Indeed everybody connected with the theatrical
profession suffers in reputation from the detestable tradition of
such places, against which the censorship has proved quite
useless.
Here we have a strong case for applying either the licensing
system or whatever better means may be devized for securing the
orderly conduct of houses of public entertainment, dramatic or
other. Liberty must, no doubt, be respected in so far that no
manager should have the right to refuse admission to decently
dressed, sober, and well-conducted persons, whether they are
prostitutes, soldiers in uniform, gentlemen not in evening
dress, Indians, or what not; but when disorder is stopped,
disorderly persons will either cease to come or else reform their
manners. It is, however, quite arguable that the indiscriminate
issue of free admissions, though an apparently innocent and good-
natured, and certainly a highly popular proceeding, should expose
the proprietor of the theatre to the risk of a refusal to renew
his licence.
WHY THE MANAGERS DREAD LOCAL CONTROL
All this points to the transfer of the control of theatres from
the Lord Chamberlain to the municipality. And this step is
opposed by the long-run managers, partly because they take it for
granted that municipal control must involve municipal censorship
of plays, so that plays might be licensed in one town and
prohibited in the next, and partly because, as they have no
desire to produce plays which are in advance of public opinion,
and as the Lord Chamberlain in every other respect gives more
scandal by his laxity than trouble by his severity, they find in
the present system a cheap and easy means of procuring a
certificate which relieves them of all social responsibility, and
provides them with so strong a weapon of defence in case of a
prosecution that it acts in practice as a bar to any such
proceedings.
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