Articles on the recent economic depression, the 1873 holiday season, and local theaters

Begins with an optimistic prediction for commerce in New York City owing to the holiday season. “In amusements, we regret that we cannot give assurance of an early resumption of old-time successes. Here and there a fair business is being done, but the ‘bulk of trade’ is against the producer. Every day some ‘one more unfortunate’ drops into the metropolis to narrate now the ‘Great Double Extract de Hippolita’ has come to an untimely end, and that he alone is left to tell the tale. Occasionally, a solitary horseman may be seen urging his famished steed along some sequestered vale, while the remnant of his company, in a distant hostelrie [sic], await his return with the funds that shall make free men of them once more. But, alas! they ne’er shall see him more. Gone into Winter quarters for repairs, he thinks not of the dramatis personæ he has left behind, nor of the full strength of the company which is growing weaker and weaker every day by outraged hopes and cruel disappointments. In the city an artificiality has been given to business by the opening of a new theatre, and by two or three revivals of the spectacular. Being fresh and inviting, they draw their supplies form the many houses whose bills of the play are stale, flat and unprofitable to their patrons. The city is not overrun with strangers—the hotels are not staggering under an avalanche of custom—‘the denziens from abroad’ are not overloaded with ducats—and everything and everybody seems to be taking soundings before venturing beyond the depths. One theatre, Booth’s is reported to have been sold, with a mortgage of nearly half a million of dollars recorded against it. Another, the Lyceum, has been in Queer street for the want of the right man to manage it. With a number of other houses the times are sadly out of joint, and it is only by the liberal dispensation of free admission that their auditoriums are enabled to make any kind of a respectable show. Critics in the interest of such houses crowd them night after night, in their papers; but the managers cannot see it when they come to look over the receipts, which ‘breathe the word of promise to the ear, but break it to the hope.’”

The page number at the upper left reads 810, but that is clearly a typo and should read 310. Part of “Introductory Overture” column: “It is a right jovial season, despite the hard times. To some, the Christmas holidays must be only a delusion; for while ducats are scarce, and money on the Rialto brings usurious rates, many little people who are climbing up the histrionic ladder of Fame will sadly feel the need of a comfortable dinner on Christmas-day. Pity for them! Many a poor ballet-girl will go supperless to bed on that festive evening, one of the distressing results of going in too heavily at dinner-time. Our sympathies go out to them as they languish on their downy couches, and fret the fleeting hours away.”

“Christmas was neither a failure nor an ‘unparalleled success;’ it was the medium that comes between the two. Scarcely a solitary one of our various places of amusement was ‘crowded to the dome’ on Christmas-night, but the acting was just as execrable as it always is on holiday occasions… Trade was moderate, and gifts were brief; for money was scarce, and impecuniosity reared its hideous head, yes, even among those who walk on velvet, and whose ‘beds are soft as downy pillows are.’” In a separate paragraph on the same page: “A perceptible falling off in the attendance from that of previous years at our places of amusement was noticeable, both at the matinee and evening performances, on Christmas. Some few places were crowded at night, but the blank look of disappointment was noticeable on the faces of several managers.”

“The holidays are over, the festivities have ended, and we are once more embarked in the toil and drudgery of our every-day life. An old maxim says: ‘Of the dead, speak naught but good.’ We should be glad to do so of the year that has just wound up its affairs, but the facts do not warrant it… The opening months of the year were unpropitious; and, with the dawn of the Spring, the signs were ominous of evil. When the great and pious house of Jay Cooke & Co. went by the board in September, carrying down with it thousands of the poorer classes who had been induced to put their savings in the keeping of such immaculate bankers, the avalanche began to move, and soon the entire country felt the dressing effects of the bursting of the pious bubble. Newly fledged theatrical managers were sent higher than a bob-tailed kite, while showmen of lesser degree went down with all on board. The great city of New York was about the first to feel the debilitating effects of the impending crisis. Our managers saw the shadow of the coming squall, but were powerless to avert its force. Audiences became small by degrees, and the receipts of the box-office grew painfully less. Free passes were scattered with a lavish hand, but this only made matters worse. Then expenses were cut down—advertising was confined to a circumscribed space, and bill-printing was much shorn of its therefore amplitude—‘new novelties’ and new people were imported from beyond the seas, but they were as of ‘sounding brass,’ ‘signifying nothing’ in the financial make-up. Then the dangerous experiment of violating contracts was begun—a member of the stock was lopped off here, a star was curtailed of his rights there, and the infection spread everywhere. Then commenced the shaving of salaries, cutting them down one third or more, and compelling the poor player to do extra work at that, or lose his entire head. No, no; 1873 has not been a friend to the showman. Of the many circuses that entered upon the campaign in April last, but a very small proportion escaped disaster; and but two or three can be said to have made money commensurate with the capital invested and with the risks assumed. In vain were many-colored posters flung to the breeze; in vain did brass bands discourse the most seductive strains; in vain did performers in the street-procession put on costly apparel, and strive their best to look what they represented. The grangers and other appertaining thereto kept their good right hands on their distressed pocket-books, and smiled complacently as the free show gayly passed them by; the showmen would gladly have gathered them in, but they would not… But the only parties who showed attachment to them [show people of all sorts] were the worldly sheriffs, who stuck to them closer than the proverbial but improbable brother, and sold them out as clean as a new pin or as clear as a whistle, we are not particular which. Then the pious people aided in the general demoralization of the show-folk by lambasting them from the pulpit, and letting loose the vials of their wrath and the sacred dogs of war.” In another paragraph on the same page: “The expenses incurred in setting New-Year’s tables told rather unprofitably on the theatres, and the reaction has not yet set in. Our managers offered excellent bills of fare, but those provided by the family circle being free for all, the latter secured the bulk of the patronage.”