184 Among Men and Horses. 



the same. We all know and admire that accomplished artist 

 Miss Amy Sherwin. On one occasion, she went to Calcutta 

 with a thoroughly capable concert company. The local 

 amateurs approached her with offers of assistance, which she 

 gracefully declined, on the plea that her company was 

 composed of thoroughly capable professionals, whom she was 

 unwilling to slight by replacing them with outsiders. The 

 spite of the amateurs at this very natural rebuff had such a 

 venomous effect through the weak-kneed Calcutta community, 

 that Miss Sherwin ' opened ' to an audience of about two 

 dozen in number, most of whom were ' paper.' Rendered 

 sage by this reverse, she consented to allow the pick of the 

 amateur basket to sing at her next concert The chosen 

 lady, as amateurs will do, attacked one of Sullivan's most 

 difficult songs, and, probably, to show her thorough mastery 

 of it, sang it through her teeth, with the result that the 

 majority of the audience almost rolled off their seats in fits of 

 laughter. As Miss Sherwin was unwilling to continue this 

 comic business, she packed up her properties and went to 

 Shanghai, where she and her company had a most enthusi- 

 astic reception. Not content with loading her with dollars, 

 the good people of ' The Model Settlement ' presented her 

 with a very handsome testimonial. The Indian amateur does 

 not usually believe in acting for charity beyond his or her 

 home. And yet, when they deliberately ' go for the pieces ' 

 in the shape of drinks, suppers and dresses, they are insulted 

 beyond measure if their pseudo amateur status be not regarded 

 by the press as a bar against adverse criticism. Even the 

 thickest layer of butter is sometimes insufficient to satisfy the 

 hunger after praise which afflicts the Indian amateur. As an 

 instance of this, I may mention that Mr Rudyard Kipling 

 told me that wishing to make things pleasant in a report he 

 was writing on some amateur theatricals for an Indian paper, 

 he, trying how far he could go, said that the leading lady 

 (who really was a ' stick ' of the most wooden sort), by her 

 marvellously fine acting, reminded him of Miss Ellen Terry. 



