AMUSEMENTS AND THE PEOPLE. There is no department of human affairs where men cannot see the operation of great principles. The effect of palaces and hovels is apparent on every side to which we turn. Even in a London theatre it is easy to perceive how the different classes differently conduct themselves. The first class of theatres to which we might refer are the dear and nasty. They depend for their support upon that society of which the Prince of Wales is the honoured head. These plays depend upon their atmosphere of immorality, their smell of corruption. In France the long and fearful influence of monarchy has bred playwriters who are unable to write anything else. France to-day is purer, her citizens are better men and women than ever they have been before. But still they cannot shake off the vile taint that fell upon France from the race of St. Louis. Paris creates an immoral drama. And, naturally, what Paris does we make our fashion. King Charles II. came to a pure throne and a comparatively pure theatre. He almost succeeded in selling his country to a French king and he quite succeeded in hopelessly corrupting the dramatic taste of the land over which he was appointed chief in Church and State. The Restoration literature-especially acting and acted literature-is so foul that even roués regard it with disgust. There is hardly a play of the period that can be read aloud. When the Republican, John Milton, was writing his vast song of things pertaining to heaven and earth even so great a man as the Royalist, Dryden, was piling obscene verses together hardly known now except to the special student. That taint, brought by a foul living, foul thinking, foul speaking king from a capital reeking with the vices of another king, wellnigh as bad but more hypocritical, has clung more or less to the British stage. It is true that we have a functionary who is called Lord Chamberlain and is supposed to keep the stage moral. Unfortunately, he is generally selected as the most foolish of a batch of foolish peers. He always prevents the wrong plays. And, perhaps, it would be difficult to blame him. A man who had to read every new production of the British dramatic muse would speedily seek a placid refuge in Colney Hatch. In these things we must rely upon an intelligent public opinion and a strong public feeling. But these are just the things we allow those to make for us who are capable of making nothing except making asses of themselves. The taste of the Prince of Wales and the Prince's brothers is known to everybody. He is one of the very last men in the country to whom could or should be trusted the making and the moulding of public opinion. And yet there cannot be a doubt that his verdict is almost final. A play or an actor that pleases him is made, and he has the power to unmake a reputation established by years of honest work. We do not Of course there are exceptions. wish to affirm that Henry Irving is the greatest actor who has ever lived since first the actor spoke words of fire from his cart, with the skies of Greece as his tent. Yet he has done much for the stage. And he has his reward. We do not refer to his enormous income or his intimacy with bishops. He has really taken the heart of the people, and he has influence over men and women who regard princes as not more but less than other people. The people know and love good plays and good acting. Unfortunate it is they get so little of either. The drama's laws the drama's patrons give, Now, who are the drama's patrons? They are regarded by almost the whole dramatic profession as those who can spend in one stall the price of ten workmen's seats. To attract that class pieces are put on the boards seasoned with a wit that must be old and stale, like venison, before it can be relished. For their delectation women-who are often no better than they should be-smile and wink and nod and grin until the heart sickens for one look of gentle, genuine womanhood. To please them, songs are sung that are as innocent of tune as they themselves are of brains. In fact, a class of performances is produced that to those who have learned comedy from comedy's great masters are as lively, cheerful, and entertaining as a pauper's funeral. It is the custom of these people to regard with intense scorn that class of dramas or melodramas which are produced specially for the people. We do not affirm that these are all they might be. They seem to lack largely in all the care, time, and attention that a good workman will give to good work. Some men who could write well if they would, turn out three inferior pieces when they should be doing one good piece. But with all their faults they are far superior to the silly and brainless productions that are dear to the West End of London. It is possible to write better things than the melodramas, it is impossible to write worse things than the silly trash which supports so many houses. Yet the guinea stall is perpetually criticising the six penny gallery. What the guinea stall objects to is the lack of literary taste in the work done for the sixpenny gallery. Literary taste! The literary taste of the Prince of Wales and his set! Whatever may be left out of the melodramas there is generally good, hearty, honest feeling in them. Nor is the acting of them at all bad. There is many an actor and actress at East End houses doing better work for a poor pay than all the Totties and Lotties that attract the sovereigns of those who make a living by robbing the poor. One actress, a noble and gentle woman, has told me that to act to an East End audience is to her a refreshment and a charm. She seems to escape into a healthy, breezy atmosphere. And an eminent man of letters assures me that he cannot enjoy high dramatic art in the stalls. The cynical criticism of those among whom he sits weighs upon him and freezes his fine sense of appreciation. The rich have always a dread of sentiment. To be a gentleman is not to be without