THEATRE-HYGIENE. 521 



Similarly in the auditorium, scenic illusion is well-nigh 

 impossible to a spectator the martyr of a seat much too small to 

 sit upon, a drauirlit from some ill-titting door presumably closed, 

 • playing the harbinger of a long doctor's bill, and an atmospliere 

 of so stuffy and contaminated a nature as to threaten imminent 

 suffocation, in addition to the several lesser evils existing on every 

 side in an ill-constructed and badly-titted place of entertainment. 

 The public have only themselves to blame sometimes, as on the 

 disturbance consequent upon certain of the spectators entering 

 after the connnencement, or leaving before the completion of an 

 act. As in all other walks of life, so here in the histrionic, the 

 individual becomes ultimately more or less imbued witli the ideas 

 and sentiments peculiar to tlie exercise of his profession. Such 

 people as Garrick, Mrs. Siddons, and several others have borne 

 ample testimony of tlie obscure yet certainly recognisable changes 

 in the moral tone and character which slowly but surely follow on 

 in the wake of self-deception which the actor in the earnest fulfil- 

 ment of his duties has so continually and repeatedly to play. 

 George Combe, in his ti'eatise on Education, states tlie case very 

 clearly thus : " One effect of the constant practice of players in 

 calling up and exhibiting the natural language of the feelings, is to 

 render some faculties habitually prone to action in themselves in 

 private life. The great tragedian, who may be said to wield a 

 magician's power over the propensities and sentiments of his 

 audience by means of natural language, suffers in his own mind 

 many tragic feelings from the trained acti^■ity of his organs. 

 Many are irritable in consequence of the trained action of com- 

 bativeness, destructiveness, and self-esteem — the stock elements of 

 heroic and tragic characters. They are often melancholy and 

 desponding from the trained action of cautiousness, which furnishes 

 tl;e perturbed and distracted countenance, the horror-stricken look, 

 the shriek of despaii', and sometimes the madness that petrify us 

 when represented on the stage. The higher sentiments and in- 

 tellect of the actor may govern his deportment in public, so that 

 his general acquaintances may not observe these etlects ; but the 

 close spectator recognises them, and the actor confesses and laments 

 them to his Ijosom friend." 



This physical influence of acting upon the actor has a very 

 important bearing in connection with the employment of children 

 on the stage. For, granting the possibility of certain significant 

 changes arising in a nature fully matured, there is every prospect 

 of these taking strange and deeper root in a character still 

 developing and adolescent. Recognising, therefore, how easily a 

 child's education might be tampered with, it becomes a momentous 

 question whetlier juveniles sliould Ije permitted to undergo a his- 

 trionic training at all, and this (juite independently of stage 

 morality, &c. If the children are to be permitted, it would be 

 well for the law to step in and enforce some form of apprenticeship 



