“THE ’ALLS”
TO the patrons of the music-halls of my early days about town, and to the
performers in them, those places of entertainment were never known as
“halls,” but always as “’alls.” Nothing should more eloquently indicate
the vast change that has taken place in their administration. In those
days the “’alls” were held in general disrepute. To-day their repute in
the land is sweet and sound. They have, indeed, ceased to be halls; they
have become palaces. And they have evidently come to stay, always
widening their sphere of influence, and proving, as time goes on, an
increasing source of anxiety to those who have invested their capital in
playhouses.
For the evolution of the theatre has been very gradual. No great
departure has been made on the boards since the playgoer was taught to
demand accuracy of detail in staging. That was effected by the Bancrofts
in the sixties. Managers have since their day “gone one better” in the
cost of a production, in the gorgeousness of scenery and properties, in
the numerical force of their stage crowds. But nothing since their
production has been more appropriately acted and staged than the
Robertson series of comedies. And no reproduction—whatever it may have
cost—has proved an artistic advance on the Bancroft presentation of the
“School for Scandal.” We have better theatres, and we have more of them.
The comfort of the auditorium has been immeasurably increased. The space
devoted to the stage by our newspapers has quadrupled. The playgoing
public has grown enormously. But the playgoer has been marking time all
the while. And the dramatist, in this particular respect, has been
following the brilliant example of the playgoer.
But if the drama has ceased to show itself progressive, if, according to
some, it even exhibits symptoms of decadence, the evolution of the
music-hall has been that of recovery, progress, and reform. The music
hall has risen “on stepping-stones of its dead self to higher things.”
And only those who can recall the utter unloveliness of that “dead self”
can properly appreciate the privileges accorded to the patrons of the
halls and palaces as they are conducted in this present year of grace.
To begin with, no woman of the period with which I am dealing, with any
regard for her reputation, would think of entering one of these places of
entertainment. She would run the inevitable risk of being affronted by
the patrons of the hall, and being outraged by the words and gestures of
the performers on the stage. Phryne swarmed in the auditorium—poor
soul!—and by the bars lounged or swaggered the shameless males, Jew and
Gentile of his kind, who lived on the exploitation of female beauty. The
smaller halls, such as the Pavilion (it was a small hall in those days);
the Trocadero, which rose on the ruins of the Argyll Rooms, and was run
by old Bob Bignell; the Oxford in Oxford Street; and Weston’s in
Holborn—all were hot, ill-ventilated, and stuffy interiors; and the moral
atmosphere was as warm as the physical.
Having once got his customer more or less comfortably seated, or propped
up close to a bar, inside his “’all,” the main object of the proprietor
was to induce him to drink as much as possible of very bad wine and
spirits at positively fancy prices. Phryne, always hovering near,
exhibited a nice solicitude in forwarding the proprietor’s views in this
direction. The waiters, during the frequent “waits,” made a descent on
the stalls, and, forcing their legs through the exiguous spaces,
contributed largely to our discomfort. I recall the revenge of a friend
of mine on a waiter who had forced himself past us for the fourth time.
My friend was a Newmarket man, and was up in London for the Epsom Spring
Meeting. A whisky-and-soda stood on the little ledge in front of him.
As the waiter crushed past, my friend very neatly tipped his glass over
on to the floor. The glass fell shivered, the waiter turned round, my
friend denounced him for his clumsiness and demanded that his glass
should be replenished. The waiter protested. But the manager of the
“’all” decided against his menial. A fresh drink and a new glass were
provided, and not again during the course of that evening did the waiter
attempt to brush past our stalls. Not quite honest on the part of my
friend? Perhaps not; but it was quite effective, and, under the
circumstances, what would you?
Originally the “’all” was merely an annexe to a big public house. The
thing commenced in “harmonic clubs,” “free-and-easies,” and the like, and
many of the customs and traditions of the “free-and-easy” persisted for a
long time under the altered condition of things. Thus, the programme
was, as yet, an unknown document, and the singers were introduced by a
bibulous person who sat on an elevated armchair with his back to the
stage, and his eye roving over the house. To this day I never can quite
make out to what class of society the individuals belonged who sat round
the chairman’s table. They must have had money, for cigars and
brandies-and-soda, and even that champagne which was innocent of grape,
were consumed at their expense. An indifferent, honest crowd, no doubt.
