BENEFITS.
When an actor, a manager, or any one else connected or uncon- nected with the theatres, sets about getting up a benefit, his first object is to gain the good word of the journals. A puff—whether slily manufactured by a penny-a-line man, or emanating from a day-tall critic, or even, it may be, from the good nature of the editor—is more read, and tells better than any advertisement ; and this the binificiare well knows. Such a notice is generally secured by a present of tickets in proportion to the value of the entertain- ment. We might defend our noticing this trick of the craft, on the ground that it constitutes no part of our own practice ; but a Sunday contemporary of last week has rendered any delicacy unnecessary, by frankly vowing that he would not criticize an entertainment because he had received but a single admission.
Previous page
