‘SUPERS’ ON THE STAGE.
Supernumeraries on the stage, ordinarily called ‘supers,’ receive a small pay, but are not reckoned within the rôle of actors. They make up a crowd, when a crowd is wanted in the piece, and so on. Though viewed as a kind of nobodies, they cannot be done without, and managers need to take care not to give them offence.
These humble players have been aptly described as serfs of the stage, for whom there is no manumission. Let them work as hard as they will, play their parts as well as they may, their merits meet scant recognition either before or behind the curtain. For the wage of some threepence an hour, they have to submit to being bullied and badgered, and put to all manner of personal discomfort. Still, with a sense of inferiority, the super considers himself an actor. He treads but the lowest rung; but his foot is on the theatrical ladder. The climbers above may superciliously ignore the connection; but he feels that he too is an actor, and sometimes asserts his fellowship; like the poverty-stricken fellow who publicly hailed David Garrick as his ‘dear colleague,’ on the score that it was his crowing that made the ghost of buried Denmark start like a guilty thing upon a fearful summons; and the less obtrusive super who, when told of Macready’s death, exclaimed: ‘Ah! another of us gone!’
It is recorded that a French super playing an assistant-footman in a popular opéra-bouffe for the first time, fell down in a fit, brought on by the excitement consequent upon his having to ‘create the rôle.’ Too much zeal is always inconvenient. At a performance not very long since of Richard III., the armies contending at Bosworth were so carried away by professional ardour that the mimic fray came very near the real thing; and one gallant archer introduced himself to the manager’s notice with an arrow through his nose, so astonishing that gentleman that he salved the wound with half a sovereign. The next evening the casualties rose to such alarming proportions, that a like treatment would have well-nigh exhausted the treasury.
Such realistic combats would have delighted Forrest the American tragedian, famous for his ‘powerful’ acting. Rehearsing the part of a brave Roman warrior at the Albany Theatre, Forrest stormed at the representatives of the minions of a tyrant for not attacking him with sufficient spirit. At last the captain of the supers inquired if he wanted to make ‘a bully-fight of it,’ and received an affirmative answer. Evening came, and in due course the fighting scene was reached. Forrest ‘took the stage,’ and the half-dozen myrmidons advanced against him in skirmishing order. ‘Seize him!’ cried the tyrant. Striking a pugilistic attitude, the first minion hit out from the shoulder, and gave the Roman hero a fair ‘facer;’ the second minion following up with a well-judged kick from behind; while the others rushed in for a bout at close-quarters. The eyes of the astounded actor flashed fire; there was a short scrimmage of seven, and then one super went head first into the big drum and stopped there, four retired behind the scenes to have their wounds dressed, and the last of the valiant crew finding himself somehow up in the flies, rushed out upon the roof of the theatre bawling ‘Fire!’ with all the energy left him; while the breathless tragedian was bowing his acknowledgments of the enthusiastic plaudits of the excited audience.
Considering how often the super changes his nationality, one would expect him to be too thorough a cosmopolitan to cherish any insular or continental prejudices. They nevertheless have their sympathies and antipathies. ‘Shure, sir,’ said an Irishman who had for some nights died a glorious death fighting for Fatherland, ‘it’s mighty onpleasant to have to be a German; I’d rather play a Frenchman.’ He had to be contented by receiving the manager’s assurance that if he continued to work up his agony well, he might be permitted to change his uniform at the end of the month. Greater success awaited a stalwart navvy, who after crossing the Danube several times at Alexandra Park, declared he must ‘chuck it up’ if he could not be a Turk. His desire was granted; and the next afternoon he was pitching Russians into the water with a will.
