The masher is a remarkable creature. He hovers everywhere, from the market-place to the meeting-house and from the promenade to the theatre. He is many-phased and many-faced, and may come from the slums or be the son of a first-class preacher of the Gospel. The class has been termed gunaikophagists by some fellow reckless alike of the feelings of philologists and of the jaws of the rising generation, who says it means woman-eaters, but may be less poly-syllabically styled corner loafers and miserable scoundrels, who live on the curbs and in some instances hug the wall—have a pardonable affection, considering that they part their hair in the middle, for malacca, bamboo, and rubber sticks—and last, but not least, some indulge a precocious vanity by planting eye-glasses across their noses. These are, par excellence, the cane-and-eyeglass friends, and they remind one of nothing else in the world than a sickly looking cross between a saw-buck and a half-resuscitated dried herring. The masher's sole ambition, is to win hearts, which he hopes to do by staring ladies out of countenance, and which he often does in a most flagrant and audacious manner. There are young and old of this class, and they are of all grades, from the young man who negotiates with you over a counter for a paper of pins or a dozen shoestrings, up to his employer, and from that up the monetary scale to the man who wholesales the employer the pins which the "mashing" salesman disposes of a nickle's worth at a time. Sandwiched between these at proper, or rather improper, intervals are the "What d'ye soy?" crowd, the "toughs" wearing high felt hats turned up with care before and behind, and, without exception, sporting the inevitable tight jeans breeches. Their influence extends only to a certain class—to the concert and variety dives—and it is unfortunate to the poor girls, outside of this class, who fall a prey to these ruthless "mashers."

The theatre appears to possess loadstone qualities for the masher; it is as attractive to them as the flame of the candle is for the moth or the flower for the bee. I have already in a preceding chapter said a great deal about the "mashing" that is done in the audience by both male and female exponents of the disreputable art. I shall now confine myself to the "mashers" in the profession and those who try to "mash" the profession. Some young gentlemen with more money than brains imagine that actresses have nothing else to do but receive attentions from the opposite sex, and that there is no "wall of China" around the virtue of any woman on the stage. They therefore not only make bold to talk freely about actresses, but are valiant enough to try to ensnare them by letters abounding in hyperbole and odorescent of cologne-besprent idiocy. The variety actress is the ideal prize of this class, and they are in their greatest glory when within the frolicsome precincts of the wine-room. I have seen many a young man whose hair was parted in the middle crow lustily over the successful capture of a ballet girl, when he himself had been the capture. These girls know what their charms are worth and hold them at that price, when they see a victim well dressed and with an apparently healthy pocket-book. They, in expressive but slangy language, lay for him. They are not foolish enough to invite him to their side; they allow him to make an apparent conquest which guarantees them all the greater gain. The young gentleman of whom I speak was lured in this way; and as she sat with well-rounded limbs pulsating through silken tights and gracefully thrown upon an opposite chair, and he leant over her whispering soft words and looking fondly upon her painted face, while they clinked champagne glasses, she with downcast eyes was playing innocence, but all the while congratulating herself upon the arch manner in which she had won him.

Just as bad as the female "masher" on the stage is the female "masher" who has no claims on the profession. The latter has studied her art perfectly, that it may assist her in throwing her net about the unsophisticated. Females of this class in the East make it their business to frequent the matinees, where with the assistance of the ushers, whom they remunerate handsomely for their co-operation, they gather a granger in, and within twelve hours or so send him home whining at his idiocy in not having resisted the temptation that left him penniless. The gay sirens who are in this business generally go in pairs. The usher locates them next to their victim, and once there they've got him for all the cash he took out of the family sock before leaving Jerusha and his eight little ones.

