869. Stage Stars.—The stage, like every other profession, is crowded at the bottom, but has room at the top. Beginners seldom get more than $15 per week and commonly they receive much less. Leading people in road companies get $50 per week. Stars receive from $100 to $500 per night. Madame Celeste made $50,000 in this country. Edwin Forrest never received less than $200 per night. Edwin Booth sometimes played for $500 per night.
870. Popular Lecturers.—These are richly rewarded for their hour or two of entertainment of an audience. John B. Gough’s price was $200 per night. Henry Ward Beecher, Wendell Phillips, and Bayard Taylor averaged the same figures. The receipts for Professor Tyndall’s thirty-five lectures in this country were $23,100; and Max O’Rell earned $5,290 by his lectures during a single week in Johannesburg, South Africa. Says a magazine note: “Money-making’s most promising field is that of a popular lecturer.”
871. Hand Shadows.—Here is something new: Some amusement artists in England have conceived the idea of entertaining audiences with hand shadows. A candle, an oil lamp, or an arc light is used, and the beam of light passes through a small circular opening upon a sheet of ticket-writer’s holland. Sometimes a pipe or a piece of cardboard is used to heighten the effect, but for the most part the artist employs his hands only. With diligent practice the most comical effects, such as “Dressing for a Party,” “The Dog Fight,” etc., can be produced. Mr. Devant, the originator of the shadowgraph, convulses his audiences and reaps large profits for himself. America, where the humorous is quickly and keenly appreciated, offers a large field for this new kind of entertainment.
872. Museum and Circus.—The vocation of the popular showman is a highly paying one. It appeals to two of the most powerful motives of human nature—the desire to be amused and amazed. P. T. Barnum made and lost two or three fortunes; Bailey, the successor of Barnum, and Dan Rice have also conducted highly successful shows. Dime museums in large cities often pay vast sums for curiosities and monstrosities, and still conduct a very profitable business.
873. Gymnasts.—Athletes need to begin early in life in order to acquire suppleness of muscle. There is no profession that demands a severer training or regimen. A vast number of performers are constantly traveling through the country. Engagements with companies are made on exhibition of skill. Managers are always on the alert for something new. Some equestrians receive as high as $500 a week for self and horses; clowns often receive $100; rope walkers, $50.
874. Opera Singers.—Voice, gesture, grace, and beauty are the four qualities of success in the opera artist. Those who succeed receive princely sums for their services. Mario got $400 a night in Philadelphia. Tamberlik every time he sung a high note demanded $500. Piccolomini cost her manager over $5,000 a month. Madame Perer received $14,000 for the season. Genius and hard work are nowhere better paid than in the opera.
875. Mimic Battles.—Pain’s fireworks at Manhattan Beach, reproducing the “Capture of Manila” and “The Fall of Santiago,” have been immensely popular, sometimes drawing crowds numbering 10,000. A thousand dollars’ worth of fireworks and papier maché are burned in a single night during the season, but enormous as are the expenses we are informed that the proprietor seldom makes less than $500 a night. There is no patent on these exhibitions, and they may be repeated or imitated anywhere. A man who dares “burn money” in this way, or a stock company where the individual risk would be comparatively small, exhibiting these fireworks in all our great cities, would certainly reap handsome gains. Especially at this time, while the fervor of patriotism and the glow of enthusiasm over our recent victories are still at white heat, the enterprise could not fail to be paying. We would almost guarantee that a company which could set up as brilliant an exhibition as Pain’s in fifty leading cities would realize twenty-five per cent. on the investment.
876. Theatrical Enterprises.—Running a theater is risky business; it has its ups and downs, and the downs are as swift as the ups. Oscar Hammerstein, who has just lost all by an unsuccessful venture, says that once during the short period of four weeks he made $60,000. Daly, Frohman, Lester Wallack, and many others, have grown rich in the theatrical business.
877. Dancers.—Members of the vaudeville are not so well paid as in many other arts for amusing the public, but special dancing “artists” sometimes receive almost fabulous sums. Famous dancers have received as high as $10,000 in the course of a season. Freda Maloff, the Turkish dancer, has just returned from the Klondike, where in the course of a few months she has made $62,000 in her profession, the miners literally showering her with nuggets.
878. Moving Pictures.—This latest and most popular form of amusement is coining money for the owners of the cinematograph, biograph, vitascope, or by whatever other name the instrument is called which causes the scenes portrayed on canvas to be instinct with moving life. The charge for an evening’s service is commonly $50.