engaged in obstructing public business, he must needs be meddling with
other people's private affairs--and some of us want to know where he
is going to stop. The Legislator has decreed that no children who are
less than ten years of age shall henceforth be allowed to perform on
the stage. Much of the talk which came from those who carried the
measure was kindly and sensible; but some of the acrid party foisted
mere misleading rubbish on the public. Henceforth the infantile player
will be seen no more. Mr. Crummles will wave a stern hand from the
shades where the children of dreams dwell, and the Phenomenon will be
glad that she has passed from a prosaic earth. Had the stern
law-makers had their way thirty years ago, how many pretty sights
should we have missed! Little Marie Wilton would not have romped about
the stage in her childish glee (she enjoyed the work from the first,
and even liked playing in a draughty booth when the company of roaming
"artists" could get no better accommodation). Little Ellen Terry, too,
would not have played in the Castle scene in "King John," and crowds
of worthy matrons would have missed having that "good cry" which they
enjoy so keenly. We are happy who saw all the Terrys, and Marie the
witty who charmed Charles Dickens, and all the pretty mites who did so
delight us when Mme. Katti Lanner marshalled them. Does any reader
wish to have a perfectly pleasant half-hour? Let that reader get the
number of "Fors Clavigera" which contains Mr. Ruskin's description of
the children who performed in the Drury Lane pantomime. The kind
critic was in ecstasies--as well he might be--and he talked with
enthusiasm about the cleanliness, the grace, the perfectly happy
discipline of the tiny folk. Then, again, in "Time and Tide," the
great writer gives us the following exquisite passage about a little
dancer who especially pleased him--"She did it beautifully and simply,
as a child ought to dance. She was not an infant prodigy; there was no
evidence in the finish and strength of her motion that she had been
put to continual torture during half of her eight or nine years. She
did nothing more than any child--well taught, but painlessly--might
do; she caricatured no older person, attempted no curious or fantastic
skill; she was dressed decently, she moved decently, she looked and
behaved innocently, and she danced her joyful dance with perfect
grace, spirit, sweetness, and self-forgetfulness." How perfect! There
is not much suggestion of torture or premature wickedness in all this;
and I wish that the wise and good man's opinion might have been
considered for a little while by some of the reformers. For my part, I
venture to offer a few remarks about the whole matter; for there are
several considerations which were neglected by the debaters on both
sides during the discussion.
First, then, I must solemnly say that I cannot advise any grown girl
or young man to go upon the stage; and yet I see no harm in teaching
little children to perform concerted movements in graceful ways. This
sounds like a paradox; but it is not paradoxical at all to those who
have studied the question from the inside. If a girl waits until she
is eighteen before going on the stage, she has a good chance of being
thrown into the company of women who do not dream of respecting her.
If she enters a provincial travelling company, she has constant
discomfort and constant danger; some of her companions are certain to
be coarse--and a brutal actor whose professional vanity prevents him
from understanding his own brutality is among the most horrible of
living creatures. After a lady has made her mark as an actress, she
can secure admirable lodging at good hotels; but a poor girl with a
pound per week must put up with such squalor as only actors can
fittingly describe. Amid all this the girl is left to take care of
herself--observe that point. A little child is taken care of; whereas
the adolescent or adult must fight her way through a grimy and
repulsive environment as best she can. There is not a man in the world
who would dare to introduce himself informally to any lady who is
employed under Mr. W.S. Gilbert's superintendence; but what can we say
about the thousands who travel from town to town unguided save by the
curt directions of the stage manager? Let it be understood that when I
speak of the theatre I have not in mind the beautiful refined places
in central London where cultured people in the audience are
entertained by cultured people on the stage; I am thinking grimly of
the squalor, the degradation, the wretched hand-to-mouth existence of
poor souls who work in the casual companies that spend the better part
of their existence in railway carriages. Not long ago a young actress
who can now command two thousand pounds per year was obliged to remain
dinnerless on Christmas Day because she could not afford to pay a
shilling for a hamper which was sent her from home. Her success in the
lottery arrived by a strange chance; but how many bear all the poverty
and trouble without even having one gleam of success in their
miserable dangerous lives? There are theatres and theatres--there are
managers and managers; but in some places the common conversation of
the women is not edifying--and a good girl must insensibly lose her
finer nature if she has to associate with such persons.