In the old days of the Paris Cirque, a rule is said to have obtained, compelling supers who had incurred the management’s displeasure to go on as ‘the enemy,’ destined to succumb to native valour, by which means the difficulty of getting men to appear as the foes of France was obviated. When the Battle of Waterloo was first produced on the English stage, in one of the battle-scenes the French troops drove a British division across the mimic field. This was done for a few nights. One morning, after rehearsal, the leader of the supernumerary red-coat corps, gathering his followers around him, said: ‘Boys, we mustn’t retreat before the Johnny Crapauds again, to be goosed by the pit. It’s all very well at rehearsal, but when it comes to real acting it won’t do. Let us turn upon the yelling demons and pitch them into the pit!’ And they did it too, astonishing the ‘Frenchmen,’ to say nothing of the audience; as greatly as Mr George Jones was once astonished by certain theatrical pirates. He, as an American sailor, had to rescue a fair captive from the clutches of the aforesaid ruffians. Unfortunately he had contrived to mortally offend the four supers concerned; and when he rushed to the lady’s aid with: ‘Come on, ye villains! One Yankee tar is more than a match for four lubberly sharks!’ instead of leading off in a broadsword fight, the pirate captain shouted: ‘I guess not!’ and seizing Jones by the legs and arms, the pirates carried him off the stage, deposited him in the property closet, and then returning, bore off the damsel to their rocky retreat; leaving the curtain to come down before a very much puzzled audience, to whom no explanation was vouchsafed.
Somebody—we think Mr Dutton Cook—tells a good story of an accessoire once attached to the Porte St-Martin Theatre. M. Fombonne had won managerial praise for the adroitness with which he handed letters or coffee-cups upon a salver and his excellent manner of announcing the names of stage-guests and visitors. Naturally enough, he thought his services might be more liberally rewarded, and made his thought known.
‘Monsieur Fombonne,’ said the manager, ‘I acknowledge the justice of your application. I admire and esteem you. You are one of the most useful members of my company. I well know your worth; no one better.’
Glowing with pleasure at this recognition of his merits, M. Fombonne, with one of his best bows, said: ‘I may venture then to hope’——
‘By all means, Monsieur Fombonne,’ interrupted the manager. ‘Hope sustains us under all our afflictions. Always hope. For my part, hope is the only thing left me. Business is wretched. The treasury is empty. I cannot possibly raise your salary. But you are an artist, and therefore above pecuniary considerations. I do not, I cannot offer you money; but I can gratify a laudable ambition. Hitherto you have ranked only as an accessoire; from this time you are an actor. I give you the right of entering the grand foyer. You are permitted to call Monsieur Lemaitre mon camarade; to tutoyer Mademoiselle Theodorine. I am sure, Monsieur Fombonne, that you will thoroughly appreciate the distinction I have conferred upon you.’ The manager read his man rightly; the promoted accessoire was more than satisfied.
Not so well pleased was the English super who asked for a rise, pleading that he had been playing his part with the utmost care and zeal for a hundred consecutive nights. The manager inquired what part he played.
‘Why, sir,’ said he, ‘I am in the fourth act; I have to stake twenty pounds in the gambling scene.’
‘Very well,’ quoth the manager; ‘from to-night you shall double the stakes.’
Was it the same manager, we wonder, to whom Mr Sala’s small super came crying for a redress of his grievance? He had been cast to play ‘double-four’ in a pantomimic game of animated dominoes; but the dresser had allotted ‘double-four’ to his brother Jim, and insisted upon his being contented with donning the tabard of ‘four and a blank.’ He had protested, he had howled, he had punched Jim’s head, without effect.
‘What am I to do?’ the little pantomimist cried. ‘I’d sooner give up the profession, than be took down so many pegs without never ’avin done nuffin.’
‘Never mind, my boy,’ replied the amused stage-manager; ‘you shall play double-four; and if you behave yourself properly till Boxing Night you shall play double-six.’
That little fellow would never have made such a mess of his ‘business’ as did a street urchin who made his first appearance on any stage under the auspices of Mr J. C. Williamson, when the latter was playing Struck Oil in a country town. Led on by the ear by Lizzie Stofel, and asked: ‘What for you call me Dutchy?’ the debutant blurted out: ‘Cause you told me to!’—to the immense delight of the house. As soon as the act was over, he was told he might go in front; and before any one could stop him, he pulled back the curtain, climbed over the footlights into the orchestra, and coolly left the theatre.
