"WE TRAGEDIANS."

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1924, 24 April 1880, Page 3

"WE TRAGEDIANS."

A Stjphbcixiotjs Way of Looking at Dramatic Things. The following delicious bit of humor, by Mr Arthur Mathison, was printed in " The Stage Door," recently published in London, and containing contributions from many literary and theatrical lights : " Well, what if I am only a banner-bearer ? There's bigger blokes than me what begun as ' supes,' an' eee where they be got to. Why don't I get there ? 'Cause I ain't never had the chance. You just let me get a ' speaking part' as soots me, that'a all. Oh! it 'would be all,' eh? Why—but there ! you're a baby in the purfession ! you are ! When you've been Oapting of the Guard, and Third Noble, and a Bandit Keerousin, and First Hancient Bard, and fourth in the Council of Ten what listens to Otheller, and the Mob in the Capital, and a Harcher of Merry England, and a Peer of Prance what doesn't speak but has to look as if he could say a lot—when you're been all this, you may talk! I needn't be offended ? All rieht, old pal, I ain't. Though I was 'urt when that utilerty cove said as I was only a banner-bearer. ' Only !' Why, I should like to know where <hey'd be without ua—all them old spoutin' tragedy merchants! They'd have no armies ; consequently they couldn't rave at 'em, and lead 'em on to victory and things. They wouldn't 've no Sennites; so they'd 'ave to cut out their potent, grave, and reverent seniors— an' that _'nd worry'em. They wouldn't 'ave no hexcited citizens ; and so they couldn't bury old Ctesar, nor praise him neither. They couldn't Btrew no fields with no dead soldiers. They'd have nobody to chivy 'em when they eome to the throne, or returned from the wars. They couldn't 'ave no processions ; as for balls, and parties, and tornemongs, why, they couldn't give 'em. And where'd thay_often be without the 'distant ollerings' behind the scenes alius' a-comin' nearer and louder ? Why, I remember a 'eavy lead one night, as had insulted his army fearful at rehearsal; he stops sudden, and thumps his breastplate, and says: ' 'Ark, that

toomult! * when there warn't no more toorault than two flies 'ud make in a milk-jug. We jest out>ff his toomult, and quered his pitch in a minnit, for the laugh came in 'ot. We're just as much wanted as they are, make no error. " They could do without me in the modden drarmer ? The modden drarmer, my boy, ain't actin'! It's nothing but ' cuff-shootin'.' You just has to stand against a mankel-shelf with your hands in Poole's pockets, and say nothing elegantly. You don't want no chestnotes ; you don't want no aotion ; you don't want no excitement; you don't want no lungp, no heart and no brain ; only lungs an' soda, heart an'potash, brain an'selrer. Everything's dilooted, my boy, for the modden drarmer, and the old school, an' the old kostumes, 'ud bust the sides, and roof, too, of the swell bandboxes where they does the new school and the new kostumes. P'r'aps I'm right ? Of course I'm right; and I'm in earnest, too ! Why, my hoy, if they was to offer me an engagement as a 'gutst' in one of them cuffahootin' plays, and ask me to go on in evening dress, I'm blest if I wouldn't ' throw up the part.' Trousers and wite ties cramp me. I wants a suit o* mail an' a 'alberd ; a toonic, and my legs free; a dagger in my teeth—not a toothpick ; a battle-ax in my 'and—not a cruch. I likes to be led to viotory, I does, I likes to storm castles, and trampel on the foe, I does. I likes to hang our banners on the outward walls, I does. I'm a borne banner-bearer, I am, and I glories in it. No, my boy ! none of your milk-and-water ' guests' and such, for the like of me! An', if I was the Lord Chambermaid, I'd perhibit the modden drarmer altogether. Them's my sentiments. If he don't perhibit it, actin' ull soon be modden'd out o' existence ; an' we shall 'ave Macbeth in a two-guinea tourist suit, _ Looy the Eleventh in knickerbockers, on a bisykel. It's the old banner-bearing school as got us all our big actors, an' it stands to reason my boy : for a cove cant spred hisself in a frookcoat and droring-room langwidge. They're both on 'em too tame for what I calls real actin'."