"our theater." They find a certain advantage in attending one theater
regularly, for the _habitués_ are often invited to come upon the stage
on "amateur nights," which occur at least once a week in all the
theaters. This is, of course, a most exciting experience. If the
"stunt" does not meet with the approval of the audience, the performer
is greeted with jeers and a long hook pulls him off the stage; if, on
the other hand, he succeeds in pleasing the audience, he may be paid
for his performance and later register with a booking agency, the
address of which is supplied by the obliging manager, and thus he
fancies that a lucrative and exciting career is opening before him.
Almost every night at six o'clock a long line of children may be seen
waiting at the entrance of these booking agencies, of which there are
fifteen that are well known in Chicago.

Thus, the only art which is constantly placed before the eyes of "the
temperamental youth" is a debased form of dramatic art, and a vulgar
type of music, for the success of a song in these theaters depends not
so much upon its musical rendition as upon the vulgarity of its
appeal. In a song which held the stage of a cheap theater in Chicago
for weeks, the young singer was helped out by a bit of mirror from
which she threw a flash of light into the faces of successive boys
whom she selected from the audience as she sang the refrain, "You are
my Affinity." Many popular songs relate the vulgar experiences of a
city man wandering from amusement park to bathing beach in search of
flirtations. It may be that these "stunts" and recitals of city
adventure contain the nucleus of coming poesy and romance, as the
songs and recitals of the early minstrels sprang directly from the
life of the people, but all the more does the effort need help and
direction, both in the development of its technique and the material
of its themes.