The blonde beauties of the leg drama, or the fair burlesquers, as some people call them, are considered legitimate prey by the "mashing" fraternity. Indeed it is often a case of diamond cut diamond, for the burlesquers are themselves notoriously liberal in making acquaintances, and the majority of them will accept a midnight drive or a morning supper as readily as they do the friendship of the gentleman who tenders them. The bewildering array of limbs and shapely forms, the golden hair and apparently fresh and handsome faces set the young swells wild, and the rush for orchestra chairs down front where a quiet flirtation can be carried on shows the great extent of rivalry that exists among their number. Any number of scented notes on rose-tinted paper find their way through the stage-door into the hands of the giddy throng behind the scenes, and as they glance through it they laugh at the foolishness of the writer but agree to "work him" to the full extent of his wealth. The comedian who knows that the girls have got "another sucker on a string" comes up and wants to see the last "letter from home." He gives the girls a funny bit of advice about retaining their innocence if they would be happy, but adds that if there is anything in the fellow, to "catch on" at once—which of course the girls have already made up their minds to do.

A veteran in the business says: "Actresses have the most marked talents for wheedling the gilded youth out of money. Such 'guys' and 'gillies' fancy that if they are known as the patrons and friends of stage stars all the world is staring at them and envying their conquests. Poor idiots, their entire conquest consists in that they make over their own common sense! The silly ninny rejoicing in the showy and artful woman's favors counts himself a privileged mortal, but his chief privilege in regard to a cunning, scheming stage siren is the privilege of paying her bills. Of the men with money she makes fools. When she scents a full pocket-book she runs it low. Her affection, so far as she has any to bestow, is probably lavished on a big animal of a loafer from whom she gets no money, and who, perhaps, beats her and makes her support him. It is a paradox of feminine nature that the women who are unscrupulous and heartless in wheedling men of money seem so lavishly free in bestowing favors and bounty on loaferish lovers, from whom they can make nothing. An actress is psychically a study, always curious and unaccountable, however talented."

Some comic opera choruses, particularly those of the limb-exhibiting kind, have attained to almost equal notoriety with the burlesquers in the "mashing" line. The fact of the matter is that in the branches of the profession where women are employed, not for their artistic qualities, but on account of the plumpness of their limbs and the agreeableness of their entire figure to the male eye, there is so much laxness and so much that is altogether bad, that the ladies of the higher walks of the profession do not always escape, and the "masher," who is always going around seeking what fair females he may devour, frequently dares to approach some of the best women in the profession. Here is a specimen of the work of one of this class; it is a letter received by one of the best and handsomest little ladies the stage ever saw, and whose retirement from the boards was really a great loss to the dramatic art:—

Exchange Hotel,
Montgomery, Ala., ——, 187-.

I know I am violating the cold conventionalities of life by addressing you, but if it angers you, the friendly fire which blazes before you will prove a suitable altar upon which you can sacrifice my homage. I never saw you before to-night, but to see you is to be dazed—glamoured with a glare. May I dare to hope that I shall ever stand abashed in your presence, waiting your sweet will to raise my eyes to your dear face in adoration? Tell me that I may follow you through all the world upon my bended knees, to find at last your favor, that I may live in hope upon the memory of your smile, and know that at the last you will be content to let me kneel at your feet and find reward in that alone. Oh, dear heart, let me dream of you until you awaken.

Yours, devoted,
F. H. M.

Can anybody imagine a more glowing and positive piece of idiocy? This would-be "masher" should be taken out in the woods and brained with a five-syllable adjective that he would not be able to identify in the next world. Many actresses refuse to receive letters that are sent to them from strange admirers. Mary Anderson never sees such a letter, although bushels of them are sent to her. And she is only one of hundreds who adopt the policy of rejecting strange letters at sight. Frequently married ladies in the profession are made targets of by the letter-writing brigade of mashers, and more than one head has been artistically mutilated as a return for the "masher's" impertinent pains.

