their words are set are all in the same
vulgar, commonplace style. Half a dozen
of these gentlemen will sing at the same
hall, on the same night, each about half a
dozen songs. Whether the audience want
the singer again or no, matters not. Until
he has got through the number of songs
for which he is engaged, he must be encored,
if by nobody else then by the chairman,
and "the big Bounce will oblige again."
Successful "comiques" will be engaged at
two or three halls on the same night, and
have to hurry from one to the other in an
equipage, usually combining the taste of the
late Mr. Thomas Sayers with the professional
air of a veterinary surgeon, which
the visitor may notice in waiting. There
is nothing so remarkable in connection
with this subject, as the dreadful
uniformity that rules in all these places of
entertainment. The same singers, the same
acrobats, the same unvarying dull routine,
everywhere. For the purposes of this
Report, Your Commissioner has visited, he
believes, every Music Hall in London; but,
whether he was in the far west, where the
scarlet jackets of long-legged life-guardsmen
gave a pleasant warmth to the scene;
or in the remote east, where there was a
prevailing flavour of tar and docks all about
the room, the entertainment was precisely
the same. The little hall in the north is
in no way to be distinguished from the
larger one in the south. Dulness is the
badge of all their tribe.

The comic singer has one redeeming point,
which Your Commissioner thinks it fair to
mention. He is nearly always vulgar, not
unfrequently coarse; but he is never
indecent. If credit can be given him for
nothing else, he may at least have the credit
of invariably keeping within the bounds of
propriety.

If Your Commissioner suffered much at
the hands, or rather at the brazen throats, of
these gentlemen; what is he to say concerning
the tremendous performances of the
serio-comic ladies? Champagne Charley
is bad enough: Champagne Charlotte is
intolerable. A foolish and vulgar song
from a man's lips, is a sorry matter; but
when the dreary business is done by a
woman, it is most repulsive.

In these remarks Your Commissioner has
treated of comic singers as a class, and an
undiverting class; here and there an
occasional exception may be found. Your
Commissioner has, though rarely, met with a
good comic singer; and there are some
Music Hall performers, but not many—
gentlemen as well as ladies—who are
undoubtedly clever and able.

On the whole, except in the case of the
comic singers, Your Commissioner finds
little amiss at the Music Halls. Of course,
if the public like the comic singers, and
insist upon hearing them, the public must
have its way. No one can suggest any
legislative interference with mere nonsense.
But the Pandemonium is so striking a
warning of what a Music Hall may become,
that Your Commissioner is very strongly
of opinion that the Music Halls should be
put under more efficient supervision than
that of the licensing magistrates, and
without loss of time.

Your Commissioner will now proceed to
the consideration of the state of things, at
those places of public entertainment over
which your Lordship already has authority.

REPORT THE FOURTH.

IT ought of course to have been well
known to Your Commissioner, before he
commenced his theatrical labours, that the
dramatic art is at a low ebb, and rapidly
decaying. It ought to have been known to
him that there are no actors now-a-days,
and no dramatic authors. It would have
been becoming in him to have given up
the whole thing as in a bad way. So
much to this effect has been said and written,
that indeed he had been almost brought
to believe it against the evidence of his
senses. But the reflection that at all
periods of his life he had heard the same
story; that the same complaint has been
fashionable since the days of Plautus;
prevented this charming belief from taking
any strong hold upon his mind. With
increasing years Your Commissioner had
more than once caught himself depreciating
the present generation; and had, with
shame, found himself saying, on a comedian
being praised for his performance in a
certain play, "Ah! now Wright could play
that part." With shame, for was it not a
fact, that when the late Mr. Wright was
still diverting the public, seniors in the
audience used to make disparaging remarks
to that gentleman's detriment, with reference
to his predecessor, Mr. John Reeve?
Furthermore, "You should have seen
Munden, sir," and "There are no actors since
John Kemble," are dogmas wearily familiar
to most of us. Without violent optimism,
Your Commissioner declines to depreciate
the merits of the performers of to-day, by
comparing them with those of a totally
different time, and school of art and taste.