Having once got his customer more or less comfortably seated, or propped up close to a bar, inside his “’all,” the main object of the proprietor was to induce him to drink as much as possible of very bad wine and spirits at positively fancy prices. Phryne, always hovering near, exhibited a nice solicitude in forwarding the proprietor’s views in this direction. The waiters, during the frequent “waits,” made a descent on the stalls, and, forcing their legs through the exiguous spaces, contributed largely to our discomfort. I recall the revenge of a friend of mine on a waiter who had forced himself past us for the fourth time. My friend was a Newmarket man, and was up in London for the Epsom Spring Meeting. A whisky-and-soda stood on the little ledge in front of him. As the waiter crushed past, my friend very neatly tipped his glass over on to the floor. The glass fell shivered, the waiter turned round, my friend denounced him for his clumsiness and demanded that his glass should be replenished. The waiter protested. But the manager of the “’all” decided against his menial. A fresh drink and a new glass were provided, and not again during the course of that evening did the waiter attempt to brush past our stalls. Not quite honest on the part of my friend? Perhaps not; but it was quite effective, and, under the circumstances, what would you?
Originally the “’all” was merely an annexe to a big public house. The thing commenced in “harmonic clubs,” “free-and-easies,” and the like, and many of the customs and traditions of the “free-and-easy” persisted for a long time under the altered condition of things. Thus, the programme was, as yet, an unknown document, and the singers were introduced by a bibulous person who sat on an elevated armchair with his back to the stage, and his eye roving over the house. To this day I never can quite make out to what class of society the individuals belonged who sat round the chairman’s table. They must have had money, for cigars and brandies-and-soda, and even that champagne which was innocent of grape, were consumed at their expense. An indifferent, honest crowd, no doubt. Sharks, exploiters, billiard-markers, sporting touts, reinforced from time to time by a contingent of moneyed “mugs.”
At the “Mogul” in Drury Lane—afterwards known as the “Middlesex”—presided nightly the king, emperor, titulary chief, of chairmen. This was a man named Fox. His face, encrimsoned by potations long and deep, was large, and beamed with good-nature. His nose was immense and pendulous—more a proboscis than a mere nose. But the boys in the gallery—a rough lot they were—took old Fox very seriously indeed. And it was quite amazing to witness the way in which, by merely rising and calling upon some delinquent by name, he could quell an incipient riot among “the gods.” Thieves and their trulls, the scourings of Drury Lane tributaries, and the lawless denizens of the turnings off the “Dials”—they were quelled by the menace in his eye, and trembled at the deep bass of his commanding voice. Fox once sat to an artist friend of mine, and the resulting picture was the very best Bardolph I have ever seen on canvas.
When I was a young man “seeing life”—ay, and tasting it, too, for that matter—I admit having gained some experiences that I would quite gladly have missed. It is inevitable that the memory will be charged with a reminiscence which is recalled with disgust, and that many of the so-called pleasures of youth leave a nasty taste in the mouth which is never entirely displaced. The “star comique” is one of those memories. George Leybourne was not at his zenith when I first saw him. He had essayed to live the life which he was supposed to depict on the stage—with the usual result. But he still held the first claim on the music-hall public. It is another circumstance marking the complete and rapid evolution of the music-hall to note that forty years ago George Leybourne held the same position with the patrons of these establishments as was afterwards held by Chevalier and Leno, and is at the present time of writing held by Harry Lauder.