A New York correspondent writes as follows about a pretty little actress and singer, who while fulfilling an engagement at the Bijou Opera House, New York, last summer, broke the hearts of all the "swells" and "bloods" of the metropolis, and had the house filled nightly with rival admirers, among whom was the melancholy son of a Washington, D.C., judge: "Miss Lillian Russell is a beauty without a shadow of doubt. She is about twenty-six, I believe. It is by no means generally known that she is married, and that her husband is an honest, hard-working, and thorough orchestra leader, to whom she owes her present proficiency in vocal culture. He was very fond of her, and always believed in her success. No man could have worked more faithfully. Finally he found an opening for her on the variety stage as a serio-comic—as the phrase goes—singer. She attracted attention at once, and he labored vigilantly until he found a legitimate opening in English comic opera. I believe it was 'The Snake Charmer.' She was very glad to get out of the variety rut so soon, and expressed delight at the admiration she excited. Then came the club-men with their swell slang, gaudy carts and flowing money. Now she is suing her husband for divorce. Such is life. The husband, I hear, harassed by care, and perhaps something else, had become so nervous or inattentive that he lost his position in the orchestra, and so the shades of prosperity and adversity are more clearly defined than ever. Miss Russell seems to have been under the especial care of a theatrical goddess of sensationalism. Everything has conspired to make her name familiar. Her escapade with one of the young men was inevitable. The only question was which one she would select. It happened to be Howard Osborne, the son of the wealthy banker. One night when it was time for the curtain to rise, and the audience was getting into a white heat, the manager came forward displaying a decided desire to swear like a pirate, and announced that Miss Russell had suddenly and unwarrantedly run away. The next morning Mr. Osborne, Sr., wondered where in thunder his son was. He received a letter later, and immediately fell into a howling rage. Shortly afterwards Mr. Howard Osborne was heard of in Chicago, whence it was blandly stated Miss R. had gone to visit an aunt. The young man was sent spinning over the sea to Europe, and the steamer had just arrived when his fond parent had the exquisite pleasure of reading at breakfast a cable in the morning papers relating a little excursion of a certain Mr. Howard Osborne, Esq., said to be of New York, with Miss Alice Burville, the burlesque actress, at the Ascot races. Heigho! 'Which the ways of the world is peculiar, Mrs. 'Arris, sez I.'"

A Californian, who reached the Pacific slope in '49 as a peddler, but is now a bachelor millionaire, has been sued for breach of promise by the walking lady of a San Francisco theatre, who seems to have effectually succeeded in "mashing" the old man. The defendant it is said first saw the plaintiff at a performance at the theatre where she was engaged. He became impressed with her charms and sought an introduction. He gained it and became an assiduous attendant upon her. Their intimacy, the lady alleges, ended in a promise of marriage, and she claims to possess letters in which she is addressed by those endearing epithets good husbands apply to the spouses they love. However that may be, the defendant showered bounties on her, both in jewels and money, for upwards of a year. Then business called him to his mines in Amador County. He was to be away some weeks, but returned sooner than he had anticipated. He drove directly to the theatre where the plaintiff was performing at the time of his arrival in San Francisco, and got there just in time to see her walk away with another man. That other man, moreover, was an actor with whom rumor had associated her name more than once, though she had succeeding in arguing suspicion in the matter away from the mind of her senile lover. This time, however, argument failed to do the work required of it. Detectives employed by the defendant resulted in the discovery that his gifts and favors had only served to benefit a younger and more fascinating man, and he literally as well as metaphorically shook the dust of his false one's door-mat off his feet forever. Then followed the suit, which he calls blackmail, and she, a demand for justice.

Adelina Patti is credited with a strange fascination, while in New York, the diva having succumbed to the blandishments of a midget. The story is that she saw a picture of the midget Dudley Foster on exhibition at Bunnell's museum, and driving down Broadway, stopped at Bunnell's establishment and asked George Starr, the wily and polite manager, for the loan of the diminutive specimen of humanity. Starr agreed and the midget was handed into her carriage. "Here is a pretty toy," gushed the prima donna, covering the little creature with kisses. She took him to her hotel and passed an entire afternoon singing to him and chatting. How Nicolini took to the new crank of his singing bird is not stated. Mr. Foster plumes himself considerably on the fact that he has done what princes have tried in vain—cut out Nicolini—and he boasts, too, that the prima donna before she would let him go made him promise to call on her the following week.