Sharks, exploiters, billiard-markers, sporting touts, reinforced from
time to time by a contingent of moneyed “mugs.”
At the “Mogul” in Drury Lane—afterwards known as the “Middlesex”—presided
nightly the king, emperor, titulary chief, of chairmen. This was a man
named Fox. His face, encrimsoned by potations long and deep, was large,
and beamed with good-nature. His nose was immense and pendulous—more a
proboscis than a mere nose. But the boys in the gallery—a rough lot they
were—took old Fox very seriously indeed. And it was quite amazing to
witness the way in which, by merely rising and calling upon some
delinquent by name, he could quell an incipient riot among “the gods.”
Thieves and their trulls, the scourings of Drury Lane tributaries, and
the lawless denizens of the turnings off the “Dials”—they were quelled by
the menace in his eye, and trembled at the deep bass of his commanding
voice. Fox once sat to an artist friend of mine, and the resulting
picture was the very best Bardolph I have ever seen on canvas.
When I was a young man “seeing life”—ay, and tasting it, too, for that
matter—I admit having gained some experiences that I would quite gladly
have missed. It is inevitable that the memory will be charged with a
reminiscence which is recalled with disgust, and that many of the
so-called pleasures of youth leave a nasty taste in the mouth which is
never entirely displaced. The “star comique” is one of those memories.
George Leybourne was not at his zenith when I first saw him. He had
essayed to live the life which he was supposed to depict on the
stage—with the usual result. But he still held the first claim on the
music-hall public. It is another circumstance marking the complete and
rapid evolution of the music-hall to note that forty years ago George
Leybourne held the same position with the patrons of these establishments
as was afterwards held by Chevalier and Leno, and is at the present time
of writing held by Harry Lauder.
Leybourne was still singing “Champagne Charlie is my Name” when I heard
him, and the amusing sight was nightly afforded of lawyers’ clerks from
Lincoln’s Inn, and shop-boys from Islington, and young men-about-town on
twenty-five shillings a week, waving their mugs of beer or “goes” of
whisky, and madly joining in the exhilarating chorus as though champagne
was their daily beverage. But it was not to join in his bacchanalian
choruses that the greater part of the audience crowded to hear
Leybourne’s songs. The “star comique” was ever provided with offal for
the pigs in front. And it was when the orchestra began on the opening
bar of ditties like, “Oh, why did she leave her Jeremiah?” that necks
were craned and ears set. For the pornographic part of the show was now
“on.” The words of the song itself did not offend save by reason of
their inanity. But between the verses the singer introduced long
monologues known to music-hall bards as something “spoken.” It was in
these “spoken” interpolations that Leybourne “let himself go.” He
cheerily set out to discover how far a pornographic artist could proceed
with a music-hall audience. Sometimes he played with suggestion and
innuendo. But properly encouraged and liberally stimulated, he would
spurt filth from his mouth as a juggler emits flames from the same
orifice. The more reckless he became, the more delighted grew his
audiences. That was Leybourne as I remember him. And Leybourne was
typical of the music-hall as it then was.
Off the stage poor George was a good-natured, light-hearted, generous,
and conceited fellow—the friend of bookmakers, Cockney sportsmen,
publicans, and sinners; and the model of the mere middle-class boy in
offices, who imitated his dress and peculiarities, and regarded him as
the mirror of Society. The great man drove from hall to hall in a little
carriage drawn by a pair of wonderfully neat ponies. The champagne of
his evening ditties became the usual tipple of the artist during his
afternoon calls at his favourite bars. He drank, indeed, many of the
sweets of artistic success—adulation, flattery, the favour of women, and
the jealousy of men. He lived hard and died hard-up. For even in his
time the shadow of a change was visible, though it was no bigger than a
man’s hand.
Other music-hall artists there were who, however disinclined they might
feel in the matter, were obliged to follow in the wake of the “star
comique.” Arthur Lloyd was a genuine humorist, and had a peculiar
velvety quality of voice, which was conspicuous by its absence in the
throats of his contemporaries. As an artist he was incomparably the most
accomplished, and the most versatile of the music-hall men of his time.
