Dryden was the first dramatic author who wrote a programme of his piece (‘The Indian Emperor’), and distributed it at the playhouse door. Barton Booth, the original ‘Cato,’ drew 50_l._ a year for writing out the daily bills for the printer. In still earlier days, theatrical announcements were made by sound of drum. The absence of the names of actors in old play-books, perhaps, arose from a feeling which animated French actors as late as 1789, when those of Paris entreated the _maire_ not to compel them to have their names in the ‘Affiche,’ as it might prove detrimental to their interests. Some of our earliest announcements only name the piece, and state that it will be acted by ‘all the best members of the company, now in town.’ There was a fashion, which only expired about a score or so of years ago, as the curtain was descending at the close of the five-act piece, which was always played first, an actor stepped forward, and when the curtain separated him from his fellows, he gave out the next evening’s performance, and retired, bowing, through one of the doors which always then stood, with brass knockers on them, upon the stage. The average expenses of Drury Lane Theatre at Christmas-tide, when there are extra performances, amount to nearly 1,500_l._ per week. The rent paid is reckoned at 4,500_l._ for two hundred nights of acting, and only 5_l._ per night for all performances beyond that number. About 160_l._ must be in the house before the lessees can begin to reckon on any profit. In old times, the presence of royalty made a great difference in the receipts. On February 12, 1777,I find from the books that the ‘Jealous Wife,’ and ‘Neck or Nothing,’ were played. An entry is added that ‘the king and queen were present,’ and the result is registered under the form, ‘receipts 245_l._ 9_s._ 6_d._, a hundred pounds more than the previous night.’ The number of children engaged in a pantomime at Drury Lane generally exceeds two hundred. The girls are more numerous than the boys. It is a curious fact that in engaging these children the manager prefers the quiet and dull to the smart and lively. Your smart lad and girl are given to ‘larking’ and thinking of their own cleverness. The quiet and dull are more ‘teachable,’ and can be made to seem lively without flinging off discipline. These little creatures are thus kept from the streets; many of them are sons and daughters of persons employed in the house, and their shilling a night and a good washing tells pleasantly in many a humble household, to which, on Saturday nights, they contribute their wages and clean faces. It was for a clever body of children of this sort that _benefits_ were first established in France in 1747. In England they date from Elizabeth Barry, on whose behalf the first was given, by order of James the Second.