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PALGRAVE STUDIES
IN THE HISTORY OF EMOTIONS

Actors, Audiences,
and Emotions in the
Eighteenth Century
Communities of Sentiment

Glen McGillivray
Palgrave Studies in the History of Emotions

Series Editors
William M. Reddy
Department of History
Duke University
Durham, NC, USA

Erin Sullivan
University of Birmingham
Birmingham, UK
Palgrave Studies in the History of Emotions includes work that redefines
past definitions of emotions; re-conceptualizes theories of emotional
‘development’ through history; undertakes research into the genesis and
effects of mass emotions; and employs a variety of humanities disciplines
and methodologies. In this way it produces a new interdisciplinary history
of the emotions in Europe between 1100 and 2000.
 Glen McGillivray

Actors, Audiences, and

Emotions in the
Eighteenth Century
Communities of Sentiment
Glen McGillivray
University of Sydney
Sydney, NSW, Australia

Palgrave Studies in the History of Emotions

ISBN 978-3-031-22898-8    ISBN 978-3-031-22899-5 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22899-5

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature
Switzerland AG 2023
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the
publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to
the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made.
The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and
institutional affiliations.

Cover illustration: Robert Dighton, The Pit Door (1784) ©The Trustees of the British Museum

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG.
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
To Joan Mary McGillivray 1930–2019
 Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge that I wrote this book on the land of the
Gadigal people of Eora, land that was never ceded: it was, is, and always
will be, Aboriginal land. I pay my respects to the Gadigal and other First
Nations people in whose lands I have spent my time completing this
project.
Many people have contributed in ways big and small to this project.
First, I would like to thank the Australian Research Council Centre of
Excellence for the History of Emotions (CHE) whose first conference in
2011 encouraged my foray into this research. As an Associate Investigator,
my first scoping trip to the Folger Shakespeare Library (FSL) in 2014 was
funded by the CHE, which likewise contributed to my research there the
following year. A longer research period was made possible by a Short-­
Term Fellowship the FSL awarded me in 2015; this allowed me to spend
three additional months with the Folger’s archive of eighteenth-century
theatre resources. I enjoyed the other fellows’ collegiality, and I thank the
Folger librarians for their patience and help. I want to thank, also, my copy
editor extraordinaire Michael Gnat for his meticulous work.
I am grateful to my home university, the University of Sydney, which
has further supported my research. I had two periods of research leave: the
first to take up my fellowship in Washington and the second to complete
a first draft of this book. I also received funding from the Faculty of Arts
and Social Sciences for a month’s research in the British Library in 2016.
In addition I was supported by the School of Literature, Art and Media
Research Support Scheme to employ Gabriella Edelstein as a research

vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

assistant in 2014. Thank you, Gabby, for your hard work! Such institu-
tional support has been critical to this research.
I thank also Professor Emerita Jane R. Goodall, my first reader, who
read my penultimate draft before its initial submission and gave me helpful
and insightful comments on it. I appreciate the feedback I have received
on works-in-progress from my colleagues and graduate students at the
Friday Research Seminar held by my home department, Theatre and
Performance Studies, at the University of Sydney. Thanks also to my friend
and peer mentor, Kate Rossmanith, at Macquarie University who has
encouraged and advised me through the writing of this book.
A part of Chap. 3 appeared as ‘Rant, Cant and Tone: The Voice of the
Eighteenth-Century Actor and Sarah Siddons’ in Theatre Notebook 71, no.
1 (2017): 2–20, and I published an earlier account of Lichtenberg’s dis-
cussion of David Garrick’s Hamlet (see Chap. 5) as ‘Motions of the Mind:
Transacting Emotions on the Eighteenth-Century Stage’ in Restoration
and Eighteenth-Century Theatre Research 28, no. 2 (2013): 5–24. I have
developed my analysis of emotions in the eighteenth-century theatre using
the work of Arjun Appadurai both through that article and ‘“Suiting
Forms to Their Conceit”: Emotion and Convention in Eighteenth-­
Century Tragic Acting’ in Theatre Survey 59, no. 2 (2018): 169–89,
where I introduced the work of Monique Scheer. I thank the publishers
for their permission to republish.
This book has been a decade in the making, and its arguments have
been honed by the insightful comments I have received on my work from
the reviewers for journal submissions (whether successful or unsuccessful)
and from colleagues at conferences; especially those at the CHE confer-
ences in 2011 and 2013, and in the CHE collaboratory ‘The Voice and
Histories of Emotion 1500–1800’ in 2014. I thank, also, the anonymous
reviewers of this manuscript for their helpful criticism, which has made this
a much better book.
Lastly, I want to offer my love and thanks to my family: to my gentle
canine companion, Nell (now deceased), who thought working from
home was a wonderful idea; and especially to Nicky—you are my
foundation.
I have dedicated this book to my mother, Joan Mary McGillivray, who
instilled in me an early love for the theatre but did not live to see this book
published. As a historian, I am sensitive to spans of time. My mother’s life
spanned nearly ninety years; when she was born in rural Victoria, her
brother rode a horse to find a doctor; before she died, she was accessing
the Internet via her iPad.
 About the Book

