He drank, and said, "These wines, no doubt,
                Are pleasant in their kind,
           But, to my taste, a pot of beer
                 Were worth them all combined."

TO THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN.
THE REPORTS OF A VOLUNTEER COMMISSIONER.
SIX IN NUMBER.
REPORT THE THIRD.

ALL Music Halls are not as the
Pandemonium. To the height of that glittering,
well-conducted, audacious temple of "life"
no other manager has yet attained. It is
true that ballet finds a place on the smaller
stages of many halls. Minette and her
bold comrades have found imitators about
town. Moll Flanders forms a large and
important portion of the attraction at other
establishments besides that in Foreigneering-
square—notably at one in the immediate
neighbourhood, which appears to be very
conveniently placed for that lady—but
nowhere else is she so obviously the attraction;
nowhere else is her presence so clearly
relied on, to draw the shillings of credulity
and inexperience. There is elsewhere, as
a rule, a larger element of respectability
among the audience: the dancing
performances elsewhere, though often daring
enough, are scarcely up to the standard of
Nudita and her like. How long this will
last it is difficult to say. Probably an
early change may be looked for. It is
scarcely likely that enterprising managers,
pondering over the success of the
Pandemonium, and musing on twenty-five per
cent dividend paid its fortunate share-
holders—for the mighty power of Limited
Liability sways the destinies of the Palace
—should hold their hands. New halls,
arranged on principles derived from
experience, may be expected to rise in all
directions. As matters stand at present,
there seems no reason why every quarter
of London should not have, each its own
Pandemonium. Possibly your Lordship
may think this matter worthy of
somebody's attention.

At present Your Commissioner has
nothing to report adverse to the general run
of Music Halls. That they are more
undisguisedly public-houses, plus singing and
dancing, than was the case in their earlier
days, is plain. When the Music Hall first
sprang into existence, and when it began
to take its place among the recognised
popular places of recreation a better
class of entertainment was presented on
its boards than is now the rule. The
proprietors were eager to advertise good
music: the comic singer was kept to a
discreet extent in the background.
Circumstances have changed. If any attempt
be now made to get through an operatic
selection, or any piece of good music, it is
felt by all concerned to be a mere pretence
—an impediment to the enjoyment of the
real pleasures of the evening. It is the
trapeze performer, on whose behalf the
roof is festooned with strong rigging, and
for whom complicated arrangements of
trestles and carpets have to be made, who
is wanted; or, worse still, it is the comic
singer.

This comic singer (or comique as he loves
to call himself) is a remarkable product of
the last few years. That people, not
afflicted with any obvious form of mental
disease, can calmly sit and listen to—nay even
sometimes laugh at—the extraordinarily
imbecile and senseless outpourings of the
music hall comic muse, is, to one of Your
Commissioner's way of thinking, quite
amazing. The words of these comic songs
are, as a rule, beneath contempt. The loves
of barmaids, the exploits of Rollicking Rams
and other unpleasant persons whose sole
themes are the delights of drink, and the
pleasures of reeling home with the milk,
are the subjects chiefly treated of. Snobbery
and vulgarity are rampant and blatant in
these effusions. The devices resorted to by
the singers to raise a laugh, are feeble and
melancholy in the extreme. Preposterous
coats of violent colours and startlingly
braided; great hats, frequently of the
brightest blue or green; long yellow whiskers
of the Dundreary type; these are some
of the dreary substitutes for humour that
are offered to the public on the Music Hall
stage. The comic singer of to-day is
responsible for the education of a very
terrific form of snob, or gent. The younger
male frequenters of the Music Hall are
distinguished by an insolence of manner
and tone, faithfully copied from the
manners of their favourite on the stage.
Constant familiarity with the topics treated of
in the Champagne Charley kind of song,
must have a deteriorating effect, and the
breed of the little snobs, now coming to
be usually called after their distinguished
prototype, is alarmingly on the increase.

All these comic singers sing the same
kind of song, all wear the same sort of
costume, all have the same sort of
"business", and, except when a pretty tune
crops up among them, from some old
country-dance book, the airs to which