But though he got hold of some songs that enjoyed a wide and long
popularity, he never made one of those sensational “hits” which have
accidentally come in the way of less-accomplished performers. “The Great
Vance” was another of the music-hall favourites. This wonderfully
overrated person belonged to the Leybourne school of thought, and
illustrated the swell of the period as accurately as was possible by a
man whose aspirates were scarcely on a level with his aspirations. “The
Great Macdermott” came a little later than the trio whom I have named,
but was long singing on the same stage as Lloyd and Vance, the popularity
of both of whom he was destined to eclipse.
Macdermott had been a sailor in the Royal Navy. I remember his giving me
on one occasion a most dramatic account of how he came to leave the
service. The general details I forget. But there is impressed on my
memory the picture of Macdermott being rowed ashore in a jolly-boat,
rising in the stern-sheets, and, shaking his fist at his ship,
exclaiming: “Her Majesty’s Navy, adoo!” In the fo’castle there is a
constant demand for the very class of song which was finding so much
favour at the hands of the groundlings when this songster took to the
stage. And as a follower of poor Leybourne, the
sailor-man-turned-comedian made his first efforts. He was minded if he
could to “go one better” than the creator of “Champagne Charlie.” But
that wonderful impersonator had already sounded the depths. Macdermott,
however, soon asserted his claim to a second place with such compositions
as “Moses and Aaron sat on a rock.” These essays in an equivocal genre
brought the singer quickly to the front. Yet it was not as an
illustrator of pornographic minstrelsy that Macdermott was to make his
“hit.” When that wave of patriotism which its detractors called
“Jingoism” swept the country, Macdermott was to the fore as the laureate
and bard of the patriots.
Macdermott, indeed, has enriched the dictionaries of more nations than
one with a new word. That is the word “Jingoism,” as used in politics.
He sang a chorus in which we hurled defiance at the wide world, and soon
the wide world was singing it, too. Macdermott had a wonderfully
distinct enunciation, and had a peculiar knack of emphasizing the initial
letter of every word he sang. The chorus which created the furore, as
sung by the great man, went in this way:
“We Don’t Want To Fight;
But By JINGO If We Do,
We’ve Got The Ships. We’ve Got The Men,
We’ve Got The Money, Too!”
While this ditty was the vogue, the Great Macdermott firmly believed that
he and Lord Beaconsfield were the two principal Conservative forces of
the day. With the capital he made out of his patriotism he retired from
the music-hall stage. Unkind rivals declared that his patriotic howling
had cracked his voice. He set up a “Music-Hail Agency” in the Waterloo
Bridge Road, and joined the redoubtable Jack Coney in “making a book.”
History holds no further record of him and his deeds.
About the same time James Fawn, Herbert Campbell, and Charles Coborn,
began to demonstrate to the public—and this fixes their place in the
elusive story of the evolution of the music-hall—that it is possible to
have a song in which there shall be real humour, the nice delineation, a
“taking” tune, without any appeal to that which is lowest and most
bestial in the minds of the public. Then followed Chevalier, Dan Leno,
and the comic singers of the present day, with whom, of course, these
reminiscences have nothing to do.
Perhaps the most deplorable feature in the entertainments given by
music-hall managers in the early days of my acquaintanceship with those
places of entertainment was the lady performer. Those terrible young (or
middle-aged) persons who were announced as the “Sisters” So-and-So, and
were inevitable on every stage, always succeeded in putting a portion of
the audience into a bad temper. Their short coloured skirts, their fixed
smirk, the mechanical steps of their dance, their metallic voices—these
things have left an impression not pleasant to recall. They couldn’t
sing. They couldn’t dance. And their “make-up” proved that they
couldn’t even paint. Still, there were women appearing before the
patrons of the “’alls” who possessed the authentic gift. One of the
earliest of these was Jenny Hill. “The Vital Spark” they used to call
her on the bills.
