whilst travelling week after week from town to town, and living in rooms where the cleaning and cooking are done by the landlady.  As all domestic work is undertaken by the people who let the rooms, the days go slowly, and there is absolutely nothing of interest to do.  If our average actress is with a successful play, her engagement may be a long one; and she lives through the discomforts, buoyed up by the hope of further opportunities, and a swelling account at the Post Office.

The happiest of all existences, for an actress, despite hard work and much study, is in a repertory theatre.  The opportunities are great; ambition is not thwarted at every step; the day is filled with hard study, but the nights result in greater or smaller achievement.  Everybody with whom she comes in contact is working as hard and earnestly as she is.  Life invigorating, progressive, uplifting, is hers.  To-night she is conscious she was not quite her best, but next week, when the play is done again, she will work to make that point real, she will laugh more naturally, cry more movingly, progress a little further on the way to realise her dream of perfect expression, free from worry and anxiety, free to work.

Having achieved a certain amount of experience on tour and in London, and being more or less proficient in her profession, does not, however, ensure an increase in the actor’s value.  A domestic servant receives a character, which is, if satisfactory, a sure means of employment; a teacher, inspector, etc., has a certificate which is a pronouncement of efficiency; but however great the achievement of the theatre there is no lasting sign of your work, and the want of definite aim is mentally demoralising.  I have heard men say, and I think not unjustly, that as many of these women are practically “on the rocks,” they will do anything for money; and this brings one to a question which looms largely when considering unskilled trades.  The unskilled, pleasure-loving, short-sighted but ambitious girl, is apt to lose her sense of values, and to be an easy and sometimes very willing victim.  If she be attractive, the eye of a powerful person may alight upon her, and several shades of temptations are placed before her.  Not only money, and the advantages which an outward show of prosperity may bring with it; not only amusements and luxuries; but a much more dangerous and difficult temptation, which is not possible in other trades, is placed before the worker—­the offer of greater opportunities in her work, the opportunities which an “understudy” may bring in its train; the opportunity of a small part; the gratification of ambition.  There is no more immorality than in other trades, but there is an amount of humiliating and degrading philandering, a mauling sensuality which is more degrading than any violent abduction.  To be immoral a certain amount of courage is required; but the curse of modern theatrical conditions is this corrupt debauchery.  Many girls have come to me