ENTRANCE TO A THEATRE (OLD STYLE, WITH THE DRUM-CAGE).
CHAPTER II.
The Actor and the Stage.
ommy Atkins is at a discount in Japan; he has no place in the nursery-maid’s heart. The prestige and dignity that attached in the feudal times to the profession of arms made her afraid to set her cap so high. Though, since the reorganisation of the military system after the Restoration, the old samurai spirit has in a great measure been inherited by the officers, the rank and file being recruited by conscription to remain for three years with the colours, soldiering ceased to be a distinct and life-long profession, and the common soldier was no longer held in awe by the populace. Callow maidenhood among the lower classes has, it is true, its dreams of love; but neither Tommy Atkins nor Jack Tar is its hero. That favoured position is monopolised by the actor who, in addition to his Thespian and Terpsichorean accomplish-
