The city of Charlottesville, in its downtown parts, is no more and no less dingy and dismal than many another town of six or seven thousand inhabitants, be it North or South. It has a long main street, lined with little shops and moving-picture shows, and the theatrical posters which thrill one at first sight with hopes of evening entertainment, prove, on inspection, to have survived long after the "show" they advertise has come and gone, or else to presage the "show" that is coming for one night, week after next. Nor is this scarcity of theatrical entertainment confined alone to small towns of the South. Not all important stars and important theatrical productions visit even the largest cities, for the South is not regarded by theatrical managers as particularly profitable territory. It would be interesting to know whether anaemia of the theater in the South, as well as the falling off generally of theatergoing in lesser American cities--usually attributed to the popularity and cheapness of the "movies"--is not due in large measure to the folly of managers themselves in sending out inferior companies. Any one who has seen a theatrical entertainment in New York and seen it later "on the road" is likely to be struck by the fact that even the larger American cities do not always get the full New York cast, while smaller cities seldom if ever get any part of it. The South suffers particularly in this respect. The little "river shows," which arrive now and then in river towns, and which are more or less characteristic of the South, have the excuse of real picturesqueness, however bad the entertainment given, for the players live and have their theater on flatboats, which tie up at the wharf. But the plain fact about the ordinary little southern "road show" is that it does not deserve to make money. The life of a poor player touring the South must be very wretched, for generally, excepting in large cities, hotels are poor. Before we had gone far upon our way, my companion and I learned to inquire carefully in advance as to the best hotels, and when we found in any small city one which was not a fire trap, and which was clean, we were surprised, while if the service was fairly good, and the meals were not very bad, we considered it a matter for rejoicing. We were advised to stop, in Charlottesville, at the New Gleason, and when we alighted at the dingy old brick railroad station--a station quite as unprepossessing as that at New Haven, Connecticut--we began to feel that all was not for the best. A large gray horse hitched to the hack in which we rode to the Gleason evidently felt the same, for at first he balked, and later tried to run away.