can sing but won't sing" more complying, and willing to yield to
the wishes and request of managers and audiences, the writer has never
entertained a doubt. The ways and means of effecting such an object, he
will not take upon himself to devise or advise, but will merely state a
fact which probably may induce some one to enter upon a thorough
examination of the subject, and suggest the remedy. Upon one occasion,
when the Havannah troupe was performing in Philadelphia, and a favorite
tenor had been amusing himself by trifling with the public, until the
patience of that forbearing portion of mankind was entirely exhausted;
the treasury was beginning to fall extremely low, and the wearied out
director was well nigh driven to desperation. In this critical juncture
of affairs, the gentleman who was the legal adviser of the troupe was
applied to, to say whether there was not some compulsory process known
to the law, by which the refractory tenor could be brought to a
recognition of the right of the rest of the company to the use of his
voice to attract large audiences, and thereby replenish the empty
coffers of the treasury. Upon answer that there existed no such process,
the distracted director muttered a few maledictions upon our country,
with a sneer at our _free institutions_, and informed the astonished
counsellor, that in Havannah, when the tenor was supposed to be feigning
sickness, the proper authorities were resorted to for the right of an
examination of the offending party by a physician, and a certificate of
the state of his health. Upon the physician certifying that the signor
was able to go through his role, a few _gendarmes_ were dispatched to
seize the delinquent and take such means as would sooner coerce him into
a compliance with the stipulations of his professional contract.

[Illustration]

Every reasonable excuse, however, should be made for the necessity the
tenor is under to be careful of the delicate organ whereby he gains his
subsistence. When we reflect how many of these poor fellows lose their
voices and are consequently driven to throw themselves on the cold
charity of the public--or out of the window, we must be struck with the
inhumanity which would be exercised if this professional singer were
excluded from enjoying occasionally by permission, what every clergyman
in the land can always claim as a right--the disease which the Hibernian
servant expressively denominated "the brown gaiters in the t