fault with their plays, have destroyed the last vestige of faith
which the public has placed in dramatic criticism .” The advertiser in his turn is offended by adverse criticism .
Bussey relates that many years ago the proprietor of a Brighton
theater did a good printing business in addition , and if a theatri cal company visited Brighton and did not order its bills and posters from him , their performances were not likely to be
favorably criticized. On one such occasion , he wrote a severe criticism of the part of the leading actor. But illness compelled a change of piece at the last moment. The printer's apprentice
filched a proof and gave it to themanager who read from the stage the notice of the piece that had not been played . The editor did
not know till morning what had happened , and by that time the whole of the week 's issue had been put in circulation.126 It is to-day the fear of the advertiser that is the skeleton in the closet of the dramatic critic .127 Kenneth Macgowan says that
not more than half a dozen newspapers east of the Mississippi give their dramatic critics a free hand or protect him “ from cor ruption by innuendo as well as intimidation." And he gives a long list of instances where the dramatic critic of a newspaper
has been its advertising solicitor; where in the salary of the dramatic critic is figured a percentage on the receipts from theatrical advertising; where the dramatic editor inspects the list of Sunday advertisers before making up the advertising page; where the dramatic critic is required to write a fixed num
ber of lines about every new opening,paying for a corresponding size ofadvertisement;where notice is sent to a theatricalmanager, “ if you will send on Saturday full copy for our paper, we will be glad to help your show along when it opens;" where the weekly notices from a large theater bear the penciled message, " 30 line 126 H . F . Bussey, Sixty Years of Journalism , pp. 40-41. Catling says that “ The nineteenth century saw the development of another curious custom : newspaper proprietors printing their own press
tickets , with which some dozen or more persons were sent to a theatre each night. . . . This system was in use when I commenced in the sixties .
Charles Mathews and Benjamin Webster at length protested against it, and it gradually fell into disuse.” — My Life 's Pilgrimage, p . 356 . 127 The minute book of the London Globe for April 4 , 1827, directed that
" admission tickets for places of entertainment be as much as possible at the command of those who advertise most largely and steadily .” — J. C . Francis, Notes by the Way, pp . 180 - 181.
