The business organization of the Chinese theater is the same as that which obtained in Elizabethan playhouses. Our theater owner-manager of to-day who selects a play, determines the manner in which it is to be staged and played, and then engages actors to do what he pays them for—this enemy of real art and _bête noire_ of the theater uplifters can be found neither in Elizabethan England nor in the Chinese theater. In staging and acting the company of players has entire freedom in China, just as it had in London. The theater-owner (quite like the “housekeeper” of Shakespeare’s day) engages a troupe to play in his theater, but he never dreams of interfering with the actor’s art. The Chinese call him the “behind-the-curtain” while the actors are the “before-the-curtain.” The former receives thirty per cent. of the income, while seventy per cent, goes to the manager of the company, who then pays the salaries of his actors. Some of these troupes or actors’ clubs are of a rather democratic nature, because all the actors belong to their guild. The actors’ guild has its special temple just outside the Hata Gate, for the actors are religious folk—much as are the members of most guilds in China. In this temple the actors worship three deities, or rather deified men. The first of these is Kuan Yu (Yo Fei), the god of war, during his lifetime a great fighter against the Chin Tartars in the course of the twelfth century. There is a well-known play that sets forth the high qualities of this hero. Though he had been dismissed by the emperor as the result of a court intrigue, yet he refused to join the rebels, no matter how tempting the offers they made him, but remained loyal to his emperor. His mother was so pleased at this that she tattooed on his back: “He repays the state with loyalty and integrity.” Later on the emperor reinstated him in his high honors and placed his mother’s inscription on the banner of the army.[22]