Leybourne was still singing “Champagne Charlie is my Name” when I heard him, and the amusing sight was nightly afforded of lawyers’ clerks from Lincoln’s Inn, and shop-boys from Islington, and young men-about-town on twenty-five shillings a week, waving their mugs of beer or “goes” of whisky, and madly joining in the exhilarating chorus as though champagne was their daily beverage. But it was not to join in his bacchanalian choruses that the greater part of the audience crowded to hear Leybourne’s songs. The “star comique” was ever provided with offal for the pigs in front. And it was when the orchestra began on the opening bar of ditties like, “Oh, why did she leave her Jeremiah?” that necks were craned and ears set. For the pornographic part of the show was now “on.” The words of the song itself did not offend save by reason of their inanity. But between the verses the singer introduced long monologues known to music-hall bards as something “spoken.” It was in these “spoken” interpolations that Leybourne “let himself go.” He cheerily set out to discover how far a pornographic artist could proceed with a music-hall audience. Sometimes he played with suggestion and innuendo. But properly encouraged and liberally stimulated, he would spurt filth from his mouth as a juggler emits flames from the same orifice. The more reckless he became, the more delighted grew his audiences. That was Leybourne as I remember him. And Leybourne was typical of the music-hall as it then was.
Off the stage poor George was a good-natured, light-hearted, generous, and conceited fellow—the friend of bookmakers, Cockney sportsmen, publicans, and sinners; and the model of the mere middle-class boy in offices, who imitated his dress and peculiarities, and regarded him as the mirror of Society. The great man drove from hall to hall in a little carriage drawn by a pair of wonderfully neat ponies. The champagne of his evening ditties became the usual tipple of the artist during his afternoon calls at his favourite bars. He drank, indeed, many of the sweets of artistic success—adulation, flattery, the favour of women, and the jealousy of men. He lived hard and died hard-up. For even in his time the shadow of a change was visible, though it was no bigger than a man’s hand.
Other music-hall artists there were who, however disinclined they might feel in the matter, were obliged to follow in the wake of the “star comique.” Arthur Lloyd was a genuine humorist, and had a peculiar velvety quality of voice, which was conspicuous by its absence in the throats of his contemporaries. As an artist he was incomparably the most accomplished, and the most versatile of the music-hall men of his time. But though he got hold of some songs that enjoyed a wide and long popularity, he never made one of those sensational “hits” which have accidentally come in the way of less-accomplished performers. “The Great Vance” was another of the music-hall favourites. This wonderfully overrated person belonged to the Leybourne school of thought, and illustrated the swell of the period as accurately as was possible by a man whose aspirates were scarcely on a level with his aspirations. “The Great Macdermott” came a little later than the trio whom I have named, but was long singing on the same stage as Lloyd and Vance, the popularity of both of whom he was destined to eclipse.
Macdermott had been a sailor in the Royal Navy. I remember his giving me on one occasion a most dramatic account of how he came to leave the service. The general details I forget. But there is impressed on my memory the picture of Macdermott being rowed ashore in a jolly-boat, rising in the stern-sheets, and, shaking his fist at his ship, exclaiming: “Her Majesty’s Navy, adoo!” In the fo’castle there is a constant demand for the very class of song which was finding so much favour at the hands of the groundlings when this songster took to the stage. And as a follower of poor Leybourne, the sailor-man-turned-comedian made his first efforts. He was minded if he could to “go one better” than the creator of “Champagne Charlie.” But that wonderful impersonator had already sounded the depths. Macdermott, however, soon asserted his claim to a second place with such compositions as “Moses and Aaron sat on a rock.” These essays in an equivocal genre brought the singer quickly to the front. Yet it was not as an illustrator of pornographic minstrelsy that Macdermott was to make his “hit.” When that wave of patriotism which its detractors called “Jingoism” swept the country, Macdermott was to the fore as the laureate and bard of the patriots.
Macdermott, indeed, has enriched the dictionaries of more nations than one with a new word. That is the word “Jingoism,” as used in politics. He sang a chorus in which we hurled defiance at the wide world, and soon the wide world was singing it, too. Macdermott had a wonderfully distinct enunciation, and had a peculiar knack of emphasizing the initial letter of every word he sang. The chorus which created the furore, as sung by the great man, went in this way:
“We Don’t Want To Fight;
But By Jingo If We Do,
We’ve Got The Ships. We’ve Got The Men,
We’ve Got The Money, Too!”