Dagonet Abroad

by George R. Sims

I spent two afternoons and one morning in this exhibition, not because I amused myself, but because I felt that it was my duty to see all that was to be seen. Naturally my first endeavour, after I had taken a scamper round, was to find the English department—or the section allotted to England—in order to see what sort of a show my fellow-countrymen had made. The catalogue which I purchased for seventy-five kreuzers informed me that the president of the English committee was Se. Königliche Hoheit Herzog von Edinburgh, and that among the committee were A. C. Macencie, W. G. Cusins, S. B. Bankroft, Sir George Grow, etc. The correct spelling of names is not a strong point, evidently, at the Vienna Exhibition.

There is a good old proverb which says, ‘Blessed is he that expecteth little, for he shall not be disappointed.’ After wandering wearily about for three-quarters of an hour and closely cross-examining every official I encountered, an obliging Austrian workman, who was doing something to a packing-case, volunteered to take me to the British Section. He led me to a huge vacant space, in which in disorderly array stood a number of dirty empty glass cases. ‘This, sir, is the British Section,’ he said, waving his hand around a few feet of bare wall, and then pointing to a battered old packing-case labelled ‘This side up—with care.’ That, gentle reader, was the British Section as I saw it on May 16, and that was all that there was to see. The British exhibits, I was told, had only just arrived, and they would not be unpacked for several days.

I am told that the British exhibits, when they are unpacked, will be exceedingly novel and interesting. There is a curious coffin-shaped case still at the Custom House, which is said to contain the skeleton of a dramatic critic who attended every matinée to which he was invited. There is a full-length portrait of Mr. William Archer felling the Examiner of Plays to earth with the manuscript of a Norwegian tragedy. There is a wax model of a lady sitting in the stalls at a matinée with a hat three feet high, and behind her are several gentlemen standing up and dividing the feathers and ribbons on the top of it in order to peep through them at the stage. There is a life-size figure of Mr. Horace Sedger sitting with the map of London in front of him, and pointing out Islington as a provincial town to Mr. W. S. Gilbert. There is the famous ‘No Fee’ banner which was lowered from the gallery of the Olympic as a welcome back to London to Mr. Wilson Barrett; and there is also a complete collection in a glass case of the costumes worn by sandwich-men as advertisements for the West End Theatres of London.

All these things, I am assured, will be exhibited in due time to the gaze of the wondering crowd that will flock to the Vienna Exhibition. That they will give the foreigner an excellent idea of the status of the drama in Great Britain I have not the slightest doubt. Up to the present, unfortunately, so far as the British Section is concerned, ‘there is nothing in it.’

When I found nothing in the English Section, and very little in any other section except the Bavarian and the Russian, I determined to see something, and so I asked for Frederick the Great’s flute. Somebody had told me that it had been forwarded to Vienna from Berlin. The first day that I went to the exhibition I asked many officials where it was, and they directed me to various parts of the building. I found hundreds of flutes of all ages here. As none of them had anything but a number on, and the catalogue would not be ready for a fortnight, I was unable to pitch upon the particular instrument. (There is a catalogue published—the one to which I am indebted for the names of the English committee—but that is only a catalogue of the modern instruments.) On the second day of my visit I made further inquiries, and drove the officials to despair. I suppose I must have asked the same people over and over again without knowing it, for at last when they saw me coming they walked rapidly away and hid behind grand pianos. I heard one man say to another, ‘Lieber Gott, here is this Englander again who wants Frederick the Great’s flute!’ And the pair disappeared as if by magic.

I was determined not to be beaten, so on the third day I tried again; but the first man I went to, instead of replying, took me to the room of the secretary of the exhibition. The secretary was extremely polite. ‘Ah, sir,’ he exclaimed, ‘I am very pleased to see you. You have driven our people very nearly mad. One of them came to me yesterday with a telegram which he wished sent to Berlin, and the entire staff had subscribed to the expense of forwarding it. This was the telegram: “For Heaven’s sake tell us where Frederick the Great’s flute is. There is an Englishman who does nothing but ask us all day long.” I sent that telegram, sir, and have received a reply. Frederick the Great’s flute has not been sent. It is still in Germany.’ Of course, I apologized for the trouble I had given, and blamed the person who had told me the famous instrument was among the German exhibits. Fancy an exhibition of famous musical instruments without Frederick the Great’s flute! It is ‘Hamlet’ without the Prince of Denmark.

In the theatres of Austria, as in those of the German Empire, ladies are expected to remove their bonnets everywhere except in the private boxes. No hats or bonnets are allowed in the stalls, dress circle, pit, or gallery. The reason of this restriction is that hats have of late years assumed such gigantic proportions, that a front row of females would shut out a view of the stage from the rest of the house.

But the ladies—Heaven bless them!—have discovered a way of taking their revenge. They have invented a method of wearing the hair which makes the removal of the hat a mere farce. The authorities are now seriously discussing the question of making lady playgoers leave their hair in the cloak-room as well as their hats.

I have been peculiarly unfortunate in my attempts to see something of the German and Austrian stage. The fact which I am about to narrate will, I have no doubt, be taken with several grains of salt, but on my honour it is a fact nevertheless. I went to the theatre in Dresden—to the opera—and a lady sat in front of me. She was a charming American lady, with a mass of gray hair, but she wore it absolutely a foot high, after the manner of a pantaloon’s wig. At Prague, when I went to the Czechish Theatre, to my intense astonishment this lady came in with her husband and again sat in front of me. Two days later, on the Sunday night, I went to the Vienna Opera House to see the ‘Puppenfee’ and ‘L’Amico Fritz.’ The seats in front of me were vacant, and I was just congratulating myself on at last getting a view of the stage during a performance, when in walked the lady with the Eiffel Tower hair!

That I should have sat behind the same person, an utter stranger to me, in three towns one after the other, is a coincidence so extraordinary that I think it worth mentioning. I don’t know what the odds against such a treble event coming off are—something in trillions I should fancy—but it did come off. The hair unfortunately did not.