Punch: Punch (32.1857)

January 3, 1857.]

THE ENCORE SWINDLE.

Mr. Punch cannot recognise more than a single view upon
the subject of an Encore. But his own preternatural wisdom and
rectitude—he admits the fact with due humiliation—sometimes pre-
vent his making allowances for the ignorance and injustice of others.
He will therefore condescend, upon the present occasion, to explain
how the matter in question stands. He is moved thereto by a variety
of correspondence which has been addressed to him, and by an article
in the Musical World, in which some ridiculous provincial censures
upon Mr. Sims Reeves, the vocalist, are disposed of by a reply so
unanswerable that it has naturally excited the wrath of the illogical.
Tor it is in imperfectly educated nature to begin to revile when it
ceases to reason.

Complaints were made, and what in the provinces passes for
sarcasm was let fly against the singer we have named, for his excusing
himself, on the ground of indisposition, from fulfilling a certain engage-
ment. Now Mr. Punch has occasionally had his good-humoured joke
with Mr. Beeves on this subject, and begs to premise that nothing
herein contained will bar Mr. Punch of his right to say just what he
likes to Mr. Beeves or anybody else. Nor, again, will Mr. Punch's
condescending to joke upon the subject, in anv manner prevent his
recognition of Mr. Beeves as one of the most admirable artists in the
world. Nunc tunc, as Yirgil might have said, if he had chosen.

The answer to these complaints is, that British audiences consist of
swindlers. It is shown that Mr. Beeves, in common with many other
artists, is compelled by a dishonest British public to do double the
work which he contracts to do. It is set forth by extracts from the
newspapers, detailing a long provincial tour (during which Mr. Beeves
has not once failed to appear when due) that the audiences have always
exacted from him precisely twice the quantity of music which they
were entitled to ask. They have habitually encored everything. And
when an exhausted singer has ventured to substitute something else
for the fatiguing air which is dishonestly redemanded, they have encored
the substitution. The consequence of this selfish injustice was that
Beeves, lacking the courage of Alboni and Mario, who will seldom
"take " an encore, got knocked up, not being a mere singing machine,
and had to give his throat and lungs a few days' holiday. This brought
out provincial censure and sarcasm, completely met, as it appears to Mr.
Punch and every honest person, by the Musical World.

By what right, we beg to ask, does an auditor cheat and rob an
artist by encoring ? A playbill promises that if you will pay a specific
sum, you shall have a specific song. You pay the money (or go in with
an order), and you demand twice the music you have bargained for.
Do you serve anybody else so, except an artist ? If you buy a pair of
trousers, and _ they please you, do you encore your trousers, that is,
require the tailor to give you another pair ? Do you encore a dozen of
oysters, asking the second lot for nothing because the first were sweet
and succulent! Do you encore a portrait, and because a painter has
succeeded admirably in taking your likeness, do you clap and stamp
about his studio until he paints you another copy for nothing ?

But "0!" say John Bell, and Mrs. Bull, with their usual
vulgarity, "these are real things, with a value, while a song's nothing
but air (hair,_ very likely Mrs. Bull calls it) coming out of a man's
mouth ; and it has no value, and he ought to be very proud that we are
pleased with him."

Get out of the theatre, you old idiots ! Get out, you dishonest old
ignorant wretches, and go to Mr. Spurgeon, or a police magistrate, or
somebody, and learn your duty to your neighbour ! Get out, we
tell you!

And yet why should Mr. Punch be wrath with you ? Your fathers
thought in the same way about books, and wondered at an author's
impudence in calling mere words by the sacred name of property.
And the notion is not quite extinct yet. There, we retract, we feel
compassion for you, you old creatures, not anger. You may stay. But
mind this. You have no right to steal music. If your housemaid
stole your snub-nosed Patty's dog's-eared copy of the Troubadour from
the pianoforte, you would call that housemaid a thief, and send for a
policeman. What are you, that steal four songs in one evening ? Take
that hint to heart, and when next you are delighted with an effort that
it has cost an artist years of expensive and laborious study to bring to
the perfection that enchants you, and you feel disposed to cheat him out
of it again, remember snub-nosed Patty and her dog's-eared music.

Were Mr. Punch a Manager, he would borrow a hint from the omni-
bus, and write across the curtain

ALL ENCORES MUST BE PAID FOR,

and the money-taker should go round, attended by a detective, to
require a second payment of the price of admission. On the other
hand, if it could be shown that singers, or music-sellers, or friends with
! orders, had caused the encore, (for all sorts of tricks are resorted to in
order to puff up indifferent wares) the night's salary of the singer
supposed to be benefited should be forfeited to the General Theatrical
.bund. As Mr. Punch is not a Manager, he obligingly makes a present
ot tnese suggestions to the editor of the Musical World.

•-7
i

SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE.

Wishing to obtain some information as to the effect of the Income-
Tax upon our social condition, we resolved to ascertain as far as it was
practicable^ whether any falling off had been noticeable this Christmas
in the parties which are annually given at that festive season. Por
this purpose we selected several of our most going-out reporters, and
supplied them with instructions to spare themselves no expense in
white kids and waistcoats, until they had provided us with full sta-
tistics on the subject.

As a sample of the evidence with which we have been furnished, we
learn from the gentleman to whom we had entrusted the dining-out
department that, of twenty dinner-parties he has been invited to, at
eight there have been served up for the first course both soup and fish,
at ten there was soup only? and at two only fish; at nineteen the
second course consisted (besides entrements) of either a roast turkev
and a bit of boiled beef, or else a boded turkey and a bit of roast beef
— the latter being in one instance supplanted by a saddle of mutton,
while for the third course, at all the twenty tables, there were either a
brace of pheasants or a hare, a Brobdignag plum-pudding with a sprig
of holly in it, about a peck of mince-pies, and bushels of jellies and
what he designates as " sweet-stuff." The cheese was Stilton at sixteen
tables, and at the other four Cheddar: with the addition of celery in
eleven cases, and in thirteen of maccaroni; while at every house where
there were chddren, there were at least a dozen dishes for desert.

_ On the whole our reporter's conviction is, decidedly, that the dinners
given this Christmas may be fairly quoted at about the usual average;
both^ as regards their frequency, and the quantity as well as quality of
condiments provided. And he considers, therefore, that among the
middle classes, the privations through war-prices are as yet not so
extreme as certain grumbling pobticians seem desirous to make out.

TOO GENEROUS BY HALE.

If money is at the present moment a little "tight" in Erance, it is
because Louis Napoleon has held his purse-strings a little too loose.
He is a second Antony, and although his minister, M. Achille Eould,
has attempted to describe him in prose, we can assure Erance that it is
Shakspeare only—the divine Williams of M. Ponsabjd-wIio can
alone, through the lips of Cleopatra, limn the imperial munificence :

" For his bounty,
There was no winter in't: an autumn 'twas,
That grew the more by reaping."

Only Erance is, now and then, liable to less than average crops, and
a blighted vintage.

" In his livery
Walk'd crowns and coronets."

Eor has not Erederick William of Prussia just joined, fallen into,
the royal procession ?

" Realms and islands were
As plates dropp'd from his pocket."

Only—let the truth be said—some of these island-plates have a great
deal too much Cayenne in them.

Christmas Contrition.

Matereamilias, who, in former years, has been accustomed to
spend a great deal of money in decking her Christmas Tree, calls the
room at the German Eair, where they announce "150,000 toys at a
penny each," her " locus penitentia."

Keep your Temper.— Avoid entering into an argument with a deaf
man in a radway carriage, as it is s^xe to lead to high words.

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.