ts the scale agreed
upon was: Boxes, seven shillings; pit, three shillings; galleries, two
shillings and one shilling; with half-price at nine o'clock. In later
times these charges have been considerably reduced. Half price has
been generally abolished, however, and many rows of the pit have been
converted into stalls at seven or ten shillings each. Altogether, it
may perhaps be held that in Western London, although theatrical
entertainments have been considerably cheapened, they still tax the
pockets of playgoers more severely than need be.

Country managers would seen to have ruled their scale of charges in
strict accordance with the means of their patrons; to have been
content, indeed, with anything they could get from the provincial
playgoers. Mr. Bernard, the actor, in his "Retrospections," makes
mention of a strolling manager, once famous in the north of England
and in Ireland, and known popularly as Jemmy Whitely, who, in
impoverished districts, was indifferent as to whether he received the
public support in money or "in kind." It is related of him that he
would take meat, fowl, vegetables, &c., and pass in the owner and
friends for as many admissions as the food was worth. Thus very often
on a Saturday his treasury resembled a butcher's warehouse, rather
than a banker's. At a village on the coast the inhabitants brought him
nothing but fish; but as the company could not subsist without its
concomitants of bread, potatoes, and spirits, a general appeal was
made to his stomach and sympathies, and some alteration in the terms
of admission required. Jemmy, accordingly, after admitting nineteen
persons one evening for a shad apiece, stopped the twentieth, and
said, "I beg your pardon, my darling, I am extremely sorry to refuse
you; but if we eat any more fish, by the powers, we shall all be
turned into mermaids!"

A famous provincial manager, or "manageress," was one Mrs. Baker,
concerning whom curious particulars are related in the "Memoirs of
Thomas Dibdin," and in the "Life of Grimaldi, the Clown." The lady
owned theatres at Canterbury, Rochester, Maidstone, Tunbridge Wells,
Faversham, Deal, and other places, but was understood to have
commenced her professional career in connection with a puppet-show, or
even the homely entertainment of Punch and Judy. But her industry,
energy, and enterprise were of an indomitable kind. She generally
lived in her theatres, and rising early to accomplish her marketing
and othe