At a performance of Norma at the Cork Theatre, in which Cruvelli played the heroine, the little daughters of the carpenter were pressed into service to represent the children of the priestess. As the curtain drew up on the second act they were seen lying on Norma’s couch quiet enough, for they were frightened nearly to death by the glare of light, the noise in front, and their unaccustomed surroundings. Their fright increased as Norma vented her jealous rage in recitative; and when, dagger in hand, she rushed towards them, they gave a shriek, tumbled off their couch, and ran off the stage as fast as their legs would take them, while the theatre rang with laughter, and Norma herself was fain to sit down until she had recovered from the effect of the unexpected episode.
Boleno the clown never evoked heartier merriment than that caused by his first appearance in public as one of the ‘principal waves’ in the nautical piece Paul Jones. It was at Sadler’s Wells Theatre, soon after the ‘real water,’ for which that house was long famous, had given place to the conventional canvas sea with its wave-rolling boys underneath. The last scene represented the ocean, bearing on its expanse of waters two ships preparing for action. The waves rolled as the boys bobbed up and down, and all would have gone well, had not Master Harry discovered a small hole in the canvas above him. Into this hole he put two fingers, intending to take a peep at the front of the house. The rotten stuff gave way; the waters of the Atlantic divided, and disclosed a small head besmeared with blue paint—the result of friction against the painted cloth. Catching sight of this, young Joe Grimaldi, who was the captain in command of one of the vessels, called out: ‘Man overboard!’ while the stage-carpenter shook his fist at the appalled offender, causing that luckless young rascal to disappear from view, and bob with such vigour at a remote distance, that a sudden storm seemed to have broken over the ocean far away.
An American critic, disgusted with the mob in Julius Cæsar, when that play was acted lately at Booth’s Theatre, because they shewed no discrimination, cheering the meanest soldier walking in procession, while they let Cæsar and Antony go by unrecognised, insists upon the supernumeraries being better taught. It is certainly the duty of the stage-manager to see that they are properly instructed, but it is no use to ask too much of them; like the actor-manager who called upon his supers to assume an oily smile of truculent defiance; and the author of Jeanne d’Arc, who in his stage directions requires the representatives of the English spectators at the procession to the pyre to give vent to a buzz and murmur of hatred and exultation; and the representatives of the Amazon’s countrymen to express their feelings in a buzz and murmur of love, pity, and sympathy. Such exacting gentlemen remind one of the French manager who fined one of the supernumeraries engaged in Paul et Virginie for not making himself black enough, and afterwards discovered that the man he had fined was a nigger born.
THE MONTH:
SCIENCE AND ARTS.
The paragraphs on the use of zinc as a preventive of scale in steam-boilers, in the Month for March last ([ante 207]), have brought us many inquiries for further particulars. One correspondent wishes to know what length of time the lump of zinc will last? to which we answer, that on this point there is nothing more precise in the original Report than that the zinc lasts the usual time of working the boiler between the periods of cleaning. The zinc is more efficacious in the form of an ingot or solid lump, than when small heaps of clippings are employed; and we cannot imagine that it would be difficult for any intelligent person to determine by observation the dissolution of the zinc.
The theoretical explanation of the preservative action is, that in the process of oxidation the zinc borrows oxygen from the air dissolved in the feed-water only. The two metals, zinc and iron, surrounded by water at a high temperature, form an electrical ‘pile’ with a single liquid which slowly decomposes the water. The oxygen flies to the most oxidisable metal, the zinc, while the hydrogen is set free on the surface of the iron. This release of hydrogen goes on over the whole extent of the iron in contact with the water, and the minute bubbles of this gas isolate at each instant the sides of the boiler from the incrusting substance. If the quantity of this substance is small, it becomes so penetrated by the bubbles that it remains soft as mud; and if in greater quantity, coherent incrustations are formed, but in such a state of isolation as to be readily separated from the iron.
