aprons and paper caps. There is a
jollification about it which they like—an
alternation of music and chat and smoke;
they do not pay for the music, but regard it
as a kind of bonus—a something given in by
the capital landlord. The question is, not
whether this is the best mode in which music
can be heard, but whether the music will not
lessen rather than increase any disposition
towards sottishness. It should be remembered
that our London is so densely packed
with houses and people, such an extraordinary
conglomerate of human beings walled up
within bricks and mortar, that open air
evening amusements are out of the question,
except in few and far between instances.
At Dresden, on the other hand, and, indeed,
at most of the large German towns, there are
public gardens at which all classes assemble
in the evening, drinking zucker-wasser and
other simple beverages, and listening to fine
music played by a splendid band.

The law in respect to music-rooms is a
whirl of confusion. There are ordinary
licences for public-houses; there are music
licences for public-houses; there are music
licences for buildings which are not public-
houses; there are licensing magistrates,
who often assume the licence of Unreason.
Then there are the licences for theatres
and saloons, granted by the Lord Chamberlain,
in accordance with an act passed
about a dozen years ago. The distinction
between the theatre licence and the saloon
licence is curious: both relate to any and all
buildings, within twenty miles of London,
wherein tragedy, comedy, farce, opera,
burletta, interlude, melodrame, pantomime, and
other stage entertainment is given. The
theatre licence is granted to about twenty
places in the metropolis, excluding Drury
Lane and Covent Garden, which are kept
open in virtue of royal patents granted to
Killigrew and Davenant in the time of
Charles the Second. These patents are still
in force, although one theatre has become an
Italian Opera-house, and the other has
become—anything. The saloon licence gives
the same kind of permission as the theatre
licence, to represent dramatic pieces, with
three or four provisos that the performances
shall not commence before five o'clock; that
no smoking shall be allowed in the saloon
daring the hours of performance; that no
tables or stands shall be arranged for
refreshments; and that no refreshments shall be
supplied, except during the intervals between
the performances. The reader will at once
see that it is to such places as the Grecian
Saloon and the Bower Saloon that these
licences refer,—places in which the theatrical
saloon is immediately contiguous to a tavern
belonging to the same proprietor.

There are thus theatres unconnected with
taverns; there are saloon theatres connected
with taverns; there are taverns having a
licensed room for singing and dancing; there
are harmonic meetings of various degrees of
musicality; and there are penny theatres,
which require much police vigilance. But
unfortunately there are no clear lines of
distinction between all these. What with the
excise licence, the magistrates' licence, and
the Lord Chamberlain's licence, there is sad
confusion. Magistrates differ among
themselves, and ermined judges differ from
magistrates, concerning the interpretation of the
law. A respectable publican may be in
doubt whether he may have a pianoforte in a
well-conducted public room; while another,
encumbered by no scruples, may creep close
to the edge of the law, and have both singing
and dancing.

This is foolish and unjust. Music and the
drama should not be regarded as prey, to be
hunted and driven about as something
unworthy. That they can work into the hearts
of the mass of our London population is
sufficiently shown by the experience of a theatre in
the most densely-populated part of the east
end of London, where Shakspeare is well
played by good performers, where the prices of
admission are to be reckoned by pence rather
than by shillings, where the audience is as
attentive as at any possible patent theatre,
and where the numbers who attend are so
large as to leave a sufficient margin of profit
to the lessee. Not far from the same theatre
is an entertainment certainly belonging to
the domain of the fine arts, for it consists of
panoramic pictures of some merit, elucidated
by a lecture, and accompanied by music, and
yet the price of admission is but a single
penny. And here is afforded an odd
commentary on the licensing system; if the
exhibitor had not designated his entertainment
a lecture, he would not have been
allowed to have any music without a licence,
which licence, perhaps, he might never have
been able to obtain. This is what we mean
by music being, as it were, hunted about, as if
something unworthy. The exhibitor just
referred to is said to have spent five hundred
pounds in a year and a half for panoramas,
which are prepared in a painting-room of his
own, by artists in his own employ; and he has
sometimes had five successive audiences in
one evening, each consisting of a room full of
penny visitors prepared for about an hour's
exhibition. It is only in a densely populous
neighbourhood that such a speculation could
be successful; but it is precisely in such a
neighbourhood that the humanising tendency
of pictures and music and good dramas is
most needed.

Music in poor neighbourhoods—how to get
it, and of what kind? Since it is perfectly
useless to deplore the decay of open air sports
in the heart of London, we must drive indoor
sports into London, and among them must be
music. Music wants no driving, however—
it grows up even among the most lowly—and
if it can be kindly led into a rational direction,
so much the better for the workman,