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Cuttings

In 1885 Dan Leno was offered his first big London engagement at Foresters Music Hall in Mile End. For his wage of five pounds a week he gave his championship clog dance and performed two comic songs. He very soon became immensely popular pioneering the style of stand up comedy which is still with us today.He would start with a little character study, then going into the song and ending with a character monologue. He played the London Halls for almost twenty years and in that time created a wide range of comic characters. He was a great pantomime performer and one of the most famous pantomime dames in the business. Despite being the most successful Music Hall performer of his day, Leno never felt secure, he was very sensitive to criticism, although he received hardly any.

The Britannia Panopticon Music Hall Trust - the last surviving music hall in Scotland.

Manchester Guardian - 4 September 1888
Tuesday, September 4th, 1888
"Another Whitechapel Outrage"

The Central News says another desperate assault, which stopped only just short of murder, was committed upon a woman in Whitechapel on Saturday night. The victim was leaving the Foresters' Music Hall, Cambridge Heath Road, when she was accosted by a well-dressed man, who asked her to accompany him, and requesting her to walk a short distance with him as he wanted to meet a friend. They had reached a point near to the scene of the murder of the woman Nicholls, when the man violently seized his companion by the throat and dragged her down a court. He was immediately joined by a gang of women and men, who stripped the unfortunate woman of her necklace, earrings, and brooch. Her purse was also taken, and she was brutally assaulted. Upon attempting to shout for aid one of the gang laid a large knife across her throat, remarking "We will serve you as we did the others." She was eventually released. The police have been informed, and are prosecuting inquiries into the matter.

Casebook: Jack the Ripper

Victorian London - Publications - Social Investigation/Journalism - Round London : Down East and Up West, by Montagu Williams Q.C., 1894
DOWN EAST - CHAPTER II

MATCH GIRLS

...Match girls come out very strong on a Saturday night, when any number of them may be found at the Paragon Music Hall, in the Mile End Road; the Foresters’ Music Hall, in Cambridge Road; and the Sebright, at Hackne; The Eagle, in the City Road, used to be a favourite resort of these girls, and in bygone summers dancing on the crystal platform was their nightly amusement. They continue to be very fond of dancing, but they are even more attached to singing. They seem to know by heart the words of all the popular music hall songs of the day, and their homeward journey on Bank holidays from Hampstead Heath and Ching­ford, though musical, is decidedly noisy.
The police are as a rule extremely good to the match girls, and a constable will rarely interfere with them unless positively compelled to do so. It must be admitted, however, that to
have half-a-dozen of these girls marching down the Bow Road singing at the top of their voices the chorus of “Ta-ra-ra ­Boom-de-ay,” or “Knocked ‘em in the Old Kent Road “—these are at the present moment their favourites—is a little irritating to quiet-loving citizens.

The Victorian Dictionary