travelling company, she has constant discomfort and constant danger; some of her companions are certain to be coarse—­and a brutal actor whose professional vanity prevents him from understanding his own brutality is among the most horrible of living creatures.  After a lady has made her mark as an actress, she can secure admirable lodging at good hotels; but a poor girl with a pound per week must put up with such squalor as only actors can fittingly describe.  Amid all this the girl is left to take care of herself—­observe that point.  A little child is taken care of; whereas the adolescent or adult must fight her way through a grimy and repulsive environment as best she can.  There is not a man in the world who would dare to introduce himself informally to any lady who is employed under Mr. W.S.  Gilbert’s superintendence; but what can we say about the thousands who travel from town to town unguided save by the curt directions of the stage manager?  Let it be understood that when I speak of the theatre I have not in mind the beautiful refined places in central London where cultured people in the audience are entertained by cultured people on the stage; I am thinking grimly of the squalor, the degradation, the wretched hand-to-mouth existence of poor souls who work in the casual companies that spend the better part of their existence in railway carriages.  Not long ago a young actress who can now command two thousand pounds per year was obliged to remain dinnerless on Christmas Day because she could not afford to pay a shilling for a hamper which was sent her from home.  Her success in the lottery arrived by a strange chance; but how many bear all the poverty and trouble without even having one gleam of success in their miserable dangerous lives?  There are theatres and theatres—­there are managers and managers; but in some places the common conversation of the women is not edifying—­and a good girl must insensibly lose her finer nature if she has to associate with such persons.

In the case of the little children there are none, or few, at any rate, of the drawbacks.  Not one in fifty goes on the stage; the mites are engaged only at certain seasons; and their harvest-time enables poor people to obtain many little comforts and necessaries.  Further, there is one curious thing which may not be known to the highly particular sect—­no manager, actor, or actress would use a profane or coarse word among the children; such an offender would be scouted by the roughest member of any company and condemned by the very stage-carpenters.  I own that I have sometimes wished that a child here and there could be warm asleep on a chilly night, especially when the young creature was perilously suspended from a wire; but that is very nearly the furthest extent of my pity.  So long as the youngsters are not required to perform dangerous or unnatural feats, they need no pity.  Instead of being inured to brutalities, they are actually taken away from brutality—­for