In the case of the little children there are none, or few, at any
rate, of the drawbacks. Not one in fifty goes on the stage; the mites
are engaged only at certain seasons; and their harvest-time enables
poor people to obtain many little comforts and necessaries. Further,
there is one curious thing which may not be known to the highly
particular sect--no manager, actor, or actress would use a profane or
coarse word among the children; such an offender would be scouted by
the roughest member of any company and condemned by the very
stage-carpenters. I own that I have sometimes wished that a child here
and there could be warm asleep on a chilly night, especially when the
young creature was perilously suspended from a wire; but that is very
nearly the furthest extent of my pity. So long as the youngsters are
not required to perform dangerous or unnatural feats, they need no
pity. Instead of being inured to brutalities, they are actually taken
away from brutality--for no man or woman would sully their minds. We
have heard it said that the stage-children who return to school after
their spell of pantomime corrupt the others. This is a gross and
stupid falsehood which is calculated to injure a cause that has many
good points. I earnestly sympathise with the well-meaning people who
desire to succour the little ones; but I beseech them not to be led
away by misstatements which are concocted for sensational purposes. So
far from corrupting other children, the young actors invariably act as
a good influence in a school. The experienced observer can almost make
certain of picking out the boys and girls who have had a
stage-training. They like to be smart and cleanly, their deportment
and general manners are improved, and they are almost invariably
superior in intelligence to the ordinary school-trained child. Imagine
Mme. Katti Lanner having a corrupt influence! Imagine those delightful
beings who play "Alice in Wonderland" corrupting anybody or anything!
I have always been struck by the pretty manners of the trained
children--and the advance in refinement is especially noticeable among
those who have been speaking or singing parts. The most pleasing set
of youths that I ever met were the members of a comic-opera troupe.
Some of them, without an approach to freedom of manner, would converse
with good sense on many topics, and their drill had been so extended
as to include a knowledge of polite salutes. Not one of the boys or
girls would have been ill at ease in a drawing-room; and I found their
educational standard quite up to that of any Board school known to me.
These nice little folk were certainly in no wise pallid or distraught;
and, when they danced on the stage, the performance was a beautiful
and delightful romp which suggested no idea of pain. To see the "prima
donna" of the company trundling her hoop on a bright morning was as
pretty a sight as one would care to see. The little lady was neither
forward nor unhealthy, nor anything else that is objectionable--and it
was plain that she enjoyed her life. Is it in the least likely that
any sane manager would ill-treat a little child that was required to
be pleasing? One or two acrobats have been known to be stern with
their apprentices; but the rudest circus-man would not venture to
exhibit a pupil who looked unhappy. The rascally "Arabs" who entrapped
so many boys in years gone by were fiends who met with very
appropriate retribution; but such villains are not common.
I am always haunted by the argument about late hours--and give it
every weight. As aforesaid, I used sometimes to wish that some wee
creature could only be wrapped in a night-gown and sent to rest. But,
for the benefit of those who cannot well imagine what the horrors of a
city slum are like, let me describe the nightly scene in a typical
city alley. It is cold in the pantomime season; but the folk in that
alley have not much fire. Joe, the costermonger, Bill, the
market-labourer, Tom, the fish-porter, and the rest come home in a
straggling way; and, if they can buy a pennyworth of coal, they boil
the little kettle. Then one of the children runs to the chandler's and
gets a halfpennyworth of tea, a scrap of bread, and perhaps a penny
slice of sausage. The men stint themselves in food and firing; but
they always have a little to spare for gin and beer and tobacco. There
is no light in the evil-smelling room; but there is a place at the
corner of the alley where the gas is burning as cheerily as the foul
wreaths of smoke will permit. The men go out and squat on barrels in
the hideous bar; then they call for some liquor which may be warranted
to take speedy effect; then they smoke, and try to forget.