This remarkable action of zinc was first discovered in 1861, during the repair of a steam-vessel at Havre; and since then it has with approval been taken into use in some of the large manufacturing establishments of France. Readers desirous of consulting the original Report will find it in the Bulletin de la Société d’Encouragement pour l’Industrie Nationale, No. 51, March 1878, which may be obtained through Messrs Trübner, the well-known London publishers, or any foreign bookseller.
The Institution of Mechanical Engineers have published their usual yearly list of subjects on which they would be glad to have papers for reading at their meetings. As may be supposed, their scheme includes all branches of mechanical engineering; but we mention a few as likely to occupy the attention of some of the many ingenious artificers who are always inventing or improving. For example, there are hot-air engines, engines worked by gas, and electro-magnetic engines. Corn-mills, results of working with an air-blast and ring-stones. Flax, lace, and knitting machinery. Wood-working machines, for morticing, dovetailing, planing, rounding, surfacing and copying. Paper-making and paper-cutting machines. Machines for printing from engraved surfaces, and type-composing and distributing machines. Best plans for seasoning timber and cordage. Ventilation of mines. Prevention of rust in iron ships and tanks; and a way to diminish the dead-weight in railway trains.
One of the subjects is improvements in lighthouses; by which we are reminded that a new lighthouse at the Eddystone is talked of. The present structure was built by Smeaton in 1756-59; and ever since, as long before, as indicated by the name, the sea has been wearing away the rock on which it stands, and now threatens to undermine the foundations. The new tower would be built on an adjacent rock with, as we may easily believe, all the best improvements in construction and lighting.
Descriptions have been given at meetings of the Institution of machines for pressing cotton in bales for shipment. Some machines will press twice as much cotton into a bale of given size as others; which effects an important economy as regards stowage and in cost of packing, for it is estimated that the outlay for fuel for the pressing engine amounts to only a penny a bale.
Messrs Siemens’ improvements in the dynamo-electric machine appear likely to settle the question as regards transmission of mechanical power to long distances. Given the power to work one machine, it can be transmitted by wires to a second, from that to a third, and so on continuously through many miles. A waterfall or steam-engine of one hundred horse-power working the first machine in the series would produce fifty horse-power at a distance of thirty miles. Hence it would be possible to grind wheat, to shape iron in a lathe, to saw wood, or weave cotton by machinery, in a district where all the coal was exhausted. This consideration ought to be appreciated by the people who imagine that our coal-fields will all too soon be dug completely out. Another advantage of the dynamo-machine is that if thrown out of gear for a few minutes or for a longer time there is no loss or waste of power.
Considering that slag can be made into glass, and that slag is a disagreeable encumbrance which many manufacturers would gladly get rid of, a suggestion has been offered that, instead of being made of metal, tanks and cisterns should be made of slag glass, in a single casting. There would then be no leaky joints, no unpleasant taste from paint or metal; cleaning would be easy; and if large dimensions were required, a number of small tanks might be placed side by side, and connected by slag-glass tubes. When this suggestion comes to be adopted, there will be no need to inquire about prevention of rust in tanks, nor to be timorous of lead-poisoning.
Very tedious is the work of reducing tables of observations to their true value, whatever their nature. Observations of tides are no exception; and as their reduction is of great importance in working out a true theory of the tides, attempts have been made to accomplish the tedious task by machinery, and at length with success. Sir William Thomson, of the University of Glasgow, has now constructed what he calls an ‘harmonic analyser,’ with which he can work out the analyses of a twenty-four-hour tide-curve in about a minute. It is usual in taking tidal observations that the gauge records the rise and fall in the twenty-four hours in the form of a curve on a sheet or roll of paper; and the labour of analysing the sheets of a whole year may be imagined. But, as Sir W. Thomson’s machine will clear sixty or more sheets in an hour, a year’s work may be satisfactorily disposed of in half a day. This will indeed be good news to the able investigators who have for some years investigated the voluminous series of arctic tides, and are still far from completion. Their work will be greatly simplified; but the machine by which this happy result is achieved involves some of the most refined principles in natural philosophy.
