The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-08-12
MORE CHILDREN ARE NOW ON THE STAGE Large Numbers Employed in
 Spectacular Shows PHASE OF POPULAR TASTE Not Many of the Children Afterward Become Professional Actors-They
 Are Far Easier to Train
 Than Adults.
PHASE OF POPULAR TASTE
From the New York Sun.

From the New York Sun.
 The children's dramatic booking office is busy place just now for rehearsa1s are in progress for a spectacular produce tion of one of shakespeare's plays which will employ 100 children. This Is proba- bly, the largest number of children ever used in one play, and Is one of many signs that the public likes to see children on the stage.
 "Ben-Hur,". some ten years ago, with fifty children, and "The Sorrows of Sa- tan," with fifty or sixty, were about the first plays to employ extra children in large numbers. "Humpty Dumpty" had eighty, Beauty and the Beast fifty, "The White Cat seventy-five.
 With the steady increase has come an agency devoted to the booking of chill dren alone It is run by woman, who has children of her own and looks after her charges carefully. Very few of them are children of actors and actresses who are playing, although few belong to players who for one reason or another have left the stage. Most of them are the children of very poor people who really need the money.
 Among the 100 children for the Shakes peare play are five from one family, in which the father is dead. Their salaries combined will keep the family in com , fort, and the work is not hard It is very seldom that a play keeps the children on until the last act. They are usually at home and In bed before the play is over; and there Is practically no labor in the performance.
 These extra children never travel when a big production of this kind goes on the road-the agent goes ahead and gathers extra children in each city. Her method | Is to go to the principals of schools, tell them what she wants and invite them to send to her any strong, healthy chill | dren who are able to take part in the 1 performance outside of school hours with out injury and who need the money She always gets five or six times as many as she needs. and at the first rehearsal sifts them out. In New York she some times goes to amateur entertainments, school exercises and the like, looking for good material.
 1 A hundred extra children in a bunch is about pretty sight as can be im- agined. for they are always chosen for their grace and beauty. They never seem to get their heads turned, nor to develop stage fever. In fact. they take the re- hearsals as the English are said to take their pleasures. The necessary discipline Is naturally irksome to children, and they must keep still, both as to tongues and feet.
 | Children are far more easy to train than adult extras. They are more pliable, far | less self-conscous The managers only object is to get them simply to be them selves on the stage, when they are sure to make a hit. Very few of these e..tra children remain upon the stage. | Extra children receive $5 week. When they are capable of taking parts they get $25 or $35 a week or more Children in parts have increased as much as in the chorus in recent years and those charm ing infants in Peter Pan." Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch," "The Prince Chap" and other productions are fresh in the public mind
 Five of the children in the Cabbage Patch" were from one family and all had been extras. The mother of one of the Cabbage Patch" children was employed pose of caring for the children. The youngsters finished the season healthy and happy, and without a days Illness. The five children in Peter Pan" had none of them been extras All started with parts. The two little girls in ''The Prince Chap were coached for their parts by the chidren's booking agent
 It is a curious thing that a child actor almost always does well. There are no sicks among them. But the charming children of the stage are seldom heard of afterward The exquisite naturalness which makes them delightful all disap- pears they leave the realm of child hood, and they have to learn all over again how to be grown up actor.