London Theater Touts

You have scarcely put your nose insido a theater before you are seized upon and called to stand and deliver. First it is your coat. Men and women rush after you and pester you for your coat. They would rejoice if all were foolish enough to yield to their importúnate demanda, and risk colds, coughs, influenza and bronchitis for the rest of their natural life. Why, it is inadness to venture into the stalls without a draft protector Modern theaters are so constructed tha tliey are mere draft traps. If yon are seated near the door yon ris' a stiff neck. Yon inust wrap your cloa around you and be careful to protec your legs frorn the blasts of wind tha pour in f rom every crack and canny. I you are in the center of the stalls, a many theaters directly the curtain is raised a tornado of wind rushes across the footlights and catches you by th throat. I often think that women ar mad who venture into theaters with low dresses in winter time. It is bad enong] for men. And yet these attendants get quite of fended if we do not leave behind us th only gannents that will protect us fron 6udden death. Remember that no om is free from the theater highwaymen Even those who go in with orders canno get out of the cloakroom or programmi tax. At last they must pay. I remember once croirtíc into i theater with a fricad who luid a keen sense of the hl dicrous. I think it rnust have been W S. Grilbert. It was a morning perfonn anee and he was attacked in the usua way: "Coat, sir!" "What do you want with it'.-" "To take it oít." " Very well," he murmured innocently. The liighwayman prepared to strip off bis coat, and behold! iay friend, who had prepared for the dodge, walkec away in bis shirt sleeves! He had only put on his overcoat, with nothing underneath it. Unconcërned he was preparing to enter the stalls coatless, when the attendant rnshed after him. "Look here, sir, you mnst not go into tbe stalls like that!" "Why not?" he asked with a bland and innocent air. "You asked for my coat. You have got it. What more can you want?" The coat and cloak fiends having been disposed of , you encounter the second rank of touts. Now it is a programme for which you must pay. They insolently bar your passage. They dun vou and din into your ears, "Programme, sir!" It is not a civil request to know if 3011 would like a programme or not, bnt a deraand with an implied threat. The implication is that yon are a stingy person, who has no right to be seen in the stalls. ■ But this is not all. Hoving gone through the first easy stages of theatrical pnigatory, you are worried all the evening with ice sellers and chocolate vendors and stale cake providers. If you are in the stalls, safely wrapped up from the drafts, these touts edge in between the very narrow and uncomfortable stalls and generally make hay. They tread on your toes, they disturb the little nest you have made, they make havoc with the ladies' back hair, pnlling out confiding hairpins and crushing the reBult of the maid's handiwork. They don't care if they dig you in the eye with an ice tray or powder you with the ref use of spouge cake or bury you under chocolate boses. Their duty is to make as much money as possible f or the speculating contract;or. It is not their fanlt, poor things. They all get a commission on their wares and it is their dutv to tont. -