The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-04-09
Observation-Disclosures
SOMETHING ABOUT A LONDON
POVERTY JUNCTION.

An Odd Gathering of Odd Folk in an
| ODD Corner of London-Music Hall
! Performances, Their Origin, Heuuts
and Ways Their Weekly Sym
| postum Typical London scenes.
(Copgrj1StJ
/ LONDON, March 81 In order to appre-
oiste one of the oldest gatherings of the
/ oldest folks in oue OF the oldest corners of
/ London, one must first know something
about those whose strange lives aud unique
/ Vocations make the noted London Poverty
| junction" what it is.
! They are the pros or "prossers" or
music-hau performers of the worlds me-
| tropolis. There are from 900 to 5000 of
them, great and unknown, men and women.
and there are no other folk just like them
within the whole world. They provide the
| amusement for the score or more Of great
! music halls. into each Of which nightly
crowd from 1900 to 5000 people, and for
/ the hundreds upon hundreds Of lesser affairs,
ranging from the old-tine free and easy,
| from which the modern music hall has
sprung, to the ''penny-gaffs," where audi
! ences Of from 100 TO SEQ persons may be
/ found.
Beside these, would almost venture the
! assertion, there are thousands of pubs" or
/ public houses, drinking places with assem-
/ bly, rooms behind tie bar, where free
/ smoking concerts" attract a permanent
| nightly audience of from score to hun
| dred WorkinRmen and the foul rabble that
I snbstst on their generosity and weakuess.
Indeed any one who Knows this great
| city at all in that wandering, vsgrant, OBJ
| servant way, which leads thought into grave
| conclusions, would have no hesitancg in
! saying that quarter Of a million human
| beings may be found any weekday night
| in These places "cheery" or moro
! so, from liquor, and from these
| sources forming their odd ideas
/ OF international contrasts; gathering from
! vile-mouthed performers quips the news
and scandals OF the day; increasing their
| contempt OF order aud law from their end
less satire and ridicule; gaining in general
! aud particular deeper hatred Of English
! society above them; and hearing, often
| with their wives and daughters beside them
/ the most sacred relations Of men and women
/ never spoken or sung of save as perennial
| playground for cunning and infldelity IN
| til the heartiest laugh is in RESPONSE to the
| brOadest entender, and tho loudsst roar rises
| from these great seas Of upturned faces
| when the vilest music hall indecenoies are
| perpetrated.
OF all these places the penny ;" or
| outrageouslY ridiculous pautomime, or
| voiceless melOdrama, or wOrdless tragedy,
| In which there is indescribable murder,
| highway robbery and other lurid crime,
| but all enacted without spoken word to
| evade the law governing dramatic repre-
sentations, ts the least harmful for 1t has
| no oar; and to get his penny oTth" of play
| the Whiteohapel barbarian is kept for at
! least two hours away from public house
Tho OrpaE ,ODA0Y1 fpUaical hall IL sIFpDiy- A
| larger and more insidioUsly hurtful type of
/ the free smoking concert" rom. 1t ia
| practically gigantic bar or series of tiers
| Of bars, surrounding an auditorium where
/ the thousands, instead OF scores, can be ad-
mitted at merely nominal entrance fee;
| where stage with speciality performers
supplant the Platform, the pianist and the
volunteer; aud where the same classes, or
/ more vicious ones, with 'ArTys and
| 'Arriets" of London iii the pit, while every
manner Of cad, fast fellow OF the gentry
! and nobility, including good sprinkling of
| London Bohemia, saunter in the promenadeS
and fill the boxes and stalls.
| About twenty different acts called
! 'turns" are done by as many different per-
| formers IN one evening, and each actor will
! have from one to four turns" for the same
| evening, each at different halls to which he
| speeds in every sort OF conveyance, from a
| coster's donkey cart TO a brOughRm. Pro-
| Rrammes are furnished, on payment, and
! huge numerals, slid into the proscenium
sides, correspond with programme num-
! bers.
| These shows, with few exceptions in favor
! Of individual performers are utterly point
| less, mirthless, lnane and beRstly. There
| are, perhaps, in all this host Of London
| music hall 'actorsn half dozen who have
| demonstrated that true art may find reward
| even in so hopeless field. Such are George
! Beauchamp, comedian; Jenny Hill, imper-
! senator Of the coster girl, "the Judging ouse
| missus" and female characters Of that ilk;
| and Albert Chevalier, whose studies ana
! representations of the London costermonger
| should give him rank as a really great actor
and a man of positive genius.
But between all these odd folk and the
| London actors Of the dramatic stage, there
| is endless emulation mingled with tantaliz-
| ing attempts at ''freedery" and airiness on
| the one side, and a fadeless dread and con-
| tempt on the other. The "pros" or "prosser"
| as he is everywhere known in London, is in
| nearly every instance a product of the
lowest London life. AS a rule he was
:, originally a costsrmonger, stable boy,
| ''boots," starveling from the travelling
booth shows Billingsgate crate carrier, or
| from somewhere out OF the East End
| slums.
IL be be of as good quality as from the
| humblest laboring classes he still, as well as
| all other music hall performers, graduates
| into his profession through one unvarying
| school of low and often vile traintng-trom
| the "penny-gaff." or from the smoking
| concert" den where he has, as volunteer
sang, danced, contorted, or slugged, for the
| free entertainment OF the gutter hosts of