"TRIAL BY JURY." AMUSING SCENES.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIX, Issue 12, 15 January 1910, Page 10

"TRIAL BY JURY." AMUSING SCENES.

On- a recent evening, at the Victoria Hall, "Waterloo-road, London — the old "Vie" of transpontine melodrama — there -was a scene so outrageously funny and frightfully pathetic that one slobbered tears of mirth and pity. It was the "Encore" competition of' variety artists who have not played a full week at a London hall, and of many who faced the footlights for the first .time. They came betore the public to exhibit new talent and to get their : chance. They asked for the verdict of the house — and they got it. It was a trial by jury (says a Daily reporter), and the jury was •made up of a vast audience of fche pit and gallery boys of the Surrey side, and with the elite of the Waterloo-road in the stalls. There was no mistaking this popular 'verdict. As each performer came upon the stage his, or her, fate was quickly decided. A minute's silence, followed by rounds of applause, by a chorus thundered out by "the gods," or an accompaniment whistled by hundreds of birds in bowler hats, denoted a triumphant acquittal, and the defendant was despatched without a stain upon his, or her, character. But, as it often, happened, a minute's -•grace was not given. Long before that the house- was rocked by a storm. There was a hissing as of a thousand geese. Some one was "getting the bird." Groans and waitings came, as from souls in agony. Diabolical laughter and shrill shrieks of merriment split one's ears. The gallery boys whistled and stamped, made the strangest and most hideous noises, sang ballads of their own, and yelled derisively — until some comic man with a red nose and a whits face, Bomt buxom lady with short skirts, some curly-headed youth with an heroic recitation, fled to the wings, condemned. CRUELTY IN LAUGHTER. Irresistible as it was, there was cruelty •in one's laughter. To some of these people on the stage the verdict meant very much — the fulfilment or disappointment of hope long cherished, a chance of success or the same old failure again, good wages or pitiful poverty, flattered vanity or wounded pride. Some of them 'defied their fate and •sang on, although there was a babel of noise. Some of them had to be led gently away by the stout young geritle•man who put up the numbers. Some of them who had come in smiling went tout with sad eyes. There was no pity in the house, only a stern sense of justice and overflowing humour. Yet many_ of the turns were received with enthusiasm, and once again one saw how the great heart of the public palpitates with sentiment. A blind musician, who sang comic songs and laughed with sightless eyes, received a storm of applause. Some smart young fellows won the heart of the house by a "patriotic" display of cutlass drill, single-stick, and quarter-staff. A clog dancer set every heel and to© tip-tapping on the bare boards, a pretty girl who sang sentimental ballads stirred the manly bosoms of the boys in bowlers ; a man who 'sobbed in tremolo on a big bassoon and played marfcfoS blasts upon a bugle was cheered as a hero. But again the cat-calls came, and the shouts of uncontrollable mirth, and one more artist "got the bird" and fled before the hissing of it.