It will have been noticed already how great apart the music-hall and the _cafe chantant_ play in the history of the pictorial poster. Yvette Guilbert has been the cause of a baker's dozen of _affiches_; Anna Thibaud (that charming singer of the songs of Beranger); Anna Held, with her curious manner, and still more curious appearance; Irene Henri, of intense personality; Jane Avril, and May Belfort; to say nothing of Aristide Bruant, of Caudieux, of Paulus, and the rest of the school who have made the music-hall stage of France a matter of no small importance [Illustration: 0191] in her social life, have been favourite subjects of the designers of posters. It has always been held that the career of an actor, in consideration of its evanescence, is not [Illustration: 0193] without a certain pathos. It is true that we remember, through the gossip of their friends, Garrick and Mrs. Siddons, Talma and Rachel, but even these are uncertain phantoms lingering in the haze of memory. Only yesterday they were intensely actual, to-day they are not more real than Burbage and Betterton. After all, the history of the actor's art is not without its immortals. Macaulay's schoolboy could doubtless have related the compliment of Dr. Johnson to Mrs. Siddons: the latest escapade of the great Sarah is the joy of the paragrapher. The music-hall, however, has still no artist in any country (save, perhaps, the unforgettable Yvette) who has much chance of permanent remembrance. But when the toil and moil of existence is ended, when the singer has sung his last song, it may chance that he will be remembered because some collector of such unconsidered trifles as picture posters has placed in his portfolio a work of Cheret or of Lautrec. To turn from the music-halls to the great railway companies is an emphatic transition, and yet the former, no less than the latter have done much to encourage the artist to apply his talent to the _affiche_. The Great Western Railway Company have illustrated at their stations and in their carriages, by means of photography, all that is romantic and interesting in the country through which their line runs. And, again, the great lines of the United States have brought into vogue vast systems of pictorial advertisement. Their opportunity was undoubtedly a magnificent one. For subject [Illustration: 0195] [Illustration: 0197]