of the theatre to a church, mission hall, school, or other place
of worship, edification, instruction, or entertainment (including
another theatre) would draw the public away from such places into
its own doors.


PREFACE RESUMED

MR. GEORGE ALEXANDER'S PROTEST

On the facts mentioned in the foregoing statement, and in my
evidence before the Joint Select Committee, no controversy arose
except on one point. Mr. George Alexander protested vigorously
and indignantly against my admission that theatres, like public-
houses, need special control on the ground that they can profit
by disorder, and are sometimes conducted with that end in view.
Now, Mr. Alexander is a famous actor-manager; and it is very
difficult to persuade the public that the more famous an actor-
manager is the less he is likely to know about any theatre except
his own. When the Committee of 1892 reported, I was considered
guilty of a perverse paradox when I said that the witness who
knew least about the theatre was Henry Irving. Yet a moment's
consideration would have shown that the paradox was a platitude.
For about quarter of a century Irving was confined night after
night to his own theatre and his own dressing-room, never seeing
a play even there because he was himself part of the play;
producing the works of long-departed authors; and, to the extent
to which his talent was extraordinary, necessarily making his
theatre unlike any other theatre. When he went to the provinces
or to America, the theatres to which he went were swept and