It makes no difference to the miniature men and women who are Humpty Dumpty's best friends and admirers, how the mechanical effects of a pantomime are produced. They do not care much to know that the pig Humpty Dumpty and Pantaloon stretch across the width of the stage in an endeavor to tear it from each other, has a rubber body; that the bricks the clown throws at everybody are only paper boxes; that the trick pump is worked from the side scenes with a string; that the clothes which suddenly, and as if by some invisible influence, vanish into the sides of houses or up through windows have light but strong black thread, which the little ones cannot see at a distance, attached to them; the big policeman is to them a stern and gigantic reality; and it affords them more fun to imagine every time Humpty throws or makes a blow at anybody, that the stinging sound is a sure indication that his aim was well taken—they do not know that the sound as of receiving a blow is the result of slapping the hands together. All the simple illusions of the scene and of the action are to them actual facts, and they appear all the more ridiculous and are all the more effective on this account. When Humpty Dumpty dives through the side of a house, disappearing behind, there are men in waiting to catch him, and when he sits down to read his newspaper and the candle begins to grow beyond his reach, then falling as he attempts to go higher with a sudden bang, and the clown comes tumbling down after it as Jill did after Jack when they went up the hill for the bucket of beer, few of the big or little people know that the candle runs down through one of the legs of the table and is all wood except the waxen bit at the top. All these little mysteries have their charms for the years of childhood, and in no country are the pleasures of the pantomime so fully recognized as in England, where on Boxing Night—the 26th of December—children crowd the theatres to witness the Christmas pantomime. In some theatres here the custom of providing pantomime for the Christmas holidays is adhered to, but as there are not enough Grimaldis or Foxes or Adamses or Fraziers to go around, the supply being very limited, we cannot compete with England in this respect.
As Adams is the only pantomimist who can lay any claim to the mantle of George L. Fox—if clowns can be said to have mantles—a short biography may not be out of place. He is twenty-eight years old, is a native of England, and is the eldest son of Charles H. Adams, one of the best Pantaloons in the country. He comes from a family of circus people, being a descendant of the famous Cookes, riders and clowns, and is a cousin of W. W. Cole, the circus manager. He was apprenticed to the manager of Astley's, in London, when he was six years of age, and remained there eight years. After appearing as clown with a circus in Denmark, he came to America, and for several years travelled with different circuses. His first appearance as clown in the pantomime was in Brooklyn, New York, in 1872, under the management of Tim Donnelly, who gave a pantomime every year during the Christmas holidays. His father was the stage manager for Donnelly, and suggested to George the idea of playing clown. George refused at first, but finally at his father's earnest solicitation decided to go on. He made an unmistakable hit, and from that time deserted the sawdust arena and adopted the stage. After several successful seasons with Nick Roberts and Tony Denier he last season accepted an offer of partnership with Adam Forepaugh to run a show under his own name.
In the last Christmas number of the London Graphic I found the following excellent article on "Boxing Night" as the little folks of London enjoy it: "The very first night of anticipated pleasure has come to nine-tenths of the little ones who gaze upon the scene in silent wonder and astonishment. Imagination in its wildest dreams never pictured anything so wonderful as this. There have been little theatricals at home, plays in the back drawing-room; some fairy tale has been enacted for which kind sisters have supplied the wardrobe, whilst mamma has presided over the piano orchestra. It was good fun to crawl across the mimic stage in a hearth-rug, pretending to be a wolf or bear, and to hear the laughter of kind friends in front; but all that home amusement, the curiosity and contrivances, the songs and dances were, indeed, child's play when compared to a real theatre on Boxing Night. What importance is given to the child by being considered old enough to sit up so late as this; what a sense of mystery and wonderment to be driven through the lighted streets; to see the decorated shops set out with Christmas presents and New Year's gifts; and to behold for the first time, the bright electric light on the bridges and embankment! But this is far better than all, and only a very little removed from fairyland. How the myriad lights in the great chandeliers glisten and sparkle, and the stage foot-lights dazzle; how splendidly the orchestra seems to play; and hark! the boys in the gallery are taking up the tune, and singing together with wonderful swing and precision. One comic song and street tune follows another; the band suggests and the young musicians take it up with a will. Just now they had been a pelting of the pit with orange peel—all in good fun, of course. The lads in their shirt sleeves had whistled and screamed, and saluted friends in distant corners of the gallery; but now all this horse play is quieted by music and melody. It is Boxing Night, and there must be patriotism as well as pleasure. 'Rule Britannia,' 'God bless the Prince of Wales,' and 'God Save the Queen,' are sung from thousands of lusty throats, and all the audience rise to their feet, waving hats and handkerchiefs. Loyalty is as necessary as love at Christmas-time. And what has that good old wizard Blanchard prepared for the happy children? He must be as immortal as Father Christmas, and certainly is quite as popular. He will be the guide up the rocks of romance, and away to the fields of fairyland. He will lead his happy followers amidst ogres and giants and elves and fays, to wizard castles and enchanted dells; now you will be at the bottom of the sea, where lovely queens wave sea-weed wands; and now on land amidst the yellow corn-fields and the bluebell lanes. There will be song and dance, and the madcap pranks of thousands of children, liliputian armies and glittering armor, poetry and processions, hobby-horses and the dear old Clown and Harlequin and Pantaloon supporting 'airy fairy' Columbine, if they would only ring that prompter's bell and pull up that tantalizing curtain. The noise is hushed, the music stops, the overture is over—but wait.
