The rigid conventionality of the theatre has been frequently
remarked upon. Why the world should ever fear a radical, indeed,
is hard to see, since he has against him the whole dead weight of
society; but least of all need the radical be dreaded in the
theatre. When the average person pays money for his amusements,
he is little inclined to be pleased with something which doesn't
amuse him: and what amuses him, nine times out of ten, is what
has amused him. That is why changes in the theatre are relatively
slow, and customs long prevail, even till it seems they may
corrupt the theatrical world.

For many generations in our playhouse it was the custom to follow
the long play of the evening with an "afterpiece," generally in
one act, but always brief, and almost always gay, if not
farcical. Audiences, which in the early days assembled before
seven o'clock, had to be sent home happy. After the tragedy, the
slap-stick or the loud guffaw; after "Romeo and Juliet," Cibber's
"Hob in the Well"; after "King Lear," "The Irish Widow." (These
two illustrations are taken at random from the programs of the
Charleston theatre in 1773.) This custom persisted until
comparatively recent times. The fathers and mothers of the
present generation can remember when William Warren, at the
Boston Museum, would turn of an evening from such a part as his
deep-hearted Sir Peter Teazle to the loud and empty vociferations
of a Morton farce. The entertainment in those days would hardly
have been considered complete without the "afterpiece," or, as
time went on, sometimes the "curtain raiser." It is by no means
certain that theatre seats were always cheaper than to-day. In
some cases, certainly, they were relatively quite as high. But it
is certain that you got more for your money. You frequently saw