fear and without reproach. It is to have a face that no emotion can move and a heart that no sympathy can touch. When sentiment gets into the heart of the people it plays the very deuce with those feelings of respect that make the robbed honour the robber. Thus the West End seeks to laugh the East End out of what it pleases to call weak sentimentality. Thank Heaven it does not succeed. If to be sentimental is to be weak, then may Britain never be strong. Villany is represented in these theatres, if not exactly as villany is, yet in a way to make men detest it. It is a genuine feeling, it is an honest feeling, that makes the women of the people half laugh and half cry when, just as the heroine is about to fall a victim to some atrocious conspiracy, the hero comes upon the scene, knocks down half-adozen men, and puts another half-dozen to flight. It is, at least, infinitely better than the tawdry and trashy things that in West End theatres glorify a breaking of the commandments and drape vice as prettily as the feeble creatures who write these plays can do at the money. A SCOTTISH PRESSMAN. :0: PLANS OF CAMPAIGN. sense for them quarrel with the name because it does not please some crude prejudices of their own. HISTORY is merely a record of how Plans of Campaign have been contrived and have been carried out. All great revolts against unjust demands disguised in legal form are so without When we look back upon history, and go no being called so. There is much endurance in further than the history of our own country, human nature. Men will suffer long, and will we are astonished to find how many and intebear patiently great and cruel hardships. resting and successful have been the various But there is a point beyond which matters Plans of Campaign. We are accustomed to cannot go. At that point humanity rises date our liberties from Magna Charta. That in its greatness and its power, and resist-instrument was merely the result of a successful ance is swept from its path. This rising of Plan of Campaign. The barons and the people human nature and the plans and methods it endured until they could endure no further. takes for its own liberation make Plans of Then they arose in their indignation and forced Campaign. their king to do them justice. Landlord robbery in Ireland is a most atrocious and lamentable fact, a thing disgraceful to our British civilisation, a very blot upon our national honour. Yet we simply call it rent, and accept it as we accept the rain or the light. On the other hand, the poor and oppressed tenants take means to free themselves from what is pure and simple robbery. They call these means a Plan of Campaign, and those who lead the British people by shouting or writing non One of the things in English history of which we are most justly proud is the refusal of the people to pay ship money. King Charles I. wished to collect an unjust tax, but still a tax no more unjust than the levying of impossible rents upon impoverished tenants. Then, as now, men refused to pay. Then, as now, the pulpit and the Press thundered against dishonesty. And then, as now, men were not to be frightened by words. The tax marvellous powers by which it is damned from God. Thus, in America, where labour has begun to fight the bitter battle that it must ever wage against monopoly, a vast Plan of Campaign has been established which is called organisation is becoming one of the most potent things on earth. It binds together all working men whether they be farmers or artisans, or clerks or professional men, and gives them a common and successful method of working in the same way for the same end. was resisted, and a king lost his head. Whenever tyranny of any kind makes itself felt then the Plan of Campaign appears as a beneficent aid. Even schoolboys understand it. Yet none are so Conservative as the schoolboys of Eton, Harrow, and Westminster. They the Knighthood of Labour. This wonderful seem even thus early in life to realise that their existence will be largely passed as legalised robbers. The money that pays for their education is really money meant for the children of the poor. Perhaps the influence of that corruption makes itself felt in their minds. At any rate, the Eton boys are as keen defenders of abuses as are the Corporation of London. The tyrannies of the older boys are endured by the younger boys, who hope some day to become tyrants in their own turn. But, occasionally, tyranny does carry itself too far even for Eton schoolboys. Then comes the revolt. The younger class schoolboys rise in their power against the elders. Democratic principles make themselves felt. The tyrants find that all their misuse of old custom cannot save them, and they are swept from their places. Thus, as long as there are abuses and men to suffer from these abuses, so long will Plans of Campaign be the natural refuge of suffering humanity. We cannot put them down because we cannot put down human nature. When we drive them from the surface they work in the dark. We suppress legitimate agitation and legitimate opposition to oppression; in its place we find dynamite. That is the last wild dreadful plan of those whom we drive to despair. Not a dynamite bomb is made by some poor half-starved, half-witted creature In private life the bore sometimes meets but he and society must share the blame. with an unexpected Plan of Campaign. Those Society has taken from him the other means of whom he has unmercifully dosed with theories opposition, of protection. We are our own they do not care to understand, or with facts murderers, we are suicides if we seek to destroy that they have not the slightest wish to re- in Ireland the means by which at last the Irish member, some day join together and resist the tenantry can speak to their landlords in a voice impertinence. Once, for instance, a famous that will command attention. There are many northern college had a not very famous pro- roads to most men's hearts. The