"What are they doing behind the curtain? There are beating hearts also in the manufactory of pleasure. Christmas-time means food and raiment to the great majority of those who are awaiting the prompter's signal. They have come from courts and alleys, from cold, comfortless rooms, from care and poverty, from watching and from want, to this great busy hive that uncharitable people abuse and ridicule. Times have been bad, the winter has advanced too soon, wages have been slack; but all will be mended now that Christmas has come again. Hearts beat lightly under the prince's tunics and the dancers' bodices, for every mickle makes a muckle, and there is work here, from the proud position of head of the Amazonian army to the humble individual who earns a shilling a night for throwing carrots in a crowd and returning slaps in a rally. And the training and discipline of the rehearsals up to this anxious moment have not been without their advantage. Punctuality, silence, order, and sobriety are the watchwords here. There have been no idling, dawdling, and philandering, as many silly people imagine. Even the little children have learned something, perhaps their letters, perhaps the art of singing in unison, certainly the merit of being smart and useful. But now it is the great examination day. The lessons are over, and the result is soon to be known. What a wild fantastic scene it is—a very carnival of costumes. Fairies and hop-o'-my-thumbs, monkeys, and all the miscellaneous mixture of the menagerie, gorgeous knights in armor and spangled syrens, Titania and her train, pasteboard chariots, wands and crystal fountains, fruits and forest trees, mothers, dressers, carpenters, and costermongers for the crowd, all mixed up in apparent confusion, but in reality as well drilled and disciplined as an army prepared for action. All belong to some separate department or division; there is a leader for every squad, who is responsible for his men, and if anything goes wrong a prompt fine is a very wholesome punishment. It has been weary work during the last few rehearsals, and certain scenes have had to be repeated again and again. The testing of the scenery has delayed the action, and it has been late enough before these busy bees have got to bed. But the excitement of the moment gives new vitality. The night has come, and everyone is bound to do his or her best. Everything is smart and new, and the girls and children are proud of their costumes, in which they strut about admiringly. The stage manager has recovered his amiability, and calls everyone "my dear." A rapid, business-like glance is cast over the various scenes to see that everything is straight and ship-shape; the reports come up from the various departments to say there are no defaulters. The gas man is at his post, and the limelight man at his station. The ballet master, with his flag in hand, is standing ready on his stool. Ready? Yes, sir! is the answer. Up go the foot-lights with a flare, a bell rings, the curtain rises, and the happy people before and behind the Christmas curtain meet."
CHAPTER XXVIII.
VARIETY DIVES AND CONCERT SALOONS.
Outside of the legitimate theatres there is a large variety of places of amusement—that is, they are called places of amusement, but the fumes of vile tobacco, the odor of stale beer, the fiery breath of cheap whiskey, the sight of filthy women and filthier men, and the most excruciating and torturesome kind of music, all combine to make the resort anything but pleasant and the while the incidents that attract the visitor's attention are anything but amusing. There is, of course, no complaint of this sort to urge against the first-class variety theatres. These cater in a modest way to a low standard of intellect, but usually their programmes are chaste enough, and unless a person has an aversion to having beer spattered over his clothes by unhandy waiters while ministering to the thirsty wants of a neighbor in the same row, or objects to the attention of the gay girls who open wine in the private boxes and flirt with the people in the parquette, he will find a first-class variety show as pleasant a place as a good, long, mixed programme with the Glue Brothers in song and dance at one end, the Irish Triplets, in "select vocalisms and charming terpsichorean evolutions," in the middle, and a lugubrious sketch at the other end can make it. By some mysterious law known only to variety performers, the variety stage only about once in a century produces anything new or anything attractive. In the good old days of the ballet there was drawing power in the display of shapely limbs and the graceful music-of-motion like manner in which the girls tip-toed or pirouetted across the stage; or when the variety theatre was as much the home of spectacle as the legitimate houses pretended to be, and on the Vaudeville stage scenes were presented that belonged to the same class of labyrinthine scenery and profuse female beauty that the "Black Crook" and "The Green Huntsman" were the representatives of. When spectacles were the rage and the fencing scene in the "Black Crook" would set the boys at the top of the house wild with joy, the variety theatre had among the bright stars of its stage actors and actresses who are now among the most popular, and certainly among the heaviest money-makers, who appear in the legitimate houses.
FENCING SCENE IN BLACK CROOK.