In her choice of subject she allowed herself a wide range, alternating
between the pathetic and the humorous. She was very clever in depicting
the coster class. She was the forerunner of Bessie Bellwood in that
department. And I have always held that she was possessed of much higher
artistic qualities than fell to the lot of poor Bessie. And she had the
same readiness of retort when the “gods” in the gallery felt called upon
to interpose with humours of their own. At the “Mogul” Jenny Hill had
frequent opportunities of exhibiting her skill in this direction, and
never failed to score off her saucy admirers on the slopes of
cloud-capped Olympus. Bessie Bellwood revelled in the same sort of
conflict. But it must be admitted that the older artist had the command
of a more subtle and good-humoured method. Bellwood’s retorts were often
coarse, and always stung. But, although the less accomplished performer
of the two, Bessie Bellwood made a quicker jump into fame and achieved a
wider popularity than her older rival. It was another case of getting
hold of a song that has a “hit” in it. “What cheer, ’Ria! ’Ria’s on the
job!” lifted the unknown genius immediately into the front rank—a
position which she kept till her death. The regard in which this
absolutely untaught woman was held was shown by the thousands of the
public that turned out to follow her funeral, and line the streets
through which the procession to the cemetery passed.
It was with the utmost difficulty that Bessie Bellwood could be induced
to study a new song. She had no love for music. She had plenty of
money, she was fond of racing and Society and fun of all kinds. She
could read and write, but that was about all. Arthur Williams was the
only man I ever met who seemed to know anything of her early life, and he
always declared that her occupation, before she went on the stage, was
that of skinning rabbits in the East End. Notwithstanding the obscurity
of her origin and the paucity of her attainments, she was the chosen
domestic companion of a Duke and of a Marquis!
It may seem strange, to a generation possessing only an experience of the
chastened variety theatre of the period, to learn that in my day a person
entirely lacking in education should attain to a foremost position on the
music-half stage. But the thing was by no means uncommon. An amusing
case in point occurs to me. Hollingshead, of the Gaiety, was always on
the lookout for “talent,” and he was not at all particular as to the
source from which he drew it. Calling on him one day at the theatre, I
found him considerably upset by a discovery which he had just made. He
had long admired the performance of a certain music-hall artist, and,
when an opportunity arose, he offered him a part in a burlesque then in
course of preparation. Good terms were offered. The music-hall artist
was flattered, and the offer was accepted. But when his part was handed
to him by the stage-manager, it was found to be of no earthly use to him,
for he could not read! Fortunately, the artist’s ignorance in other
matters came to Hollingshead’s assistance in determining the engagement.
For the contract had been signed in the gentleman’s name by a friend, and
was invalid!
One of those incidents by which one may note the progress of an evolution
comes in its natural order in this place. Albert Chevalier had failed to
obtain from the general public supporting the theatre the amount of
attention and critical admiration that was accorded to him freely by the
judicious few. For years he was known at club banquets and the like as
the writer, composer, and singer, of those coster songs which have since
won for him fame and fortune. In a burlesque of “Aladdin” put on at the
Strand Theatre by Edouin, Chevalier introduced his famous “’Armonic
Club.” Its humours appealed for the moment, but it did not make one of
those “hits” the impact of which sets all the town tingling. And for a
long time after the run of the Strand “Aladdin” Chevalier was unable to
obtain “a shop.” He was one of the many unfortunate artists whose
peculiar vein of talent had not found the proper assay.
When he was at last offered an engagement as a music-hall singer, he
naturally hesitated at taking a step which he rightly regarded as
irrevocable. He recognized the fact that his acceptance meant a
renunciation of the theatre. And to his profession—hard mistress though
she had been—he was deeply attached. I was one of those friends to whom
he repaired for advice over what appeared to him a momentous issue. I am
glad to recall the fact that I strongly advised him to take the plunge.
Nor was I ever in doubt as to the success of his songs with an audience
even then emerging from under the spell of the raucous and “rawty”
comiques. A number of us went to the Pavilion to witness his début. We
had scattered ourselves all over the hall—it was the new building, and
not the stuffy old hole of the seventies—and we were prepared to act as
an unsalaried claque. But our services were never needed. With great
judgment, Chevalier had selected as his first song “The Coster’s
Serenade.” It went home at once. The delicacy of the art appealed alike
to stalls and gallery. This refinement of treatment was novel. It was
something like a revelation to the “gods.” The song went with a will.
