, 1889-03-30
EACH PAYS HER OWN WAY.
How the Ladies' Buy Their Seats for the
Matinee Performances

Matinee m
-Four ladies stood at the box Office
window at Palmer's theatre recently
just before the performance began and
spent five minutes in selecting seats.
There were not many to choose from.
The house was nearly all sold out and
four seats in one of the e rows in
the orchestra and a few in the balcony
were all that were left, save an isolated
chair here and there. The ladies finally
concluded to sit in the orchestra, and
as they announced their decision each
pushed q bank note through the win
dow to the ticket seller. They were
intimate friends, evidently, and had
como TO the theatre in n party, but
each paid her W way.
II wonder why IL is said the ticket
seller, when the rush Of business was
over and he had n chance TO breathe,
that everybody pays his own way at
a matinee"
is hat the rule at matinees any
more than it is at evening perform
ancesi" aStar reporter asked
why, yes. For the evening per
Torrance a large proportion OF the
seats are sold in advance. A man will
buy a couple Of seats during the day,
or perhaps several days ahead. If a
party of four people or n greater num-
Der intend 10 visit the theatre to-
gether, some one of them will secure
seats for the whole, and long enough
ahead SO that he can get them in a
block and in a desirable part of the
house. But even if several people Mt
tend in n group and get their seats on
the spot n Of the gentlemen in the
party will select and pay for them,
and If he is not entertaining will settle
the little financial pool with his friends
afterward, If he has not levied an as
sessment before they have reached the
house. You seldom see n Dutch treat
in the evening"
"a Dutch treat7'"
Yes; Dutch treat Pennsylvania
treat Every n pays his own way,
you know, and pays it on tho spot.
It's matinee institution. Sometimes
two men will come up to the window
at an afternoon performance and each
buy his OWL seat, but not often. 1t is
q sort of woman's fad. II makes a big
difference in the work of handling
tickets whether we sell them
singly or in pairs or in blocks
of four or more. Men are nat
urally liberal-extravagant, if you
please-in such matters. a man will
ask q friend to go TO the theatre with
him, and at his cost, with the same
grace that he will offer him a cigar.
But women very rarely entertain each
other outside of their own home when
it costs money TO do it."
The ticket sellers at other theatres
had similar stories TO tell. The man
who sells you 1.-The best in the house"
at the Fifth venue said that women
from the suburbs had a monopoly of
the matinee Dutch treat" at that
house. And each one of a party
passes in a big bank note, usually a
ten dollar BILL" he continued, land l
have to make change four times in
what is virtuallya single sale. Iwon-
der how it is that they always have
big bills. Women who come to a mat
inee very seldom have the exact
change to offer, and rarely hand in a
two dollar note in payment for a seat.
Almost always it is a ten dollar note
that is pushed in through the window,
and it is usually folded up. When l
have unfolded four ten dollar notes
and handed out four piles of change of
$3.50 each, as l frequently do, l have
done about all the work / ought to in
selling four seats. New York Star.