A Ballad Singer.
"You are to distinctly understand," say the first words of the contracts of a certain circuit, "that the management conducts this house upon a high plane of respectability and moral cleanliness," etc.
But long before the performer has entered the dressing-rooms, he has been made acquainted with the following legend which everywhere adorns the walls:
NOTICE TO PERFORMERS.
You are hereby warned that your act must be free from all vulgarity and suggestiveness in words, action, and costume, while playing in any of Mr. ——'s houses, and all vulgar, double-meaning and profane words and songs must be cut out of your act before the first performance. If you are in doubt as to what is right or wrong, submit it to the resident manager at rehearsal.
Such words as Liar, Slob, Son-of-a-Gun, Devil, Sucker, Damn, and all other words unfit for the ears of ladies and children, also any reference to questionable streets, resorts, localities, and bar-rooms, are prohibited under fine of instant discharge.
—— ——,
General Manager.
And this is not merely a literary effort on the part of the management; it is obligatory and final. When we have about accepted as conclusive the time-honored theory that "You must give the public what it wants," and that it wants bilge-water in champagne glasses, we are confronted with the vaudeville theatre, no longer an experiment, but a comprehensive fact.
The funniest farce ever written could not be done at these houses if it had any of the ear-marks of the thing in vogue at many of our first-class theatres. Said a lady to me: "They (the vaudeville theatres) are the only theatres in New York where I should feel absolutely safe in taking a young girl without making preliminary inquiries. Though they may offend the taste, they never offend one's sense of decency." The vaudeville theatres may be said to have established the commercial value of decency. This is their corner-stone. They were conceived with the object of catering to ladies and children, and, strange to say, a large, if not the larger, part of their audiences is always men.