And Chevalier’s fortune was assured. We who had attended as unpaid and
unwanted claquers were not without a vocation, after all. We were
watchers at the parting of the ways. The old music-hall of the Great
Vances and the Bessie Bellwoods was passing away. The new order of the
Fragsons and the Margaret Coopers was imminent.
It is difficult, in tracing the course of any evolution, to attribute
exactly the dates of transition, or to assign scientifically the
contributing causes of change. But I think that one would not be far
from the truth in attributing to three causes the wonderful improvement
which has taken place in music-hall conditions and entertainments in the
course of a generation.
In the first place, the erection of more modern, more pretentious, and
more comfortable buildings on the ruins of the ancient pest-houses almost
necessitated a performance from which should be eliminated the more
objectionable features of the old pothouse programme. In the second
place, due importance should be given to the persistent efforts of
managers of the Charles Morton school, who, foreseeing the possibilities
of the variety show, cherished high ideals, but cherished them on
strictly business lines. In the third place, one must allow something
for an improvement in public taste. This factor is—for reasons which I
cannot discuss here—the least potent. But it is far from being
negligible. It is a case, indeed, in which the supply created the
demand, not where the demand created the supply.
Charles Morton, whose name must be imperishably associated with the
transformation of the halls, was the least professional-looking manager
in London. He was of short stature, wore ginger-coloured side-whiskers,
dressed in a frock-coat and silk hat, and affected gold pince-nez. Asked
to guess at his calling in life, a stranger would probably have put him
down as the owner of a large suburban drapery establishment, who acted on
Sundays as sidesman at the nearest church. And, truth to tell, Morton’s
innate sense of decorum was so strong that his demeanour in the halls
over which he presided would have done credit to a churchwarden. No man
was ever half so respectable as Charlie Morton looked. His work was none
the less efficient and permanent on that account. And it is satisfactory
to reflect that he who had commenced the crusade against pornography at
the Canterbury, on the other side of the water, should have lived to
preside for years over the fortunes of the Palace, in the heart of the
West End.
In the seventies the Alhambra was not reckoned—as it is to-day—among the
“’alls.” The Empire and kindred establishments were as yet undreamt of
by the pleasure-hunter. And the Alhambra was a thing apart. Leicester
Square, on the eastern side of which it is situated, was then the most
disreputable spot of earth to be found in the centre of any capital in
Europe. Here on the sunniest summer days might be found promenading some
of the most villainous adventurers from the capitals of Europe. They
cloaked themselves like brigands, glared at the passing shop-girls with
wicked black eyes, twirled their fierce moustaches, and rolled cigarettes
with a diligence which they gave to no other innocent pursuit. They were
the off-scourings of Europe. The swindlers, gamblers, political rogues,
the _souteneurs_, the craven shirkers of conscription, the European
riff-raff that chooses London as its favourite dumping-ground, were all
to be found promenading in Leicester Square. John Leech has fixed the
type in the pages of _Punch_. The interesting _émigré_ may still be
detected prowling about the vicinity. But he is a wonderfully
ameliorated brigand—a tame and nearly normal invader. The improvement in
the enclosure itself accounts for this. The squalor in which he throve
as in his native element has gone. And the picturesque but filthy
villain has happily gone with it. The “Lee-cess-tare Squar” of my salad
days is no more!
The paling that surrounded the gardens in the centre of the square had
been broken down. It became the receptacle of the least sanitary parts
of the rubbish of the neighbourhood. And as the rubbish-heaps increased,
augmented by contributions of dead dog and dead cat, the gamins of the
place found it become more and more desirable as a rallying-point and a
playground. A statue of one of the Georges bestrode an adipose charger
(fearfully out of drawing) on a pedestal in the centre of the enclosure.
