THE PROFESSIONAL BOUQUET THROWER.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1717, 21 August 1879, Page 4

THE PROFESSIONAL BOUQUET THROWER.

The following excellently-written piotest against a social nuieance that is not altogether unknown in the colonies, is from the pen of a London actress : We must always appeal to you when we are in trouble, and I think I have got something very like a grievance. Not a mere personal matter, although I might say very much on that score ; but it is a subject intimately connected with that better respect for actresses as women, and that higher consideration of acting as an art, which you have so devotedly and steadily encouraged. You men are often very hard to what you choose to call the gentler sex. You know little of our tempations, or of the insults that are deeply heaped upon U 3. Tou don't know how very hard it is to preserve a good name and a fair fame whilst pursuing a profession which is pursued by the cynical hate of an obstinate society. However much we try we are sure to be misjudged. Somebody will be sure to talk about us, to misinterpret oni actions, to put two and two together, to whisper in corners, and to take for granted that which has only been suggested by diseased imagination. You have a cruel, relentless phrase, you men, about there being "no smoke without flime;" but you often forget that in order to make the smoke you fill the chimney with damp straw. It is hard enough, Heaven knows, to avoid private persecution without scandal, withont having our actions misinterpreted and our motives misconstrued in public, and by persistent offenders. Now, what is an actress to do when she is persecuted by the professional bouquet thrower ? When she is maiked out for those compliments which savour very much of insult, and when, without encouragement, she is deliberately placed before the public in a bad and a false position ? But who, you will ask, ia the professional bouquet thrower ? You must know him in the stalls as well as we do on the stage. He is over-dressed and impudent, and prides himself on the acquaintance of actresses, who despise him as much as his fellow-men must. He comes to the theatre early in the evening, like the milliner's young man, with an advance guard of band-boxes. He takes the stallkeepers into his confidence, and sits surrounded —like a cheap Cupid—with pretty flowers andvaluableexotics. Having selected an actress with whose name he desires his own to be associated he begins flinging the flowers at her in a wild and reckless fashion. He has not the art of a member of a welldiECiplined claqve, and as often as not throws the bouquet at a ridiculous moment. He does not Wiit for a moment of applause or a good acting point, but pelts the poor nervous actress at her first entrance, making her look very Billy, or hurls the weighty mass of flowers and fern at her in the middle of a song or speech. He has so many bouquets to dispose of and cannot properly fix the time of their delivery. In acting as be does the professional bouquet thrower is encouraged by three distinct motives. He wishes to be taken for a fast fellow and the friend of a popular actress, caring little how he may be compromising her. He desires to raise the jealousy or anger of his friends, many of whom may have greater taste and tact. Lastly, he is not above doing the dirty work of the rich man to whom he is the toady, and for a consideration will fling bouquets for which he has not paid to actresses whom he does not know. On this heading much might be Baid which I dare not say now, but if you knew the lives of my sisters as well as I do, and have listened to their sorrows as often as I have, you would know what irreparable mischief is done by the well dressed " go between" who has the exterior of a gentleman and the heart of a scamp. Now, what is an actress to do who, without any fault of her own, save perhaps that personal popularity which is the outcome of her appearance in public, is the object of the attention of one of these pertinacious and irrepressible lyoung men ? Letters to the stage door, or presents sent to the same quarter, can be put aside without any harm being done, save to the sense of respect of her who receives them. But I, for one, don't like being made a target for Flora's arrows whilst I am doing my work on the stage, and using my best endeavors to amuse the public as best I can. A graceful compliment has degenerated into a disgraceful trade. If an actress so works up the feelings of the house that the ladies in the audience, who are carrying bouquets fling them at her feet, what more charming and spontaneous compliment can exist ? But what compliment is conveyed in the idiotic foresight of a youth who fills his private box with exotics, who comes to the Theatre without a lady, or who has a dozen bouquets under his stall? I, for one, own that I cannot see where actress or art are dignified by tr« proceeding. Besides being foolish it is pei sonally annoying and uncomfortable! Those who sit near the professional bouquet thrower in the stalls are conscious of a swish of water over their heads and necks, for of course " The rose had been washed, just washed in a shower, Which Damon to Phyllis conveyed ;"

And those on the stage are pelted not always gracefully or with effect. Meanwhile, what is an actress to do? If she accepts the compliment with a smile it is instantly assumed that she is encouraging the attention of a notorious libertine, and desires to be recommended by him to her rich and aristocratic friends. If she allows the flowers to remain where they are on the floor she is considered sulky or ungracious. If she throws them back at the impudent face of the persecutor she, by the act, seriously insults her audience, while she does no harm to her enemy. In this predicament will not the audience help us ? We cannot help ourselves. An audience can see in an instant if the compliment is a true or forced one, and an audience can punish when we cannot. Let us be secure from the odious attention of these bouquet throwers, who make themselves ridioulous and interrupt the flcene. Let them be put down by popular clamour and indignation, when our faces tell how much we are annoyed. A man does not carry bouquets, He has nothing to do with them. Ladies carry bouquets, and we are always pleased to accept a floral compliment from our generous sisters. I repeat, that a man does not carry a bouquet. In these curiously affected days he carries a stick, and, as I do not think the public would allow him to •' give us a stick," pray let the same public prevent him from surrounding his conceit with the beautiful flowers which, for once in their lives, ought to be strangers to the " rake."