What is the little child to do? Go to bed? Why, it has no bed! If it
were earning a little money, its parents might be able to provide a
flock or straw bed with some sort of covering; but the poverty of
these people is so gnawing and dire that very few lodgings contain
anything which could possibly be pawned for twopence. Usually the
child seeks the streets; and in the dim and filthy haze he or she
sports at large with other ragged companions. Then the women--the
match-box makers, trouser-makers, and such like--begin to troop
in--and they gravitate towards the gin-shop. The darkness deepens; the
bleared lamps blare in the dirty mist; the hoarse roar from the
public-house comes forth accompanied by choking wafts of reek; the
abominable tramps move towards the lodging-house and pollute the
polluted air further with the foulness of their language; the drink
mounts into unstable heads; and presently--especially on Saturday
nights--there are hoarse growls as from rough-throated beasts, shrill
shrieks, and a running chorus of indescribable grossness. Drunken men
are quarrelling in the street, drunken women yell and stagger, and the
hideous discord fills the night on all sides. No item of corruption is
spared the children; and the vile hurly-burly ceases only at midnight.
The children will always try to sneak through the swinging doors of
the gin _inferno_ when the cold becomes too severe; and they will
remain crouched like rats until some capricious guest sends them out
with an oath and a kick. There is not one imaginable horror that does
not become familiar to these children of despair--and they sometimes
have a very good chance of seeing murder. When the last hour comes,
and the father and mother return to their dusky den, the child
crouches anywhere on the floor; undressing is not practised; and, if
any sentimental person will first of all go into a common Board school
in a non-theatrical quarter on a wet afternoon, and if he will then
drive on and pass through a few hundreds of the theatrical children,
his "olfactories" will teach him a lesson which may make him think a
good deal.
Now let me put a question or two in the name of common sense. We must
balance good and evil; and, granting that the theatre has a tendency
to make children light-minded, is it worse than the horror of the
slums and the stench and darkness of the single room where a family
herd together? The youngster who is engaged at the theatre can set off
home at the very latest as soon as the harlequinade is over. Very
well; suppose it is late. Would he or she be early if the night were
spent in the alley? Not at all! Then the child from the theatre is
bathed, fed, taught, clothed nicely, and it gives its parents a little
money which procures food. Some say the extra money goes for extra
gin--and that may happen in some cases; but, at any rate, the child's
earnings usually purchase a share of food as well as of drink; for the
worst blackguard in the world dares not send a starveling to meet the
stage-manager. In sum, then, making every possible allowance for the
good intentions of those who wish to rescue children from the theatre,
I am inclined to fear that they have been hasty. I am not without some
knowledge of the various details of the subject; and I have tried to
give my judgment as fairly as I could--for I also pity and love the
children.
XV.
PUBLIC AND PRIVATE MORALITY: PAST AND PRESENT.
Certain enterprising persons have contributed of late years to make
English newspapers somewhat unpleasant reading, and mournful men are
given to moaning over the growth of national corruption. So persistent
have the mournful folk been, that many good simple people are in a
state of grievous alarm, for they are persuaded that the nation is
bound towards the pit of Doom. When doleful men and women cry out
concerning abstract evils, it is always best to meet them with hard
facts, and I therefore propose to show that we ought really to be very
grateful for the undoubted advance of the nation toward righteousness.