Everything of a humorous and adventurous kind which took place in the
West End in those days was put down to the medical students of the
Metropolis. After a night of dense fog, the public passing through the
square discovered that the King’s steed had been given a coat of white
paint relieved by black spots. On another foggy night the same body of
roisterers—or another—unhorsed the monarch, and broke him into pieces,
scattering his remains on the ground; for the effigy was not carved out
of marble, but was a case of moulded metal. The monarch was discovered
to be a hollow mockery. For a time the spotted horse dominated the
squalid enclosure, grotesque and riderless.
Then Baron Grant appeared upon the scene, and proceeded to abate this
Metropolitan nuisance. Grant was a company-promoter of the well-known
type. His real name was Gottheimer; and he sought, but failed to obtain,
a seat in Parliament as a Member of one of the London divisions. He
built an enormous house in Kensington, known as “Grant’s Folly.” Before
the mansion was finished the owner went “broke,” and, as it was not found
suited to the requirements of any of the few millionaires then in need of
a town-house, it was pulled down and the materials sold. The marble
pillars supporting the ceiling in the hall of “Grant’s Folly” now adorn
the grill-room of the Holborn Restaurant. Grant, having obtained the
necessary permission, set about the task of converting Leicester Square
into a beauty-spot. He hoped, and, indeed, believed, that it would be
opened to the public by Royalty, and that he would be rewarded with an
English title. He desired, also, to further his designs on a
Metropolitan electorate. He was disappointed in both directions; and his
subsequent bankruptcy showed that both the Queen and the wooed
constituency exercised foresight in disregarding his claims.
But, whatever the Baron’s motives may have been, Londoners owe him a
considerable debt of gratitude in respect of the transformation of the
most disreputable public square in all Europe. At no time has London
shown itself over-anxious to acknowledge the obligation, and to-day it
has probably forgotten all about its dead benefactor. I knew the Baron
quite well. He was a dapper, well-groomed, ambitious little man. Had
the tide not turned and swept him off his feet, he would have gained
admission to the House of Commons—one of the few associations of English
gentlemen by whom promoters of the Baron Grant type are not merely
tolerated, but even made welcome.
Amid the filth and squalor of the un-reformed square the high edifice of
the Alhambra rose, giving the absent touch of the Orient to a locality
sheltering many swarthy sons of the East. And there was something
Oriental in the entertainment, the chief feature of which was ballet. In
the seventies, and before the coming of the Empire and kindred palaces,
every man-about-town dropped in at the Alhambra at least once during the
week. He was sure to find himself among friends. And in case that did
not happen, he had offered to him the easy opportunity of picking one up.
The establishment was owned by a company, the principal managing
directors being a bill-poster called Nagle, a friend of Nagle’s called
Sutton, and Captain Fryer, a wine-merchant in the City. Fryer had
married the old Strand favourite, Bella Goodall, and was a member of the
Junior Garrick and other theatrical clubs, in one of which I first made
his acquaintance. John Baum was the manager, and the hard-working and
inimitable Jacobi was _chef d’orchestra_.
John Baum, the manager, presented to the ordinary observer rather an
interesting problem. He was at once manager of the Alhambra, lessee of
Cremorne, and the owner of a glove-shop in Piccadilly, situated on or
about, the spot on which the fountain now stands; for at that time the
open space which spreads itself before the Criterion was covered by a
triangular block of buildings, the back of which faced the London
Pavilion, which then stood close by the Café Monico and a nasty
anatomical exhibition known as Dr. Kahn’s Museum. The exhibitor eked out
a bare existence by pandering to the prurient, and was at last compelled
by the authorities to close his unspeakably sorry show. But I must not
side-track Baum in describing his surroundings. He was a little,
fair-haired person with a rotund figure. He invariably appeared in
public in a tall hat, a black frock-coat, and a narrow black tie,
carefully fastened in a bow. But for a scrubby moustache, he looked far
more like a Dissenting parson than like a music-hall manager. No one
could have inferred from his personal appearance that he could be in any
way connected with two such establishments as the Alhambra and Cremorne.
