The theatres in France, you know, feed and salary no less than
80,000 workmen of different kinds; painters, masons, decorators,
costumers, architects, &c., which constitute the very life and movement
of several parts of this capital, and on this account they ought to have
your sympathies." Your sympathies! say rather your money.
And further on he says: "The pleasures of Paris are the labour and the
consumption of the provinces, and the luxuries of the rich are the wages
and bread of 200,000 workmen of every description, who live by the
manifold industry of the theatres on the surface of the republic, and
who receive from these noble pleasures, which render France illustrious,
the sustenance of their lives and the necessaries of their families and
children. It is to them that you will give 60,000 francs." (Very well;
very well. Great applause.) For my part I am constrained to say, "Very
bad! very bad!" confining this opinion, of course, within the bounds of
the economical question which we are discussing.
Yes, it is to the workmen of the theatres that a part, at least, of
these 60,000 francs will go; a few bribes, perhaps, may be abstracted on
the way. Perhaps, if we were to look a little more closely into the
matter, we might find that the cake had gone another way, and that those
workmen were fortunate who had come in for a few crumbs.
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