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Farm odors, food odors an aroma of decay surrounds them. By their smells one can almost detect the presence of chickens, eggs, oranges, cabbages, potatoes, plums and cantaloupes. A group of movie theaters holds carnival at the entrance to the loop. People hurry under electric canopies, dig in their pockets for dollar bills and buy tickets. The buildings sleep along the river.
The time which in ordinary theaters is devoted to the arranging of scenes behind a blank curtain is here filled by the songs and recitations of the guardian spirits. Once in the play the chorus appears in black, in keeping with the dark scenes they come forth to foretell. But at the end the bright robes are resumed, while the play closes with a burst of triumph from their lips.
They did not "hand a lemon" or "skiddoo" in those days; American slang changes as quickly as thieves' slang, and only "Gee!" and "Gee-whiz!" seem to be permanent. There were very few theaters in New York when we first went there. All that part of the city which is now "up town" did not exist, and what was then "up" is now more than "down" town. The American stage has changed almost as much.
And so it goes on not out in the open; not press-agented; not advertised; but behind closed doors. He does not care for the stranger's presence, nor does he suffer it either unless the stranger is properly vouched for. The best theaters in Vienna are small, exclusive affairs, privately supported, and with seating capacity for a few chosen patrons.
London is the breath of life to me, with its clubs and theaters, and suppers, and jolly good fellows, and " "And Flora!" Jimmie supplemented drily. "D n Flora! She threw up the Friv yesterday and slipped off to the Continent with Dozy Molyneaux. I'm done with her, anyway! But what does it all matter? I'm ruined, and I must go under. Give me a drink, old chap a stiff one."
GROSSNESS OF SENSUALITY. The poor degraded harlot draws in the victims like a heavily charged lodestone; these men are found in large numbers throughout the entire community; they would make fine men were they not weighted with the grossness of sensuality; as it is, they frequent the race-course, the card-table, the drinking-saloon, the music-hall, and the low theaters, which abound in our cities and towns; the great majority of these are men of means and leisure.
The men who who were at that time in control of the theaters in Paris were extraordinarily skilful at beating up filth and sentiment, and giving virtue a flavoring of vice, vice a flavoring of virtue, and turning upside down every human relation of age, sex, the family, and the affections.
Berlioz had the sort of mentality which could plan, and also execute, big musical enterprises on a grand scale. It was proposed that he and Strauss should give a couple of monster concerts in the Exhibition Building. He got together a body of 1022 performers, all paid except the singers from the lyric theaters, who volunteered to help for the love of music.
In lighthearted countries, people joked about this phenomenon, but such serious, practical countries as England, America, and Germany were deeply concerned. In every big city the monster was the latest rage; they sang about it in the coffee houses, they ridiculed it in the newspapers, they dramatized it in the theaters. The tabloids found it a fine opportunity for hatching all sorts of hoaxes.
Women keep the shops, conduct the busses, run the street cars, drive the trucks, sit on the seats of the horse-drays, deliver freight, manage railway trains, sweep the streets, wait on the tables, pull elevator ropes, smash baggage at the railway stations, sell tickets, usher at the theaters, superintend factories, make munitions, lift great burdens before forges, plough, reap, and stack grain and grass on farms, herd sheep in waste places, hew wood and draw water, and do all of the world's work that man has ever done.
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