Actors, Audiences and Emotions in the Eighteenth Century examines how

audiences and actors emotionally interacted in the English theatre in the
middle decades of the century. This period was bookended by two great
stars of the century, David Garrick and Sarah Siddons, whose acting is the
focus of this study. Drawing on recent scholarship on the history of emo-
tions, it challenges the view that emotional interaction between actors and
audiences depends on empathy, or the idea that what an actor feels, an
audience must feel too. It analyses how actors emotionally communicated
emotions through their voices, faces and gestures, how audiences inter-
preted these performances and mobilised and regulated their own emo-
tional responses. In the eighteenth-century theatre, audiences carefully
appraised how actors used their faces, bodies and voices in relation to
accepted conventions, and their appreciation of actors’ performances was
closely tied to this. Significantly, the book explores how the theatre space
itself mediated behaviours, arguing that the analysis of emotions must
include not only how they are embodied, but also how they are emplaced.
 Contents

1 Introduction  1

2 Playing to Type 35

3 Communicating Emotions: The Arts of the Actor 73

4 Regulating and Mobilising Emotions: The Audience117

5 Mediating Emotions in Place149

6 Conclusion: “Damme, Tom, it’ll do”189

Plays197

References201

Index217

xi
 About the Author

Glen McGillivray teaches in the Department of Theatre and Performance

Studies at the University of Sydney, Australia. He was an Associate
Investigator with the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence
for the History of Emotions (2014 and 2015) and a research fellow at the
Folger Shakespeare Library (2015). He has published work on theatrical-
ity, the archives of performance, and emotions and acting in the eigh-
teenth century.

xiii
 Abbreviations1

BD Highfill, Philip H., Kalman A. Burnim, and Edward A. Langhans. A

Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers,
Managers & Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660–1800. 16 vols.
Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1973.
LS The London Stage, 1660–1800: A Calendar of Plays, Entertainments &
Afterpieces, Together with Casts, Box-Receipts and Contemporary
Comment…. 5 parts. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University
Press, 1960–8.
ODNB Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Edited by David Cannadine.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Online edition.
OED Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021.
Online edition.

Note
1. Note on pronouns: I have tried to keep my language gender-neutral. Where
the gender of a person is specified, I have used the appropriate pronoun.
When citing eighteenth-century sources where the author is anonymous, I
have defaulted to the masculine pronoun because the writers were, gener-
ally, mostly male.
Note on eighteenth-century typography: I have tried, where possible, to pre-
serve the original typography of my primary sources including capitalisa-
tions, italics, and original spelling (when it does not obscure the word).

xv
 List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 David Garrick as Richard III by William Hogarth, 1745 63