Actors have their "mashes" too, the same as actresses, and the gentlemen who own flexible voices, and flourish them through all the glorious variations of operatic music, seem to be most successful in captivating the fair and susceptible sex. "It is hard to understand why it is," says a Chicago newspaper, "but somehow, while girls recognize the powder and paint, the blonde wigs and penciled brows of a prima donna as so much make-up, they refuse to analyze the charms of a tenor, and his grease, paint, luxuriant locks, and graceful moustache are admired as his very own. A case in point was that of a young lady whose father is well known on the Chicago Stock Exchange. She was violently smitten with Campanini, and used to send him no end of beautifully written missives, and every night a bouquet of red roses. The letters especially attracted the attention of the tenor because they were written in smoothly flowing Italian, and evidently by some one who was more romantic than fast or wild. There was little trouble in finding out the fair correspondent, and Mme. Campanini, who has a good and lovely soul, sent a note to the young lady and asked her to call. It is needless to say the latter's delightful delusions were quickly dispelled before the domestic life of the silver-toned tenor and the kindly advice of his good wife.

The extent to which these serio-comic love affairs are carried on is enormous, and sometimes the parties show an amusing ingenuity in their correspondence. Del Puente once went nearly wild with ungratified curiosity through the pranks of a mischievous school girl, who was perpetually sending him love letters, in which she declared she never missed a single night when he sung, and that when he left New York on his tour with Her Majesty's Company she should follow him and be present at every performance. Sure enough, in every city where he sang he received a pretty note of congratulation, with the usual information that the writer—dressed, as usual, in black—was present. Of course, there were always a number of young and pretty women in this sombre hue, but which was his correspondent Del Puente never could decide. The letters were always post-marked with the name of the city he happened to be in, and finally he became really nervous with the idea of an unknown woman following him in this shadowy fashion. His curiosity was not destined to be satisfied until long afterward, when he found that the fair unknown, cleverly following the published route, would send a stamped but undirected letter to the postmaster of the city he happened to be in, with a request that he would ascertain the singer's address and forward it. As long as the letter was stamped this was sure to be done, and the tenor never failed to receive the missive.

A case of basso-infatuation was that of a daughter of an ex-Senator, still prominent in Washington circles, who used to spend all her pin-money in buying presents and baskets of flowers, which she sent to Conley. In some mysterious way her father received a hint of it, and the young lady was sent to the Georgetown convent, where she was educated for a couple of years by way of punishment. She probably did not know that Conley was married. Poor fellow, he was drowned last summer.

Castle, though neither so young nor so charming as he once was, still receives loads of gushing epistles, which Mrs. Castle demurely twists into cigar lighters; and Brignoli says, "I haf teached misself ze Inglis language with these liddle letters."

In Chicago there resides a wealthy and charming young married lady who entertains handsomely, and is well known in society, but who distracts her elderly husband by a mania for making the acquaintance of every new male singer of note, and entertaining him with the greatest elegance and expense. Of course a majority of these affairs are entered into either in the spirit of romance or mischief, but in either case it is apt to result disastrously, and the world has a cruelly uncomfortably way of stamping them with another and harsher name.

Having noticed that there was a stain on the lips of the portrait of Campanini the tenor, hanging in the lobby of the Academy of Music, New York, a visitor called an attendant's attention to it and advised him to wipe it off. "Why, bless you," said the attendant, "we do so every day. That's where the girls kiss it. That picture makes as many mashes as Campy himself, and if he was kissed half as often his lips would be quite worn away. Lord what fools women are, to be sure!" The visitor waited long enough to see a well-dressed and handsome young lady approach and kiss the picture. At least he says he saw it.

