"DRIVEL FOR THE DREGS."

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVII, Issue 263, 10 November 1906, Page 9

"DRIVEL FOR THE DREGS."

Mr. W. T. Stead, for the first time in his life, lias been visiting a music-halL The Pavilion, in Piccadilly CSrcus, was the hall chosen for the experiment, and in the current number of the "Review of Reviews" Mr. Stead gives his impressions of the entertainment. They come under three heads—boredom, indignation, and amazement, and the whole performance is summed up as "drivel for the dregs." "For three and a-half solid hours," he says, "I sat patiently listening to the most insufferable banality and imbecility that ever fell upon human ears. Compared with much of the 'patter , and semi-articulate gibberish that was heard from the stage, the gibbering of apes at the Zoo was an intellectual repast." What roused Mr. Stead's indignation was the thought that any audience would appreciate such trash. It seemed intolerable that in Anno Domini 1906 the heirs of a thousand years of civilisatioa and the produce of 35 years of the Education Act should relish this inane driveL "It was not the immorality of the thing that roused mc," he says, "so much, as the imbecility of it all. It was difficult to realise that the well-dressed ladies and gentlemen who had paid 5/ to occupy the stalls, and who applauded vulgarities which might have shamed a costermonger, were citizens of an Empire on which the sun never sets. I did not feel that they were vicious so much as they were so nakedly studid- and unashamed. And yet these vacuous skulls," marvels Mr. Stead, referring to the audience, "held brains of the same racial stock as that which produced Shakespeare." His third impression was that the audience positively revelled in physical ugliness. To him the one solitary gleam, in an endless procession of ugliness and vulgarity was La Milo, the Australian who poses on a pedestal in imitation of famous statues. She was for 'Mr. Stead the one redeeming feature on the programme. "La Milo posed as if she were carved out of marble. Bach tableau formed an exceedingly beautiful picture, upon which the eye dwelt restfully and lovingly. It was as a glimpse of the clear blue sky, or of the midnight heaven radiant with stars, suddenly visible to the gropcrs along a noisome tunnel. Tho question of the propriety of displaying the origin?l statue, bronz-e or marble, of Circe and the Greek Slave on the musichall stage —there could haTdly be any question about the others—is one upou which opinions will differ. It is not an occupation to which. I would care to doom daughter or sister of mine. There can, however, be ho difference of opinion as to the beauty and ideal loveliness of the pictures of which La Milo formed tho centre figure. As to the suggestion of indecency, that is a fraud, and I fear that those who sell tickets on tho strength of it are open to an accusation o' obtaining money on false pretences. La 'Milo is indecent as statues are indecent, no more and no less. This being so, I do not quite see why La Milo should be put on the stage at all. If sho were ill, and replicas in plaster of Paris were mounted on the pedestal, no one would note her absence. The Venus of Milo of the Pavilion would be improved by such a change, for the living personation has neither the grandeur nor the dignity of the original. But in that case those who are attracted by the suggestion of something indecent would stay away. The audience, unintelligent and vulg'ir though it was, seemed to be thrilled for a moment by the beauty of the spectacle." Mr. Stead is of the opinion that if even the Pavilion habitues can appreci* ate 'beauty and admire the ideal, as thes did in this case, there is fcope for tha ytrangei , generation.