‘The Worshipful Company of Turners’ of the City of London have published their list of prizes for the present year, stating the conditions on which they will grant the freedom of the Company, and of the City if the Court of Aldermen agree, and sums of money and medals to successful competitors. Any one skilful in turning in wood, throwing and turning in pottery, and in diamond cutting and polishing, is qualified to compete, but will be expected to remember that ‘beauty of design, symmetry of shape, utility, and general excellence of workmanship,’ are qualities which will be considered in awarding the prizes. The specimens are to be delivered at the Mansion House, London, within the first week of October next.
Mr Du Moncel, in discoursing on the phonograph to a scientific Society in Paris, suggested that by successive improvements the instrument would be made capable of recording a speech with all the intonations of the speaker; and that sheets of phonographic music might be kept in a portfolio for the entertainment of amateurs many years after the air was first played or sung. But while waiting for that result, there might be contrived a clock which would speak, instead of striking the hours. Such a clock would announce one o’clock, two o’clock, as the hours passed by, and might be made to say Time to get up, at any required moment. But this is a trifle in comparison with what is reported from the United States—namely that steam has been applied to the phonograph, and that a locomotive provided with the proper apparatus can talk messages which would be heard at some miles’ distance. In the Crystal Palace at Sydenham we lately saw the cylinder of the instrument made to revolve by clockwork. The result was that words and songs were reproduced with much more regularity than by the ordinary handle, as hitherto turned by the operator. As yet, however, much remains to be done before a speech or a song, as spoken or warbled into the instrument, shall be reproduced with faultless exactitude. As with the telephone, so is it with the phonograph—there is still a lack both of sound-volume, and quality.
Mr N. J. Holmes, well known as a scientific inventor and electrician, has brought out a portable self-igniting beacon, which may be placed on a wreck, a buoy, or in any position where a flashing signal is required, and render good service. When in use, it lights itself at any given moment; when once alight, cannot be put out by wind or water, will keep burning from fifteen to twenty hours, and shew itself by a flash every half-minute. Flashing signals are sometimes wanted inland, far away from the sea; but along the coast an appliance that can be carried from place to place with a certainty that it will act as required, can hardly fail to be appreciated.
In a communication to the National Academy of Sciences, New York, Mr Le Conte treats of the ‘glycogenic function of the liver and its relation to vital force and vital heat,’ in a way which will perhaps be interesting to many readers. In the ordinary process of nutrition much sugar is formed in the body: if the health be good, the whole of the sugar is arrested in the liver, changed into a less soluble substance nearly related to sugar—namely glycogen, and is thus withdrawn from circulation and stored in the liver. This store is slowly rechanged into the oxidable form of liver-sugar, and is re-delivered, little by little, to the blood by the hepatic vein, as the necessities of combustion for animal heat and vital force require. The sole object of the glycogenic function of the liver is to prepare food and waste tissue for final elimination by lungs and kidneys; to prepare an easily combustible fuel, liver-sugar, for the generation of vital force and vital heat by combustion, and at the same time a residuum suitable for elimination as urea. Glycogen-making is a true vital function; sugar-making is a pure chemical process. The former is an ascensive, the latter a descensive metamorphosis.
Mr Le Conte continues: In the well-known and usually fatal disease diabetes, sugar is excreted in large quantities by the kidneys. But the kidneys are not the organ in fault: they do all they can to remedy the evil by getting rid of the sugar which, in the blood, is extremely hurtful. In such cases the liver is in fault, and seems to have lost its glycogen-making power. It has been proved that an excess of sugar in the blood produces, among other hurtful effects, cataract and blindness. The cataract so common among diabetic patients is thus accounted for; and it is obvious that the physiologist who will discover a way to keep going the glycogen-making function of the liver will be a benefactor to the human race.