There is also a humorous side to this "mashing" business. Men and boys who run after actresses generally get themselves into trouble, particularly is this the case with old men—men old enough to be thinking of the designs for their tombstones instead of running around variety theatres hugging girls and lavishing champagne and beer upon them. An old sinner of this stamp got into trouble in a New York theatre one day. He made himself conspicuous and obnoxious at a rehearsal by stumbling over the stage and getting in everybody's way. The supes cursed him and the stage carpenter called down anathemas on his aged head, but the old fellow was indifferent, for he was basking in the smiles of a well-known soubrette and was happy. Finally he posed in the centre of the stage just as an "interior" was to be set. The scene shifters saw he was in a good position to be squeezed, and they quietly shoved the scenes together. The lover, intent on his inamorata, discovered his predicament only when caught, but the scene shifters were deaf to his cries, and he was held a prisoner. He was only released on swearing never again to poke his nose inside the stage-door, and furnishing enough to treat the boys. When at last he was free, he made hasty tracks for the exit, and was heard to mutter as he went out, he'd be d—d if he wanted to be squeezed again, even by his charming soubrette.

The bald-headed men, though, get it worse than anybody else, and particularly so when their bald heads are hidden under wigs. A monkey had a part to play in a piece running at one of the metropolitan variety theatres. There was a pretty burlesque actress playing there at the same time and she had a host of admirers with more money than brains. Among the number was an addle-pated old rascal, who preferred the society of the "artiste" to that of his aged wife, who had lost the charms which enraptured his fancy when he led her years ago as a blushing bride to the altar. One evening the fellow bribed the door-keeper at the stage entrance to admit him to that realm of dirt, paint, and faded tinsel "behind the scenes," and he stationed himself in the wings in order to welcome his charmer when she retired amid the plaudits of the audience. But alas, the "best laid plans of mice and men gang aft aglee." The monkey espied him, and at once fell in love with the glossy wig which covered the bald head. Swinging itself down from the flies the monkey made a swoop with its long arm and the masher was scalped. He cried lustily, but the monkey made off with its trophy and the masher sloped with a handkerchief tied over his head.

Almost similar was the fate of a bewigged Parisian who was loafing and "mashing" behind the scenes of the Grand Opera. A dancer stood in the wings listening to the prattle of a silly old man. He was protesting heartily his love for the young lady, and was on the point of kissing her hand, when, as he stooped down, she snatched his wig from his head. At that moment she had to appear on the stage, and did so amid laughter and applause; for she carried with her the old fellow's scalp as if by way of trophy. The applause was less loud, but much more humorous on the stage; for the gay old lover and his bald head had to stand a deal of quizzing from those who, like himself, were in the wings waiting for their "little dears" to return.

Since the establishment of garden theatres for the summer months, in nearly all the large cities of the Union, the "masher" finds ample field for the kind of sport he indulges in. A girl in red tights created a great commotion among the swell mashers who frequented Uhrig's Cave, St. Louis, during the summer of 1881, and in that connection there could have been revelations that would carry grief into a few homes and bring disgrace upon not young and irresponsible men, but upon prominent citizens who were foolish enough to be fascinated by the crimson symmetricals. The fraternity have a peculiar way of working a summer garden. The phalanx of mashers begin operations early in the evening. They get to the garden before the lamps are lit, and dust some of the chairs with their coat-tails and pantaloons. They watch the singers as they enter and endeavor to catch some suggestion from them that a mash has been effected. Now and then a soft, gazelle-like glance or a sweet, girlish simper, like the smile on a sick monkey's under lip, gives a token of slight recognition, and then the masher's heart and eye are full of gladness. When the curtain is rung up and the glare turned on, the "mashers" move in a body towards the front of the stage and dust some more of the chairs. Then they fix their eyes like so many lances upon the girls and again attempt to impale hearts. After the performance they move in a double line to the side aisle of the garden, and, opening ranks, wait for the actresses to come out. When the actresses do come out they are obliged to run a gauntlet that would put any but a cast-iron woman with a heavy veil on to the reddest blush. Sometimes a "masher" accomplishes his aim in life and captures a girl, but it is seldom. The professional poser has too wide a reputation and his figure is as clear a "give-away" as the cigar-sign Indian's, so that a reputable young lady who cares anything about continuing to be respected and esteemed by her friends is obdurate to the glances, the moustache, the smiles, the white hat, light pantaloons, bamboo canes, and cheap button-hole bouquets—

And so it goes on every night. Music and "mashing" so charmingly dovetail themselves to the entertainment that there is as much amusement in looking up one as in listening to the other.