BALL EXERCISE.
Another boy in the same troupe told me he had over £9 in the bank. Of course, all companies are not so well looked after as the boys in Mr. Bale's troupe; but I have failed to discover a single case where the boys seemed ill-used. Where the troupe travelled about Europe, the lads were exceptionally intelligent, and several of them could talk fair French and German. A really well-equipped acrobat is nearly always sure of work, and can often obtain as much as £30 a week, the usual payment being from £20 to £25 a week. As a rule, the boys remain with the master who has given them their training, and who finds it worth while, when they are grown up, to pay them a good salary. A troupe gets as much as £70 or £80 a day when hired out for fêtes or public entertainments. There is one point which will possibly interest the temperance folk, and which I must not forget. The boys have constantly before them moderation in the persons of their elders.
"Directly an acrobat takes to drinking," said Mr. Bale, impressively, "he is done for. I rarely take a glass of wine. I can't afford to have my nerves shaky." Altogether there are worse methods of earning a livelihood than those of the acrobat; and, à propos of this point, an instructive little story was told me which sentimental, fussy people would do well to note. There was a certain little lad belonging to a troupe the owner of which had rescued him from the gutter principally out of charity. The boy was slight and delicate-looking, but good feeding and exercise improved him wonderfully, and he was becoming quite a decent specimen of humanity when some silly people cried out about the cruelty of the late hours, and so on, and insisted that he should be at school all day. The lad, who was well fed, washed, and clothed, was handed back to the care of his parents. He now certainly attends school during the day, but he is running about the gutter every evening, barefooted, selling matches till midnight! On the subject of ballet children there is also a great deal of wasted sentiment. All sorts and descriptions of children are employed in theatres, from the respectable tradesman's child to the coster's child in Drury-lane; but the larger proportion are certainly of the very poorest class, and it must be remembered that these children would not be tucked up safely in their little beds, if they were not earning a few badly-wanted shillings; they would be running about the London streets.
FIRST STEPS.
Mr. D'Auban—who has turned out a number of our best dancers, such as Sylvia Grey, Letty Lind, and others—was kind enough to call a rehearsal of his children, who are now performing at the Lyric, Prince of Wales, Drury-Lane, and other theatres, so that I was enabled to see a very representative gathering of these useful little bread-winners. Whatever else may be urged against the employment of children in theatres, there is not the least doubt that dancing is a pure pleasure to them. Out of all the little girls I questioned, not a single one would admit that she ever felt "tired." A good many of the children belong to theatrical families, and have been on the stage since they were babies; they were distinguished by a calmness and self-possession which the other little ones lacked; but in the matter of dancing there was very little difference, and it was difficult to believe that a large proportion of the children now playing in "La Cigale," knew nothing about dancing six months ago. Mr. D'Auban has no apprentices, no agreements, and no charges, and he says he can make any child of fair intelligence a good dancer in six months. The classes begin in May, and, as soon as it is known that Mr. D'Auban wants children, he is besieged by parents with little maids of all sizes. The School Board only allows them to attend two days a week; but Mr. D'Auban says: "Everything I teach them once is practised at home and brought back perfect to me." The children wear their ordinary dress, and practising shoes of any kind are allowed. First the positions are mastered, then chassés, pirouettes, and all the rest of the rhythmic and delicate movements of which ballets consist.
FINISHING STEPS.
Many of these graceful little dancers are the real bread-winners of the family. Little Minnie Burley, whose charming dancing in the "Rose and the Ring" will be remembered, though only eleven years old, has for more than a year practically supported herself and her mother by her earnings. The mother suffers from an incurable spinal complaint, and, beyond a little help which she gets from another daughter who is in service, has nothing to live upon but the little one's earnings. During the double performance of the "Rose and the Ring," Minnie earned £1 5s. a week; now she is earning as a Maypole dancer in "Maid Marian" 12s. a week; but her engagement will soon end, and the poor little maiden, who has the sense and foresight of a woman of thirty, is getting rather anxious.
She is a serious-faced, dark-eyed child, very sensible, very self-possessed, and passionately fond of dancing. Her mother is devoted to her, and keeps her exquisitely neat. I asked her whether she did not feel a little nervous about the child coming home alone every night from the Strand.