such terrible
thing to think how girls life can be
sold so cheap.
But there is the ballet girl of tho
dramatic pages of the Legitimate
the silent actresses who walk in and out
in the society play-the half nude Great
ures who do impossible marches and
wonderful military figures with such
precision and grace-girls who practice
hour after hour with heavy guns in
their hands, and are ready to drop long
before night comes on, when every face
must look its brightest, and the people
before the footlights clap and bravo
and think how fine it all is to be 80
clever and dress up in smart attire. Do
you recken up how many of these poor
girls are blushing with shame at the ex-
posure of the forms that God and So
ciety have decreed shall be robed in
long and modest garments2 / guess
not. Nor will you possibly credit the
fact that the ballet girl belonging to
this class gets only IS to 81 a week and
found" in the tawdry, shabby cos
TUNES, which are hateful in the eyes of
those who wear them. But this is not
the only misery encountered by the bal
let girl.
'!Shes only a ballet girl" says the
star, who passes her by without notice, or
a scornful glance. ''She's only bal
let GIRL" say the workingmen about the
theatre, and therefore may not even
have Miss placed before her name.
"Smith, you're wanted in the left wing
81 say, Mag, the managers on to you
for being late, is the mode Of speech
addressed to the recipient OF 81 per
week. Look at the pretty girl, who,
with her head high in the air, looks so
fresh and bright, for few weeks en-
joying the novelty, look at her as the
color fades slowly from the young
face-a worn, Unhappy look taking the
place of the smiles that made it so at
tractive-look at her, idly leaning
against anything when not going
through her part, faded, sad, old be-
fore her time-a forlorn looking Great
ure in her shabby morning attire, gal
vanized puppet in her tinsel and satin.