Baum was a most reticent man. Little or nothing was to be got out of him
in the course of conversation. He was at the same time quite polite, and
even affable, in his manner. I once accepted his invitation to go and
interview De Groof, the intrepid adventurer, who was about to make an
aerial flight from Cremorne. At the present moment, when aerial
navigation has just come back, and come to stay, a short reference to De
Groof may not be considered out of place. About De Groof himself there
was nothing particularly striking. His name notwithstanding, the
aeronaut was a Frenchman, and he reposed, or affected to repose, the most
absolute reliance on his machine. The latter was more of a parachute
than anything else. It consisted of two enormous wings worked by
pulleys. Between the wings a seat was fixed for the accommodation of the
flyer. The machine was to be fixed to a balloon, from which it could be
disconnected at will, when it was expected to descend gracefully to the
ground. I did not witness the ascent, and so was spared seeing the
catastrophe. The balloon failed to get away satisfactorily. The weight
of the machine in tow was no doubt the cause; and De Groof, fearing
collision with a church-steeple in Sidney Street, Fulham Road, detached
his apparatus prematurely. The machine fell to the earth like a stone,
and the unfortunate inventor was instantly killed.
The Alhambra audiences were drawn by an exhibition of terpsichorean art
and female beauty. And establishments devoting themselves to such an
exhibition will have lots of hangers-on. One of the most noticeable of
these was an exceedingly well-known but ancient and cadaverous-looking
Hebrew not wholly unconnected—if there was anything in current
report—with West End usury. He was supposed to be the benefactor of
beauty in distress—the guide, philosopher, and friend, of impecunious
maidenhood. Nor was his philanthropy confined to members of the _corps
de ballet_.
Certain of the habitués of the house had an admission behind the scenes
to what was known as the “canteen,” enjoying the privilege, which,
strangely enough, seems to appeal both to youth and old age, of drinking
champagne made of gooseberries in the company of ballet-girls in gauze
skirts and no bodices to speak of. It has always struck me as strange
that men accustomed to luxurious surroundings in their homes and clubs
can extract any pleasure in becoming temporary participants of an
existence the dominant note of which is squalor, in which all the senses
are disagreeably assaulted, and the inevitable consequence of which is a
poignant sense of personal degradation! The “canteen” is, happily, a
thing of the past.
Before Baum’s management of the Alhambra it was conducted for a time by a
man called Strange. This gentleman had been previously a waiter at the
St. James’s Restaurant—the “Jimmy’s” of later days—and he was running the
show, I think, in 1870. During that lurid year the Alhambra made a lot
of money, for the war feeling ran high, and the management astutely gave
prominence in its programme to rival national airs. Partisanship was
evoked. The house was nightly crowded by patriots on both sides, and
scuffles and encounters were among the ordinary diversions of the
evening. It is wonderful to see how doughty and valorous your fighting
man who stays at home can be! Strange was supposed by the supporters of
the house to be consumed by a hopeless passion for the _première
danseuse_, who spurned his addresses. I never asked him about it, for,
although he always made an effort to be civil to persons of my calling,
he was a churlish fellow, and he wore flowing side-whiskers, which was in
itself an offence. Both he and the object of his middle-aged affection
have been dead this many a day.
My memory of the Alhambra stage is as a dream of fair women. Whether as
ballet-girls, as singers, or as actresses in opera-bouffe, the women
engaged were always lovely. They become visualized for me now in a
procession of pretty faces and divine forms. There is Kate Santley,
fair-haired and vivacious, and fresh from the music-halls and her success
with “The Bells go ringing for Sarah!” There passes now Cornélie D’Anka,
the golden-haired Hungarian, with the Amazonian figure and the exquisite
voice; and behind her, as I look, looms, indistinct but recognizable, the
figure of an Oriental potentate visiting our shores—that, indeed, of the
Shah of Persia. Scasi, with her well-trained voice, passes from the
Alhambra to the Surrey Gardens. Scasi, as will be seen, is Isaacs
spelled backwards, and with the superfluous “a” deleted. She was the
daughter of a furniture-dealer in Great Queen Street. The old Surrey
Gardens, for which she abandoned the Alhambra, was the scene of the last
appearance in public of the beautiful Valérie Reece—the late Lady Meux.
