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293 
THE MUSICIAN ABOUT TOWN. 
Tue triennial festivals for the three choirs of Worcester, Glou- 
cester, and Hereford, have for some years past turned out to be little 
better than an expensive as well as troublesome office to those resi- 
dent gentry who liberally engage to undertake the duties of stewards : 
for in striking the balance between the receipts and the expenditure 
it is almost invariably found that the stewards have a large sum to 
make up among them, in order to meet the deficiencies. This was 
the case after the Gloucester meeting, held in September last, al- 
though the only festival of the year. One of the principal reasons 
advanced for these defalcations (and every one acknowledges its 
plausibility) is, the ridiculously disproportioned sums that are given 
to the foreign artists who happen to be the favourites of the season 
at the Italian Opera, three of whom would swallow up the engage- 
ments of two hundred efficient chorus singers. The reputed sum 
paid to Grisi alone at Gloucester was equal to that received by one 
hundred of the chorus, coming from London, and who were to lodge 
and feed themselves for a week, at a season, too, when both those 
necessaries of life are always at a premium. The presence of those 
eminent artists is, doubtless, a source of great attraction upon such 
an occasion, but it is questionable whether their influence is so 
powerful since the more intimate intercourse of the resident gentry 
with the metropolis ; who, be it remembered, can and do hear them 
at considerably greater advantage in their own arena—the Italian 
Opera House. They of the neighbourhood where the festival is 
held, to whom such a singer as Grisi would be the greatest novelty, 
are precluded from the gratification of hearing her on account of 
the high prices for admission to the performances. If the second- 
class seats were let upon lower terms, or if there were a third divi- 
sion for the audience at—say five shillings each ticket, it is scarcely 
to be believed that the second-class seats would be more deserted 
than they now are, while numbers of the townspeople and small 
tradesmen who, under the present system, will gratify themselves 
by one performance only, would then subscribe to the whole series. 
We know that there is a little aristocratic check which has hitherto 
prevented the stewards of these festivals from admitting ‘“ the lower 
orders,” and this feeling is, in every sense, an unworthy one. They 
are associated with their plebeian neighbours every Sunday that 
they hear service in the cathedral ; and we all know that they can 
waive this fastidiousness when, upon olher occasions, the co-opera- 
