wardrobes of operatic France or Italy could
produce. If it simplifies the question now at issue
—and it does surely, so far as the public discussion
of the subject is concerned?—to confess at
once that some of the entertainments at music-
halls do in some degree trench on the ground
already occupied by entertainments at theatres,
we make the acknowledgment without hesitation.
Legal quibbling apart, the resemblance
complained of, does partially exist; and is, in the
present state of the laws which regulate such
matters, open to attack. Granting all this,
however, one plain inquiry, so far as the public
are concerned, still remains to be answered:
Are the managers morally justified in claiming
for themselves a monopoly in dramatic
entertainment, and in proceeding against the
proprietors of music-halls accordingly?

In their present situation, as we understand
it, the managers have two grievances which they
all complain of alike. The first of those
grievances is, that theatres and music-halls are
not impartially submitted to the same conditions
of State control. The theatres are under the
direction of the Lord Chamberlain; the music-
halls are under the direction of an act of
Parliament of George the Second, and the licensing
magistrates. The Lord Chamberlain, acting as
the official victim of old precedents, shuts up
the theatres under his jurisdiction in Passion
Week; and arbitrarily throws out of employment
for that period, not the actors only, but
thousands of poor people who live by ministering
to the obscure necessities of the stage. On
the other hand, the licensing magistrates, having
no old precedents to fetter them, allow the
music-halls to open their doors as freely in
Passion Week as at any other time—the practical
result being, that musical and dramatic
performances, with smoking and drinking, are
officially permitted, at exactly that period of the
year when musical and dramatic performances
without smoking and drinking, are officially
prohibited. The absurdity and injustice of this
proceeding are too manifest for comment. If it
is wrong to allow any public amusements in
Passion Week, shut the music-halls—if it is
right, open the theatres. So far as this really
serious grievance is concerned, our sympathies
are heartily with the managers. Instead of gaining
any advantage by being placed under the
courtly authority of the Lord Chamberlain, they
are actually oppressed, in this particular, by a
gross injustice; and they deserve all the help
we can give them in subjecting that injustice
to public exposure and public attack.

But the second grievance—which these
gentlemen are now endeavouring to assert—the
grievance which practically declares that they
object to all dramatic competition, out of their
own especial circle, is so preposterous in itself,
and is so utterly opposed to the public spirit of
the time, that we reject all belief in it, on
grounds of the plainest common sense. The
great social law of this age and this nation, is
the law of competition. Why are managers of
theatres not to submit to it, as well as other
people? Some of these gentlemen, in all
probability, occasionally see a penny daily paper.
What would they have thought, if the
proprietors of The Times, of The Daily News, and
of the other morning journals, previously
established, and selling at a higher price, had all
met together, on the starting of penny papers,
and had claimed protection from the public
authorities, on the ground that cheap competition
in the matter of purveying daily intelligence
was an attack on their personal interests? Why,
the very pastrycooks, who once had the monopoly
of sixpenny ices, knew better than to make
a public outcry on the establishment of the
penny ice-shops! Nay, the predecessors of the
managers themselves, not only recognised but
asserted the privilege of free competition in a
free country. Whose voices were raised loudest
against dramatic monopoly, in the time of the two
patent theatres? The voices of the proprietors
of minor theatres, who then occupied a position
towards Covent Garden and Drury Lane, in
many respects similar to the position which the
music-halls now occupy towards all the theatres
in London. Here is the elder generation of
managers shouting, on one side, for Free Trade
—and there is the younger generation petitioning,
on the other, for Protection! Was there
ever such an anomaly? Who is to justify or
explain it?

If there had been no other and better reason
to restrain the managers from coming forward
to assert an obsolete protectionist principle
(under cover of asserting a strict interpretation
of the law), surely the consideration of mere
expediency might well have hindered them. We
know that these gentlemen are acting on a strong
conviction, however lamentably mistaken they
may be. But the public has no time to draw
fine distinctions: what will the public think of
the attempted suppression of the pantomimic
entertainment in Canterbury Hall, at the suit of
the London managers? Will it not be said—
"Here are several eminent gentlemen, occupying
the highest places in their profession, and
administering the resources of our greatest
theatrical establishments, all incomprehensibly
jealous of the performances of a tavern-concert-
room!" Such an imputation would, no doubt,
be justly repudiated by the managers; but what
plain inference is the world outside the green-
room to draw from facts as they stand at
present? Perhaps there is one other legitimate
conclusion, which has certainly occurred to
ourselves, and which the report of the trial in the
newspaper may justify. When we saw the
deservedly respected name of Mr. Benjamin
Webster—who has done more (at the New Adelphi
Theatre) to promote the public convenience
than any other manager of his time—set up as
the name of the plaintiff in a case which had
for its ultimate object an interference with the
public amusement, we certainly did consider
that the spectacle of the wrong man in the
wrong place had been somewhat inconsiderately
offered to popular contemplation. And, let it
be added, we were only the more confirmed in