Hideous blots there are--ugly cankers amid our civilisation--but we
grow better year by year, and the general movement is towards honesty,
helpfulness, goodness, purity. Whenever any croaker begins speaking
about the golden age that is gone, I advise my readers to try a system
of cross-examination. Ask the sorrowful man to fix the precise period
of the golden age, and pin him to direct and definite statements. Was
it when labourers in East Anglia lived like hogs around the houses of
their lords? Was it when the starving and utterly wretched thousands
marched on London under Tyler and John Ball? Was it when the
press-gangs kidnapped good citizens in broad daylight? Was it when a
score of burning ricks might be seen in a night by one observer? Was
it when imbecile rulers had set all the world against us--when the
French threatened Ireland, and the maddened, hunger-bitten sailors
were in wild rebellion, and the Funds were not considered as safe for
investors? The croaker is always securely indefinite, and a strict,
vigorous series of questions reduces him to rage and impotence.
Now let us go back, say, one hundred and twenty years, and let us see
how the sovereign, the legislators, the aristocracy, and the people
fared then; the facts may perchance be instructive. The King had
resolved to be absolute, and his main energies were devoted to bribing
Parliament. With his own royal hand he was not ashamed to write,
enclosing what he called "gold pills," which were to be used in
corrupting his subjects. He was a most moral, industrious, cleanly man
in private life; yet when the Duke of Grafton, his Prime Minister,
appeared near the royal box of the theatre, accompanied by a woman of
disreputable character, his Majesty made no sign. He was satisfied if
he could keep the mighty Burke, the high-souled Rockingham, the
brilliant Charles James Fox, out of his counsels, and he did not care
at all about the morals or the general behaviour of his Ministers.
About a quarter of a million was spent by the Crown in buying votes
and organising corruption, and King George III. was never ashamed to
appear before his Parliament in the character of an insolvent debtor
when he needed money to sap the morals of his people. A movement in
the direction of purity began even in George III.'s own lifetime; he
was obliged to be cautious, and he ended by coming under the iron
domination of William Pitt. Thus, instead of being remembered as the
dangerous, obstinate, purblind man who made Parliament a sink of
foulness, and who lost America, he is mentioned as a comfortable
simple gentleman of the farmer sort. Before we can half understand the
vast purification that has been wrought, we must study the history of
the reign from 1765 to 1784, and then we may feel happy as we compare
our gentle, beneficent Sovereign with the unscrupulous blunderer who
fought the Colonists and all but lost the Empire.
Then consider the Ministers who carried out the Sovereign's behest.
There was "Jemmy Twitcher," as Lord Sandwich was called. This man was
so utterly bad, that in later life he never cared to conceal his
infamies, because he knew that his character could not possibly be
worse blackened. Sandwich belonged to the unspeakable Medmenham Abbey
set. The lovely ruin had been bought and renovated by a gang of rakes,
who converted it into an abode of drunkenness and grossness; they
defaced the sacred trees and the grey walls with inscriptions which
the indignation of a purer age has caused to be removed; they carried
on nightly revels which no historian could describe, and in their
wicked buffoonery mocked the Creator with burlesque religious rites.
Such an unholy place would be pulled down by the mob nowadays, and the
gang of debauchees would figure in the police-court; but in those
"good old times" the Prime Minister and the Secretary to the Admiralty
were merry members of a crew that disgraced humanity. Just six weeks
after Lord Sandwich had joined the Medmenham Abbey gang, he put
himself forward for election to the High Stewardship of Cambridge
University. Here was a pretty position! The man had been thus
described by a poet--
"Too infamous to have a friend,
Too bad for bad men to commend
Or good to name; beneath whose weight
Earth groans; who hath been spared by fate
Only to show on mercy's plan
How far and long God bears with man"--
and this superb piece of truculence was received with applause by all
that was upright and noble in England. This indescribable villain
presented himself as worthy to preside over the place where the flower
of English youth were educated. A pleasing example he offered to young
and ardent souls! Worst of all, he was elected. He adroitly gained the
votes of country clergymen; he begged his friends to solicit the votes
of their private chaplains; he dodged and manoeuvred until he gained
his position. One voter came from a lunatic asylum, another was
brought from the Isle of Man, others were bribed in lavish
fashion--and Sandwich presided over Cambridge. The students rose in a
body and walked out when he came among them; but that mattered little
to the brazen fellow. To complete the ghastly comedy, it happened that
four years later the Chancellorship fell vacant, and the Duke of
Grafton, who was only second to "Jemmy Twitcher" in wickedness, was
chosen for the high office.