Irish landlord fessor. His weakness was to imagine that he has only one-his purse! Thank heaven the possessed a fine gift of pulpit oratory. In Irish tenant has at length obtained influence season and out of season he sought occasions at the gateway. to preach, and, unhappily, had plenty of opporWe doubt not but that by-and-by Plans of tunity to make occasions. His sermons were Campaign will make themselves understood and worse than bad, they were long. A bad sermon felt even in Britain. If the British farmer may be endured, a long sermon cannot. At allows himself to be ruined when he has a last he exhausted the patience of all his chance to protect himself then he deserves his students, and student patience is very easy of ruin. Wales-which is always far and away exhaustion. They hit upon a Plan of Cam- ahead of the politics of Britain-already has paign. One Sunday when he was especially begun with the shrewd caution of the race to long and especially dreary a signal resounded understand the difference between men who through the hall. At once hundreds of flasks can protect themselves like the Irish farmers and paper parcels were produced. The asto- and men who are hopeless and helpless like the nished preacher beheld his congregation calmly English farmers. What Wales understands eating its lunch. Henceforward his sermons she soon puts into practice. The Welsh underwent a process of reduction that we hope farmers are regarding their landlords and their to see applied to the rents of all Irish tenants. clergymen with an interest and attention that The Chinese in America have a Plan of Cam- bespeaks lively times for those who take from paign. When a man treats them unjustly, they the soil and put nothing into it. And in will not work for that man. And when they Scotland matters are hastening merrily on. leave him they mark his door so that no others The Plan of Campaign has a fascination for will work for him. the prudent Scottish mind. It is a real remedy. It professes to do something, and it does it. It is according to right and reason and religion. When a thing is like that it speedily becomes the fashion in Scotland, Those who understand human nature know its wonderful power in making its own equilibrium. It rises from misfortunes and finds ways and means of self-protection from the JUBILEE JOBBERY. While loyal but somewhat stupid papers are calling, in all manner of tones and temper, "God save the Queen," we imagine that the Queen is calling out "God save me from my friends." The Spectator is full of fire, fury, and sarcasm at the manner in which the Queen is being treated. Half the people in the country won't subscribe at all, the other half do it in a way which is simply an insult. No lady in private life could possibly be so treated. The remarks of the Spectator are so good and so much to the point that we cannot refrain from giving them at some length, especially as that is a pleasure in which we do not greatly indulge :— We are a mean people sometimes. It appears that the Queen intends to expend a part of the Jubilee money to be presented to her by the ladies of England on an equestrian statue of the Prince Consort, to be placed in Windsor Park. This caused discontent, the ladies apparently thinking so much honour paid to a husband most inexpedient, and an official intimation has been issued stating that the Queen will devote the remainder of the money to some great work of charity. It seems to us that Her Majesty is ungenerously treated. But in the midst of the fuss, nobody except the Emperor of Germany-thinks of a gift which may give personal pleasure to the Queen. She had to think even of that statue for herself, and is, in fact, in the position of the child who is so good that she has a whole sovereign given her for herself, but must not spend it. Suppose London, the only town in the Empire which has much to forgive the Queen, who ought to live here steadily through the season, presents Her Majesty with a purse to be expended upon anything which will give her pleasure, but is not useful to others more than to herself? The "Jubilee" is being overdone, and we should like to see a little more household feeling and less calculating selfishness in its celebration. Who gives a friend ten pounds on his birthday, with instructions to give it away in coals? Now, are we, as the loyal but not very patriotic Spectator hints, a mean people? It is an accusation not often brought against our British people. Generally it is supposed that few nations have ever given so liberally or have ever supported so many expensive institutions. Does the loyal and learned gentleman, who does the Jubilee emotion for the Spectator, ever happen to sec a Blue Book? Do the national estimates ever come beneath his penetrating glance? Is he aware of a fact, most melancholy to think of in our generation, that the Queen and the Queen's impecunious relations annually swallow a sum of British gold sufficient to clothe, to feed, and to house in a style that would be to them absolute luxury some twenty thousand of the Queen's poorer subjects? Perhaps these facts might with profit be studied by such gentlemen as those who write the pleasant and clever articles, which we enjoy so much to read, as showing how very agreeably the truth can be misrepresented. If the Queen felt as she should feel, she would feel the very meanest person in her dominions, and some gentlemen of the loyal press would not be very far behind her. Out of this mean people Queen Victoria has drawn every year the revenues that would support a dozen hospitals; at the expense of this mean people she has consumed some 18,240 dinners, each of sufficient cost to feed at least a hundred people; and in the houses of this mean people she has lived, travelled in their yachts, and has been served by their servants. Hardly ever does she behold a human head on a human body but the head eats and the body is sumptuously clothed, all at the expense