Dear Mr. Punch,--Having recently dropped into several London theatres
and halls of variety I have been struck by the numerical strength,
agility and apparently abounding vitality of the young men forming the
chorus. These gallant fellows sing and caper with the utmost spirit
throughout the whole evening, both in musical comedy or revue; and in
London alone, where revues are now being postponed at many of the
outlying halls, there must be more than a thousand of them. Now and then
they even go so far as to impersonate recruits--the chorus to the
recruiting songs which have crept into more than one programme--and they
make, I can assure you, Sir, a very brave show with their rifles and
their military paces, a little accelerated perhaps by the exigencies of
the tune, but a marvel of discipline none the less.
Watching these brisk and efficient male choruses at work, the thought
has come to me--in fact has often been forced upon me by the martial
nature of the musical number which they were engaged in rendering with
so much capability and cheerfulness--that at a time when England is
particularly in need of her young men in the field, the audiences of
London might consent to forgo a little of the pleasure that comes from
watching athletic youths covered with grease-paint and gyrating in the
limelight, and, by expressing their readiness to see those necessary
evolutions carried out by older men, liberate so much good material to
join the Army. Such is the power of the make-up (I am told) that a man
of fifty could easily be arranged to look sufficiently like a man of
half his age, at any rate without imperilling the success of the
entertainment from the point of view of the spectator. And of course the
girls will remain in all their charm, since girls cannot enlist.
The point may be worth considering. The decision, I feel sure, rests
entirely with the public. If the public says: "Let the young men go, and
give us more mature choristers for a while, and we will patriotically
endeavour to endure the privation"--then all the young men will, of
course, enlist as one. But unless the public says this they must remain
in the choruses against the grain.