me find
insufficient pleasure in them?--for "pleasure" may be used as a term
embracing the first four answers.

A cook, a Frenchwoman, once in the service of a dramatic critic, did not
visit the theatre, and stated as her reason for not caring to do so that
she took no interest in the affairs of other people; and secondly, that
if she went and got moved by the troubles of the _dramatis personae_ the
thought suddenly occurred to her that they were not real persons and
real troubles, and therefore she had wasted her sympathy, wherefore she
was vexed, being an economical creature, so far as sympathy, not butter,
is concerned. On the other hand, she admitted the payment of a number of
visits to Pezon's circus, where they had a lion with a bad reputation,
into whose jaw at every performance a _decolletee_ lady put her painted
head. For the _cordon-bleu_ hoped that the lion would exhibit
disapproval of the paint and powder by chumping off the offending head,
and that would have been frightfully thrilling.

Also she had a grievance because our executions are not public. She
would like to see the murderers _gigoter un peu_; to her that would be
a more sublime spectacle than the most prodigious effects at His
Majesty's.

The papers lately contained accounts of the production at a music-hall
of bioscope pictures of a horrible catastrophe in which many lives were
lost, and stated that they were received with applause from the
spectators, who derived much pleasure from looking at them. The French
wielder of the _bouquet-garni_, in default of more bloodthirsty
entertainment, would be delighted by them. It has often been remarked
that an element of danger in a public performance is an element of
attraction, and that the attraction is in proportion to the danger.
These remarks are not entirely disconnected: they are relevant in
considering the question why people go to the theatre.

For, with all respect to the establishments of the highest class, one
must recognize the fact that there is a family relation between the
noblest theatre and the humblest side-show at a country fair or East End
museum. To be juster, the family relation is not between the things
seen, but between the feelings which prompt people to pay money to see
them.

It is often a mere toss-up whether X, Y or Z goes to a theatre or a
music-hall, or a collection of "side shows" or a boxing-match; and the
only solid wall of demarcation in pleasuredom lies between g