of a people whose notorious characteristic is their meanness. The fact is that from first to last the jubilee has been the jest of reasonable people; but there is more than fun in it. Attempts have been made to raise money in a manner that is flat treason to the spirit, if not to the letter, of our laws. The poor rank-and-file soldiers of our army, who get the shots where someone else gets the glory, have been asked to contribute to the fund. When a colonel requests a "full private" for a subscription, we all know that request and refusal are spelt in a manner differing from the orthodox fashion. It is notorious that in this instance request and compulsion have a meaning almost the same, contrary to the dictionary. How many of these poor fellows are Republicans, who regard the person of Queen Victoria with the same reverence as they regard the Queen of Madagascar? Yet some of these will have to yield to the request so kindly made that they should join in this great free-offering of a loving people. In many other cases the jubilee begging has become hateful even to the loyal and enthusiastic beggars. One lady who went a-begging found out so many districts in which the poor could not afford even a penny that she retired in disgust from her task. One man answered a reply for a penny request by saying, "I've no pennies to spare for the Queen to-night, I'm sure. I'm out of work, and will have to go out and beg pennies for my little children myself to give them all food." And so we are the meanest nation on the earth! Now, that is what is felt through all the land. That the richest lady in the world should send out begging from these miserable and destitute people is felt to be an outrage on common sense and common decency. It used to be the custom in other days for him who had been prosperous to give to the poor. Queen Victoria, because she has been prosperous for 50 years, wishes to take from the poor. It is a strange method of returning thanks to God, thus to spoil God's poor. That feeling outrages the pious and disgusts the worldly, and that feeling is making the jubilee a failure. But it is significant that while a feeling is so wide and deep it finds a first expression among the more active parts of our British Empire. Englishmen feel, Scotchmen speak, Irishmen and Welshmen act. And so while in England men have been laughing at all the fuss and absurdity, in Scotland they have been asking why such things should be, but in Ireland and Wales they have been taking active measures against them. In Dublin an actively loyal member of the Corporation moved that an address be presented to Her Majesty. The Lord Mayor moved an amendment, and the address was lost by 33 votes to 3. In South Wales the Cardiff Trades Council was invited to subscribe. The gentlemen composing that body wrote, in reply, that they must refuse to do anything in servile adulation of a "wellpaid servant of the State." That was patriotism as opposed to loyalty. It is evident how much the throne misses the acute and constant advice of the late Prince Consort. He came a stranger among this people, and he made them his study. He held a tight rein upon the humour of the Queen; he judiciously and persistently checked that fatal ostentation which makes a throne hated. His son lacks his skill. He has done the greatest injury to the throne that he could possibly do-he has made it ridiculous. -:0: BAYONETS FOR IRELAND.. Mr. Balfour has to meet and master the Plan of Campaign or to retire. His method is simplicity itself. He will use the bayonet-that last and dreadful argument of those who have reason against them. We have yet to see whether the public sentiment of this country will permit in Balfour a dilletante Cromwell. We have no doubt that it will not. Public feeling in this country has been slowly but certainly setting towards Ireland and against Ireland's oppressors. On the day that Mr. Gladstone stated the whole sad case to his fellow countrymen, then the British heart began to respond. One incident shows how the wind is blowing, and how it is growing into a perfect hurricane. Mr. W. S. Caine is deservedly a popular man. His talents, his energy, and his philanthropy have made him widely known and loved. Among temperance people he was regarded as one of the major prophets. Yet the other night he was howled from a platform where he would have been more regarded than a prince, and on his way to the railway station he had the escort of a jeering instead of a cheering mob. While we denounce this act, and all such acts, as cowardly and ruffianly, we cannot but take it with the almost similar reception Mr. Chamberlain lately met in Hawick to show the growth of an earnest enthusiasm. And when we have got enthusiasm we have next to all. Nothing can stand against it. Irish reform is only a question of time-of longer or shorter space. We do not suppose that it will matter a whit to those who opposed last year Mr. Parnell's motion for the reduction of rent in Ireland to a fair basis, that the statements upon which he founded that demand have turned out to be absolutely true, and that the statements of those who opposed it have turned out to be shameless falsehoods. In 1855 the value of the crops in Ireland was £63,000,000. Last year a fearful depth was touched, and £31,000,000 represent all that was got from the land of Ireland. So we find that in 31 years the product of Irish land has fallen almost onehalf. But the Tories are like the House of Bourbon-they learn nothing and forget nothing. They cannot forget the rents of 30 years ago. These seem to them the natural state of things. They have not had to dig the ground, and they do not know how the value of the ground's products has changed. And so they inhabit a past of fairy dreams and refuse to contemplate the stern reality of the present. But this effect is to be seen even more plainly in some recent discussions of the Land Commission. That Commission, if it does not err |