The record-union., 1893-04-08

gatherings of the oldest folk IN one of the
oldest corners of London, one must first
know something about those whose
strange lives and unique vocations make
the noted London Poverty Junction"
what it is.
They are the pros" or ''prossers," or
music-hall performers of the worlds
metropolis. There-are from 5000 to 5000
Of them, great and unknown men and
women, ana 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 1000 to 5000
people, and for the hundreds upon hun
dreds of lesser affairs, ranging from the
old-time free-and-easy, from which the
modern music-hall has sprung, to the
penny gaffs," where audiences of from
100 to 500 persons may be found.
Beside these, L would almost venture
the assertion, there are thousands OF
pubs" or public houses, drinking
places, with assembly rooms behind the
bar, where free smoking concerts' at
tract a permanent nightly audience of
from score TO a hundred workingmen
and the foul rabble that subsist upon their
generosity and weakness.
Indeed any one who knows this great
city at all in that wandering, yaprant OBJ
servant way which leads thought into
grave conclusions, would have no hesi-
fancy III saying that quarter of a mill
Ion human beings may be found any
week day night in these places CHEEKY"
or more so, from liquor, and from these
sources forming their odd ideas of inter-
national contrasts; gathering from vile
mouthed performers quips the news
and scandals of .he day; increasing their
contempt of order and law from their end
less satire and ridicule; gaining in gen.
eral and particular deeper hatred of Eng
Ish society above them; and hearing,
often with their wives and daughters be-
side them, the most sacred relations of
men and women never spoken or sung
OF save as perennial playground for cum
ming and intidelity, until the heartiest
laugh is in response to the broadcast en-
tender, and the loudeSt roar rises from
these great seas of upturned faces when
the vilest music-hall indecencies are per-
petrated.
OF all these places the ''penny-gaff,n or
outrageously ridiculous pantomime, or
Volceless melodrama, or wordleSs trag-
edy, in which there is indescribable muir
der, highway robbery, and other lurid
crime, but all enacted without spoken
word to evade the law governing dra-
matte representations, is the least harm
ful, for 1t has no bar, and to get his ''pen-
ny'orth' of play, the Whitechapel bar
barian is kept at least two hours away
from public house.
The great London music-hall is simply
larger and more insidiously hurtful
type of the free smoking concert,
room. 1t is practically gigantic bar, or
series OF tiers OF bars, surrounding an
auditorium where the thousands instead
OF scores can be admitted at a merely
nominal entrance fee; where a stage, with
specially performers, supplant the plat
form, the pianist and the volunteer, and
where the same classes, or more vicious
ones, with "'Arrys and 'Arriets' of Lon
don, fill the pit, while every manner of
cad, fast fellow of the gentry and nobil-
1ty, including good sprinkling of Lon
don Bohemia, saunter in the promen-
AIDES and fill the boxes and stalls.
About twenty different acts called
turns" are done by as many different
performers 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 i'll every sort of
conveyance, from a Coster's donkey cart
nlshed, on payment, and huge numerals,
slid into the proscenium sides, correspond
with programme numbers.
These shows, with few exceptions in
favor of individual performers, are ut
terly pointless, mirthless, inane and
beastly. There are, perhaps, in all this
host of London music-hall actors" a
half-dozen who have demonstrated that
true art may find reward even in so
hopeless a field. Such are Beauchamp
comedian; Jenny Hill, impersonator OF
the coster girl, 1.-The ludging-'ouse mis-
sus," and female characters of that ilk;
and Albert Chevaller, whose studies and
representations of the London coster-
monger 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
tantalizing attempts at ''freedery'' and
airiness on the one side, and a fadeless
dread and contempt on the other. The
"pros," or "prosser," as he is eyery-
where known IN London, is in nearly
every instance a product of the lowest
London life. AS rule he was originally
costermonger, stable boy, boots"
starveling from the travelling booth
shows, Billingsgate crate carrier, or from
somewhere out of the East End slums.
If he be of as good quality as from the
humblest laboring classes he still, as well
as all other music-hall performers, grad
yates into his profession through one
unvarying school of low, and often vile,
training, from the 'penny-gaff," or from
the smoking concert" den where he
has, as volunteer" sang, danced, con-
torted or slugged, for the free entertain
ment of the gutter hosts of London. Many
of these favorites command salaries from
ESQ to 910O per week. But about all of
them reach their affluence, and often re-
spectability, out of the same original
depths, and along the same vicissitous
road.
The only time when dramatic actor and
''pros' ever meet is at the annual Christ
mas plays and pantomimes. Then the
-, -, 4 "a
specialtieS. The LOFTY Scorn and the airy
defiance between actor and 'pros" is then
something wonderful to behold.
"Whaps that" is the contemptuous
query of one actor to another, as "pros"
is espied in the stage wings at Christmas
time, waiting to do his turn" as his act
or specially is called.
'Oh, it's only thing from the 'alls the
music-halls)," his companion will as
witheringly answer.
"Gor bli mep' retorts the "pros" with
an airy snort at his prosecutor, "hit cawnt
be hits on the stage, they wouldn't ave
sech bloomin' hobjects in the 'alls!"
In America there is considerable friend
ly commingling OF actors and variety per-
formers. This makes possible the "Ri-
altos" of our larger cities, which are really
noted as haunts of all manner of stage
folk, and which are the resort, at certain
hours of every day, of ali theatrical peo-
pie. The casual passer fingers curiously
within the region. Even one least accus-
toned to striking city phases, is instantly
impressed with the unusual character of
the neighborhood and with the manner
and dress of its frequenters.
But between London actors and Lon
don music-hall performers the gulf Is
impassible. The London actor is gen.
tlenan bred and born. He has been given
the best of home and schooAoften of
university training. He is q student