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fault with their plays, have destroyed the last vestige of faith

which the public has placed in dramatic criticism .” The advertiser in his turn is offended by adverse criticism.

Bussey relates that many years ago the proprietor of a Brighton

theater did a good printing business in addition, and if a theatri cal company visited Brighton and did not order its bills and posters from him, their performances were not likely to be

favorably criticized. On one such occasion, he wrote a severe criticism of the part of the leading actor. But illness compelled a change of piece at the last moment. The printer's apprentice

filched a proof and gave it to themanager who read from the stage the notice of the piece that had not been played. The editor did

not know till morning what had happened, and by that time the whole of the week 's issue had been put in circulation.126 It is to-day the fear of the advertiser that is the skeleton in the closet of the dramatic critic .127 Kenneth Macgowan says that

not more than half a dozen newspapers east of the Mississippi give their dramatic critics a free hand or protect him “ from cor ruption by innuendo as well as intimidation." And he gives a long list of instances where the dramatic critic of a newspaper

has been its advertising solicitor; where in the salary of the dramatic critic is figured a percentage on the receipts from theatrical advertising; where the dramatic editor inspects the list of Sunday advertisers before making up the advertising page; where the dramatic critic is required to write a fixed num

ber of lines about every new opening,paying for a corresponding size ofadvertisement;where notice is sent to a theatricalmanager, “ if you will send on Saturday full copy for our paper, we will be glad to help your show along when it opens;" where the weekly notices from a large theater bear the penciled message, " 30 line 126 H. F. Bussey, Sixty Years of Journalism, pp. 40-41. Catling says that “ The nineteenth century saw the development of another curious custom : newspaper proprietors printing their own press

tickets, with which some dozen or more persons were sent to a theatre each night. . . . This system was in use when I commenced in the sixties.

Charles Mathews and Benjamin Webster at length protested against it, and it gradually fell into disuse.” — My Life 's Pilgrimage, p. 356 . 127 The minute book of the London Globe for April 4, 1827, directed that

" admission tickets for places of entertainment be as much as possible at the command of those who advertise most largely and steadily .” — J. C . Francis, Notes by the Way, pp . 180 - 181.