The record-union., 1897-07-11

New York Tribune: The manager might
10 some extent circumvent the wiles of
the billposter ere his time not taken up
with so many and such varied interests.
But the bill poster gives no attention to
anything else but getting control of all
the vantage points. And when man
does only one thing he ought to be able
to do that thing we'll. The billposter
does il we'll at any rate He also does
the manager His method is to keep
sharp lookout for all announcements Of
improvements in real estate, for wher-
ever there are improvements in real es-
tate there is pretty sure to be dead
wall or two or a temporary fence erected
to keep the public from falling into the
improvements and suing the builder.
These precautions have to be. taken
against the unscrupulous Iublic. The
billposter is often at the office of the
builder before the plans are drawn. He
applies for the advertising rights of
the prospective boards and walls. The
builder usually regards the thing in the
light of a clear gain, and thinks he has
got the better of the poor, unsuspecting
bilposter when he rents the boards to
Dlll IOG ABOUT Olle-ltiAid u VI AAeNAA ~
what they are worth to the manager.
In this way almost all the dead walls
in the city come into the hands of the
professional billposter until it has be-
come next to impossible for manager
to bill his play without calling to his aid
the middleman and paying him roundly
for his services.
Theatrical printing is done in various
sizes, according to the dimensions OF the
boards to be covered. The largest dis
play is called a stand" A stand is
beard frame capable of displaying any
where from eighteen to forty-two sheets
OF printing each sheet being about 212
by feet Most of the stands accom-
modate about twenty-eight sheets. Inc
rentals exacted for them by the billpost-
ers vary greatly, according to the loca-
ton. Probably the most valuable ones
now being used for the display of theat-
rical posters are those at Broadway ana
Thirty-seventh street 1t was not long
. aso that one of the large managers pald
a lucky billposter $50 a week for the use
of one of the lot. And with every day
that passes its value rises. Another
manager who has been lucky enough
for once to anticipate the greedy DILL
poster, the other day showed a Trl-
bune" reporter a contract he had made
with the builder of a large business
building now going up in Sixth avenue
foI. the rental of the board fence to be
erected around the excavation. The
price named was 500 month, ana
the manager considered that he had
made a bargain.
Besides the stand, the billposters Sc
Fa-a+4a Tn n
cratic owners of corner saloons and
cafes the privilege of erecting outside
their doors a smaller board designed
to accommodate a three-sheet poster.
For the use of this, too, the manager
is mulcted, and he gives UP very grace
fully He often prefers to do this
rather than deal directly with the own
ers of the saloons and cafes for the
privilege of hanging their windows full
of his single-sheet posters For this
privilege he is forced to give two litho-
graph tickets for every poster that oc-
cupies a window a week. These htho-
graph tickets admit to the theater and
A seat is given for an additional % or
30 cents. For this purpose some thea
ters issue every week as many as 500
lithograph tickets. If the manager
wishes TO display a frame of photo
graphs of his players or scenes from
his play it costs him two coupon seats
for ever frame thus displayed. 1t is
from these sources that most of the
scalpers secure their tickets.
William Winter, the critic at the Lo-
tos Club dinner. New York: Moralists
upon the drama are fond of dwelling
on its alleged decline from certain
- S6.s 1ey11e
period which no one distinctly remem-
bers or defines, and which still recedes,
the more diligently it is pursued, lin
the dark backward and abysm of
time" One difference between the past
and the present is that the stage which
once lived in a camp now lives in a
palace. Another difference is that emf
nent talents which once We're concen-
trated are now diffused The standard
Of taste has fluctuated. At the begin
ming of the century it appears to have
been more fastidiOus and mere intellec-
tuai than it is now, but not more SO
than it has two or three times been
within the intervening period. In my
boyhood the great tragic genius of the
stage was the elder Booth whom l
saw as Pescara, during his last en-
gagement in Boston in 1S51-and a
magnificent image he was of appalling
power and terror. The tragic sovereign
however, was Edwin Forrest. and for
many years his influence survived. af-
fecting the style of such compeers as
Eddy, Neafie, Scott, Proctor, Kirby and
Marshall, and more or less rnolding
that of the romantic Edwin Adams. the
intellectual Lawrence Barrett and the
gentle, generous, affectionate stalwart
John Mccullough, the noblest Roman
Of them ALL" In comedy the prevalent
tradition was that of Finn-whom I
never saw, but of whom 1 constantly
heard-but the actual prince was the
elder Wallack: and very soon after he
had sparkled into splendid popularity
the rosy gods of nirth released such
messengers of happiness as Warren and
Gilbert, Burton and Blake, Hackett and
Fisher. Placide and Owes, and the
buoyant John Brougham, whose mem
oTy is still cherished in all our hearts.
A little later-the more intellectual
taste in tragedy gaining sudden pre-
eminence fro the reaction against
Forrest-the spiritual beauty and the
wild and thrilling genius of Edwin
Booth enchanted the public mind and
captured an absolute sovereignty of the
serious stage: while, in comedy the
glittering figure of Lester WaHack bore
to the front rank, and reared more
splendidly than ever before the stand
ard of Wilks and Lewis and Ellston
which had been preserved and trans