The hired men or servitors were under the control and in the pay of the proprietor or manager of the theatre, and their salaries constituted no charge upon the shares of the chief actors.  Still these were entitled to complain, apparently, if the hired men were too few in number to give due effect to the representations.  In 1614 a dispute arose between Henslowe and his sharing actors, by reason of his having suddenly reduced his expenses by dismissing “four hired men.”  He had previously sought to charge their stipends upon the shares, although bound by agreement to defray these expenses out of the money derived from the galleries—­at this time, perhaps, a managerial perquisite.  But in addition to the servitors, as the representatives of minor and mute characters, there were also available the journeymen or apprentices of the more eminent performers.  If they paid no premium upon being articled, novices were at any rate bound in return for the education they received to hand their earnings, or a large part of them, to their masters.  And this is precisely the case at the present time in regard to the pupils of musical professors and the teachers of singing, dancing, and feats of the circus.  The services of the apprentices were transferable, and could be bought and sold.  There is quite a slave-trade aspect about the following entry in Henslowe’s “Diary.”  “Bowght my boye Jeames Brystow, of William Augusten, player, the 8th of December, 1597, for eight pounds.”  Augustine Phillips, the actor, one of Shakespeare’s partners, who died in 1605, and who by his will bequeathed to Shakespeare “a thirty shillings peece in gould,” also gave to “Samuell Gilborne, my late apprentice, the some of fortye shillings, and my mouse-coloured velvit hose, and a white taffety dublet, a blacke taffety sute, my purple cloke, sword and dagger, and my base viall.”  He also gave to “James Sands, my apprentice, the some of forty shillings and a citterne, a bandore, and a lute, to be paid and delivered unto him at the expiration of his terme of yeres in his indentur of apprenticehood.”  From his bequests of musical instruments, it has been conjectured that Phillips sometimes played in what is now called the orchestra of the theatre.  A sum of forty shillings in Elizabeth’s time represents the value of about ten pounds of our currency.  What with its “gatherers,” “servitors,” and journeymen, the Shakespearean stage was obviously provided sufficiently with supernumerary assistants.

The “super” is useful, even ornamental in his way, though it behoves him always to stand aloof from the foot-lights, so that distance may lend his aspect as much enchantment as possible; but he is not highly esteemed by the general public.  In truth he has been long the object of ridicule and caricature.  He is charged with stupidity, and is popularly considered as a very absurd sort of creature.  But he has resigned his own volition; he has but to obey.  He is as a puppet whose wires are pulled