The species that lately has been attacked is divisible into two groups. The first consists of the people who will not go to the theatre without an order, but do not expect first-night tickets--one may call them the "cadgers." The second species might be entitled the "window-dressers." Volumes have been written about the "cadgers," and countless stories told. No doubt they cause trouble and some expense in stamps, stationery and clerical work. Probably they do not really affect the fate of a piece, for there seems no reason to doubt the truth of the general assertion, that nearly all of them would stay away if they could not get a ticket for nothing.
Now we come to the really lamentable class, people who have to be brought into a theatre "with a lassoo," to use an American term. Let us look at the position--the melancholy position. The play is not quite a hopeless failure; it is in a Mahomet's coffin position. If it can last a little longer the season may improve and money be made; or it is neither making nor losing on ordinary nights and does paying business on Saturdays. There is a third state of affairs--perhaps the commonest: it is necessary to keep the piece running for a certain number of weeks, even at a loss, in order that it may visit the provinces and the colonies or the States as a big London success that has enjoyed a long run. Yet paying playgoers keep aloof.
What is the manager to do? If his house is but half full the applause will be faint, the players are likely to act without spirit, and, worse still, the audience may be chilled, and the members of it will tell their friends that the house was almost empty, thereby causing them to think that the entertainment is poor. So half full might become quite empty. What method does the manager adopt? He knows that the general public is as uncritical of an audience as of a play or of acting, so he fills his house as well as he can with the very deadest of deadheads; "orders" are distributed lavishly to people whose presence in the theatre is actually a favour to the management.
It is said that these playgoers are peculiarly severe in their judgments and remarkably apathetic! To the truth of part of this we can testify, since we study such deadheads with great curiosity on the occasions, rather rare, when we see them, for sometimes a dramatic critic gets taken to the theatre by a friend. We think ourselves very famous, yet most of us have friends ignorant of the fact that our trade is to criticize plays. The position is a little quaint; one is asked to dine at about the time that is customary to take afternoon tea; the dinner is short though, if at a fashionable restaurant, the waits are long; and there comes an awful moment when the host mentions that he has got six stalls for the ----. Generally there is some friend present who knows the true position, and exhibits a smile of fiendish mirth.