Well worth reading is Professor Boyd Dawkins’ Preliminary Treatise on the Relation of the Pleistocene Mammalia to those now living in Europe, published by the Palæontographical Society. It makes clear the evidence by which the relationship has been established, and abounds with interesting and remarkable facts in the history of the animals of Europe. For example, the reindeer lingered in Caithness down to the twelfth century, and, as Professor Dawkins observes, we see ‘that it ranged still farther south in the Prehistoric age, and ultimately in the Pleistocene, it reached the Alps and Pyrenees. It is surprising,’ he continues, ‘that the lion, the panther, and the urus are the only three mammals which have been exterminated in Europe. The principal interest centres in the domestic animals. The fact that the urus breed was introduced into Britain by the English is most important for the student of history. The distribution of the fallow-deer was due to the direct influence of the Roman power; while the northward distribution of the cat stands in direct relation to the intercourse which the people of France, Germany, and Britain had with the south and east of Europe.’
Mr Meldrum of the Royal Alfred Observatory, Mauritius, whose researches we have from time to time noticed, reiterates the expression of his opinion on the sunspot and rainfall question, and shews as the result of observation that there is a rainfall cycle for Europe and America as well as for India. ‘I long ago,’ he remarks, ‘obtained similar results for India, Mauritius, the Cape, and Australia, as well as for the depths of water in the Elbe, Rhine, Oder, Danube, and Vistula, and have shewn that the mean rainfall curve for the mean sunspot cycle of eleven years exhibits the characteristics of the mean sunspot curve.’ Mr Meldrum is satisfied that he has ‘evidence of a connection between sunspots and rainfall nearly, if not fully as strong as the evidence of a connection between sunspots and terrestrial magnetism.’ There are many anomalies; but ‘underlying them all, and pervading them all, a well-marked rainfall cycle is assuredly to be found, especially for Europe, where the observations are most numerous.’ It would be interesting to have a satisfactory proof that these theories are correct.
In 1874 the difference of longitude between Greenwich and Suez was determined under instructions from the Astronomer-royal. Since then, as we learn from Colonel Walker’s Report on the Trigonometrical Survey of India, the differences between Bombay, Aden, and Suez have been determined, and the connection between England and India is now complete. In these later observations, clocks were compared through the telegraph cables, which effectually eliminated the ‘personal equation’ from the numerical result. ‘It is believed,’ says Colonel Walker, ‘that this is the first instance of such perfection of method having been attained.’
A Report on the Progress and Resources of New South Wales, by Mr C. Robinson, published at Sydney, states that the estimated area of Australia is three million square miles, of which the colony in question occupies 323,437 square miles—that the population in 1871 was 501,579—that the clip of wool in 1876 amounted to 73,147,608 pounds—that the sugar-crop for 1875 was more than fifteen million pounds—that one seam of coal will yield 84,208,298,667 tons—that a bed of kerosene oil shale will turn out 2000 gallons of refined oil every week for seventy-two years—that in all (up to 1874) 12,387,279 tons of coal had been raised, and that the total weight of gold produced was 8,205,232 ounces. Add to this the other minerals, and ships, corn, wine, and cattle, and it will be seen that New South Wales may look forward with confidence to the time when, should the population become as dense as in England, it will contain within its borders a hundred million souls.
From a recently published Report we learn that the population of Tasmania is more than one hundred and four thousand, and that the total area of the island is nearly seventeen million acres, great part of which is suitable for the growth of wheat and other grain. Less hot and dry than Australia, Tasmania (or Van Diemen’s Land, as it was formerly called) has a very salubrious climate, and is, we are informed, ‘an excellent breeding-station for stud stock for all the Australian continent, especially as regards animals of large muscular development, and of the hardy constitution so requisite in the ox, the mutton-sheep, and the draught-horse.’ The best evidence that the Tasmanian climate deserves all that has been said in its favour is to be found in the fact, that the mortality of children, especially of infants under twelve months, is very small.