Strange to think that the delightfully irresponsible little Bohémienne of
the jocund days should have evolved into the owner of a Derby
winner—Volodyvoski, which she leased to the American, Mr. Whitney—and the
organizer and provider of equipment to a battery of artillery for service
in South Africa. The name of Julia Seaman calls up to me that lady’s
appearance in “The Black Crook,” in which fine production she played with
extraordinary effect the part of the malignant fairy. A more inspiring
performance than that in which I subsequently saw her at Paravicini’s
theatre in Camden Town. She then essayed—not very convincingly—the rôle
of Hamlet.
Pitteri was _première danseuse_ for more years than it would be quite
gallant to recall. Although assuming the chief place in ballet, this
famous dancer possessed none of those sylph-like characteristics which
are usually associated with the chief of the ballerine. She was a lady
of opulent charms and large figure. In those days there was always
engaged in the Alhambra production that epicene excrescence, the male
ballet-dancer. At the Alhambra it was the duty of this individual to
support the figure of Pitteri as she made a semicircle in the air, and to
hold her when she assumed those poses which alternated her spells of
purely terpsichorean exercise. The man ballet-dancer supporting Pitteri
earned his wages whatever they may have been. Sara—known as Wiry Sal—was
another favourite of the Alhambra ballet. This lady belonged to the
high-kicking, athletic order of Corybantes. She was accompanied by two
other high-kickers, and the three became known about town as “the world,
the flesh, and the devil.”
After the reign of John Baum, the directors of the Alhambra were for ever
changing their manager. All sorts and conditions of managers—from
William Holland and Joseph Cave up to John Hollingshead—had a try at it.
But not one of them seemed able to get along with the Nagles, the
Suttons, and the Winders, of the board of directors. One by one these
reactionaries died off, and under a reconstructed board and an
enterprising and settled management the establishment at present
flourishes like a green bay-tree.
One of the last occasions on which I visited the Alhambra in my capacity
as a member of the Press was on the occasion of Sandow’s appearance at
that establishment. He challenged and defeated a “strong man” who was
then drawing the town. After the performance we were invited to a supper
given in the champion’s honour in a café—the name of which I forget; it
stood between the Alhambra and the Cavour—for even in those early days
Sandow had a keen appreciation of the value of a _réclame_. Sir Reginald
Hanson took the chair on the occasion, and the police paid us a
domiciliary visit at one o’clock in the morning. Our names and addresses
were solemnly taken down—a ceremony which occupied much time; but we
never heard any more of the matter. Sandow has gone far since that
frugal entertainment of the London Press.
The café at which we were invited to sup with Sandow must have occupied
the site, or have been very close to it, once devoted to the squalid
orgies of “The Judge and Jury.” Elsewhere in these rambling
reminiscences I have alluded to ineffaceable memories which one would
willingly expunge. Through life one looks back on experiences which one
would gladly forget, but cannot. They cling like burrs, and pursue like
an evil odour. My recollection of “The Judge and Jury” furnishes such an
experience. I visited the place once. Nothing on earth could induce me
to pay it a second visit. The entertainment was in two parts. The first
consisted of a mock trial presided over by “Baron Nicholson.” Before
this libidinous old president, “barristers,” duly arrayed in wig and
gown, called witnesses, male and female of their kind, and proceeded to
examine and cross-examine with an amount of licence and obscenity that
set up in the hearer a sort of moral nausea. The “Baron’s” charge to the
jury was a tissue of ribaldry and bawdry which to me seemed simply awful,
but which appealed to the habitués of the squalid hall.
The trial at an end, Nicholson’s bench was removed, and behind it was
seen to be a stage-curtain. To the strains of a piano this was drawn up,
and on a revolving platform were discovered the figures of some women
representing groups from the classics. The goddesses of Olympus were
more sadly aspersed by this exhibition of shameless flesh than had been
the Bench and Bar of England by Nicholson’s travesty. As the platform
revolved, the women, with nothing on save their pink fleshings, smirked
and leered at the audience in front. Needless to say, the figures in
this exhibition of _posé plastique_ were neither young nor beautiful.
The pink fleshings could scarcely keep in place the sagging charms of a
mature Venus, the lank limbs and scraggy neck of Diana. . . . Faugh!
London knows better now.