The Brunswick times. [volume] (Brunswick, Ga.) 188?-1900, 1897-03-21
LONDON MUSIC HALLS.
Where Peers and YassaIs Are on a Com
mon Footing.
Especial Correspondence. ]

Especial Correspondence.
Lo,DoS, March SIN London every
one goes TO the music hall-old and
young, wealthy and poor. You may
take your family, you may take your
best girl, you may go with your men
friends You may go into the stalls you
may go into the gallery, you may go
anywhere. 1t is as if you were in the
wide, open street. It matters not if you
are not Ell reggie as to dress. You are
here to enjoy yourself. Others are here
to enjoy themselves. In it all there is a
sense of fine, wide fellowship. True,
vice is here, but vice may hide itself i'll
a church.
Here is the flaneur, the young man
about town. He is here to enjoy him
self. The music hall is his stamping
ground, his hunting ground. He wears
very good clothes indeed, does this
English swell His forehead is low, his
jaws are full, his eyes are prominent
and vacuous
And here is the Travelled man, with
the hard, keen eyes and strong face, and
here is the clever man, and here the
foolish man, and here the sharking bust
ness man, whose method of getting
money is far more dishonest than the
method of a low, common thief, and
But why particularize? Here are the
men and women of the world-of the
wide, strange world. Poverty, wealth,
power and revolt are gathered here.
They are drinking of the magic wine of
forgetfulness, that grand, strange wine.
Yet in the whole scene there is a sad
ness, longing, "a sense Of fretfulness-
something that eludcs, something
that may not be defined.
And still it is scene of fine, strange
beauty-a scene that appeals to all the
senses. You are thrilled. You are il
touch with the world as it really is.
Aye, the world has taken off its mask
for you. You see its splendor even as
you see the splendor of the sun in mid
day. You see its softness and its calm,
tender beauty. You see its misery, it's
cruelty, it's horror. You see what is
called it's best and worst Aye, the mu-
sic hall is the world in epitome!
Give me the music hall of London.
care but little for the grand concerts
and the grand plays in the grand thea
tiers. Their people are pose. They are
not themselves. They have come to be
edited, to be moved to higher things.
But people come to the music hall to
give expression to themselves.
Sometimes hear people say that the
music hall ministers to depraved taste.
don't see it. And, after all, what is
depraved taste? Can the good people
who know so much about nothing tell
me? According to them, nearly every
thing that is frankly enjoyable is neces-
sarily depraved. I'm afraid these good
people know less about more things than
any other sort of people.
No; the music hall is above every.
thing, human. 1t has what are called
the virtues and the vices of humanity.
1t is good, it is bad, and I'd like to ask
the know all people to please remember
that good and bad are but words which
signify shifting, imaginary lines.
The music hall appeals to the senses.
1t frankly says i'll effect that it knows
nothing of theosophic or psychic or any
other shadowy and debatable thing. 1t
has absolutely nothing to do with NOR
ais, whether good, bad or indifferent.
Its creed is that it is better to be inter
esting than to be good
1t may be that this creed is what is
called cynical. 1t may be that the mu-
sic hall itself is what is called cynical.
Be that as it may, however, the music
hall is not hypocritical. There is no
living one thing and preaching another
The philosophy of the music hall may
be put thus: Live today, for tomorrow
you die. 1t is the philosophy of the pres
ent moment, and who shall say that it
is not wise philosophy? Who knows
anything of tomorrow. And, as for yes
terday-well, yesterday is gone, is but
as the memory of dream.
B zisSr- KENNEDY: -~'--