For the evolution of the theatre has been very gradual. No great departure has been made on the boards since the playgoer was taught to demand accuracy of detail in staging. That was effected by the Bancrofts in the sixties. Managers have since their day “gone one better” in the cost of a production, in the gorgeousness of scenery and properties, in the numerical force of their stage crowds. But nothing since their production has been more appropriately acted and staged than the Robertson series of comedies. And no reproduction—whatever it may have cost—has proved an artistic advance on the Bancroft presentation of the “School for Scandal.” We have better theatres, and we have more of them. The comfort of the auditorium has been immeasurably increased. The space devoted to the stage by our newspapers has quadrupled. The playgoing public has grown enormously. But the playgoer has been marking time all the while. And the dramatist, in this particular respect, has been following the brilliant example of the playgoer. But if the drama has ceased to show itself progressive, if, according to some, it even exhibits symptoms of decadence, the evolution of the music-hall has been that of recovery, progress, and reform. The music hall has risen “on stepping-stones of its dead self to higher things.” And only those who can recall the utter unloveliness of that “dead self” can properly appreciate the privileges accorded to the patrons of the halls and palaces as they are conducted in this present year of grace. To begin with, no woman of the period with which I am dealing, with any regard for her reputation, would think of entering one of these places of entertainment. She would run the inevitable risk of being affronted by the patrons of the hall, and being outraged by the words and gestures of the performers on the stage. Phryne swarmed in the auditorium—poor soul!—and by the bars lounged or swaggered the shameless males, Jew and Gentile of his kind, who lived on the exploitation of female beauty. The smaller halls, such as the Pavilion (it was a small hall in those days); the Trocadero, which rose on the ruins of the Argyll Rooms, and was run by old Bob Bignell; the Oxford in Oxford Street; and Weston’s in Holborn—all were hot, ill-ventilated, and stuffy interiors; and the moral atmosphere was as warm as the physical.