ns possible.

There is now an effort being made by a few of the London managers to
pay a percentage on salaries for rehearsing. The movement, I think, is
partially due to the Insurance Act, which, of course, touches all
the low paid labour in the theatre. This effort, though obviously of
importance, can hardly as yet be considered as quite satisfactory. The
payments for five weeks' rehearsals are 6s. on the L1, 1s. salaries,
which include dancers, walkers-on, etc.: and 12s. 6d. a week on
salaries of L3. In each case, of course, the threepence insurance has
to be deducted, and it must be quite clear that no woman can live on
5s. 9d., much less make a good appearance, unless she has other means
of support.

She may get an engagement to tour for a limited number of weeks. If
so, she gazes in despair at her small wardrobe, trying to puzzle out
three costumes to be used in the play, for actresses going on tour
have usually to provide their own dresses.

A friend of mine played the leading part on the tour of a West
End production. She had to find all her own dresses, hats,
shoes, stockings, etc., and her salary was L3, 10s. a week. In a
"boiled-down" version she played twice nightly for L5 a week, and
found four dresses, two hats, an evening cloak, besides the shoes,
stockings, gloves, etc., incidental to a well dressed part. Another
soubrette on a salary of L2, 5s. paid her fare both on joining and
leaving the company, and was obliged to provide two dresses, one
evening dress and cloak, shoes, stockings, etc.

The average salaries in melodrama are L4 a week, out of which must
be provided many dresses. The "heavy lead" or "adventuress" type,
generally magnificently attired, gets about L3 a week. In London, of
course, in the West End productions, dresses are provided, but the
engagement is not for a definite period as it would be on a tour,
and a curious difficulty arises through this arrangement, since the
actress who has once been beautifully dressed has a natural and
very comprehensible predilection thenceforward to continue to be so
delightfully gowned. Her own opinion as to what a dress should cost
almost invariably, after a London engagement, ceases to be on a level
with what her yearly income should permit. Clothes assume a horrible
importance not known in other trades, since her appearance may mean
her livelihood as a worker; for do we not know of engagements which
have been made when the angle of a hat has exact