Now I ask plainly, "Can the croakers declare that England was better
under Grafton and 'Jemmy Twitcher' than she now is?" It is nonsense!
The crew of bacchanals and blackguards who then flaunted in high
places would not now be tolerated for a day. I look on our governing
class now,[3] and I may safely declare that not more than one Cabinet
Minister during the past twenty years has been regarded as otherwise
than stainless in character. What is the meaning of this
transformation? It means that good, pure women have gained their
rightful influence, that men have grown purer, and that the elevation
of the general body of society has been reflected in the character of
the men chosen to rule. Vice is all too powerful, and the dark corners
of our cities are awful to see; but the worst of the "fast" men in
modern England are not so bad as were the governors of a mighty empire
when George III. was king.
[3] 1886.
If we look at the society that diced and drank and squandered health
and fortune in the times which we mention, we are more than ever
struck with the advance made. It is a literal fact that the
correspondence of the young men mainly refers to drink and gaming, the
correspondence of the middle-aged men to gout. There were few of the
educated classes who reached middle age, and a country squire was
reckoned quite a remarkable person if he could still walk and ride
when he attained to fifty years. The quiet, steady middle-class
certainly lived more temperately; but the intemperance of the
aristocracy was indescribable. The leader of the House of Lords
imbibed until six every morning, was carried to bed, and came down
about two in the afternoon; two noblemen declared that they drank a
gallon and a half of Champagne and Burgundy at one sitting; in some
coffee-houses it was the custom, when the night's drinking ended, for
the company to burn their wigs. Some of Horace Walpole's letters prove
plainly enough that great gentlemen conducted themselves occasionally
very much as wild seamen would do in Shadwell or the Highway. What
would be thought if Lord Salisbury reeled into the House in a totally
drunken condition? The imagination cannot conceive the situation, and
the fact that the very thought is laughable shows how much we have
improved in essentials. In bygone days, a man who became a Minister
proceeded to secure his own fortune; then he provided for all his
relatives, his hangers-on, his very jockeys and footmen. One lord held
eight sinecure offices, and was besides colonel of two regiments. A
Chancellor of the Exchequer cleared four hundred thousand on a new
loan, and the bulk of this large sum remained in his own pocket, for
he had but few associates to bribe. When patrols were set to guard the
Treasury at night, an epigram ran--
"From the night till the morning 'tis true all is right;
But who will secure it from morning till night?"
There was a perfect carnival of robbery and corruption, and the people
paid for all. Money gathered by public corruption was squandered in
private debauchery, while a sullen and helpless nation looked on.
Think of the change! A Minister now toils during seventeen hours per
day, and receives less than a successful barrister. He must give up
all the ordinary pleasures of life; and, in recompense for the
sacrifice, he can claim but little patronage. By most of the men in
office the work is undertaken on purely patriotic grounds; so that a
duke with a quarter of a million per year is content to labour like an
attorney's clerk.
If we think about the ladies of the old days, we are more than ever
driven to reflection. It is impossible to imagine a more insensate
collection of gamblers than the women of Horace Walpole's society.
Well-bred harpies won and lost fortunes, and the vice became a raging
pest. A young politician could not further his own prospects better
than by letting some high-born dame win his money; if the youth won
the lady's money, then a discreet forgetfulness of the debt was
profitable to him. The rattle of dice and the shuffle of cards sounded
wherever two or three fashionable persons were gathered together; men
and women quarrelled, and society became a mere jumble of people who
suspected and hated and thought to rob each other. It is horrible,
even at this distance of time, to think of those rapacious beings who
forgot literature, art, friendship, and family affection for the sake
of high play. One weary, witty debauchee said, "Play wastes time,
health, money, and friendship;" yet he went on pitting his skill
against that of unsexed women and polished rogues.