Fig. 3.1 Macbeth, act I, scene V, Macbeth’s castle—[Sarah Siddons as]
Lady Macbeth, 1800 by Richard Westall. LUNA: Folger Digital
Image Collection, ART File S528m1 no.113 copy 2. Folger
Shakespeare Library. Washington, DC 100
Fig. 5.1 Drury Lane Theatre by Augustus Pugin and Thomas
Rowlandson, ca. 1808. Rudolph Ackerman et al. The Microcosm
of London, vol.1 (London: Methuen, 1904 [1808]), 228 154
Fig. 5.2 Opera House [King’s Theatre] by Augustus Pugin and Thomas
Rowlandson. Rudolph Ackerman et al. The Microcosm of London
or London in Miniature vol.2 (London: Methuen, 1904
[1808]), 213 155
Fig. 5.3 The Pit Door by Robert Dighton, 1784 158
Fig. 5.4 The Ghost Scene in Hamlet, ‘Angels and ministers of grace defend
us’, after a drawing by Thomas Rowlandson, 1743. LUNA:
Folger Digital Image Collection, ART File S528h1 no.7. Folger
Shakespeare Library, Washington, DC 171
Fig. 5.5 Mr. [William] Pelby (as Hamlet, at Drury Lane, Jan. 1826) by
William Day, 1826. LUNA: Folger Digital Image Collection,
ART File P381.4 no.1. Folger Shakespeare Library.
Washington, DC 172
Fig. 5.6 William Powell as Hamlet Encountering the Ghost, by Benjamin
Wilson, ca. 1768–9. LUNA: Folger Digital Image Collection,
FPa88. Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington DC 173

xvii
xviii List of Figures

Fig. 5.7 Astonishment, Horror, and Fright, from Charles Le Brun,

Méthode pour apprendre à dessiner les passions. Amsterdam:
François van der Plaats, 1702 [1698], n.p 174
Fig. 5.8 Horror, from Gilbert Austin, Chironomia. London: T. Cadell &
W. Davies, 1806, between 486 and 487 176
Fig. 5.9 Mr. Garrick in Hamlet, act I, scene 4, by Benjamin Wilson,
1754. LUNA: Folger Digital Image Collection, ART File G241
no. 94. Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, DC 178
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there.

—L. P. Hartley, The Go-Between (1953)

‘What is the nature of that peculiar faculty which makes one a good player’?
asked James Boswell (1740–95) in his first essay ‘On the Profession of the
Player’, written for the London Magazine in August 1770.1 Lacking any
treatise on acting by David Garrick, the eighteenth-century exemplar of
good acting, Boswell took it on himself to try and answer his own ques-
tion. A ‘good player’, for Boswell, ‘is indeed in a certain sense the charac-
ter he represents, during the time of his performance’, a view, he assures
us had been confirmed by Garrick himself (‘that this is truly the case, I
have been assured by that great ornament of the stage’) (14). However,
being the character did not mean the actor believed it completely because,
as Samuel Johnson (1709–84) observed, if this were the case for Garrick,
then he would be either a ‘madman’ who needed to be locked up or
‘hanged’ as a ‘villain’ (15). Boswell wondered, then, what was the ‘nature
of that mysterious power by which a player really is the character which he
represents’ and concludes that ‘he must have a kind of double feeling. He
must assume in a strong degree the character which he represents, while
he at the same time retains the consciousness of his own character’ (18).
For an actor to be in character meant allowing the ‘feelings and passions

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2023
G. McGillivray, Actors, Audiences, and Emotions in the Eighteenth
Century, Palgrave Studies in the History of Emotions,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22899-5_1
2 G. MCGILLIVRAY

of the character’ to ‘take full possession as it were of the antichamber [sic]

of his mind’ while the actor’s ‘own character’ remained ‘in the innermost
recess’ (18).
At first glance, Bowell’s voice is surprisingly modern: A ‘good’ actor is
the character while he acts, which involves allowing his character’s emo-
tions to take hold of him. Here Boswell does not seem far from Stanislavsky,
whose ‘system’ was founded on his belief that ‘acting’ was the same as
‘behaving’, and so if actors behaved onstage as a person would in life, they
should invoke the same psychophysiological responses.2 But Boswell is
silent on how an actor allows his emotions to ‘take possession’ of him,
maybe because he leans (as many commentators did in the eighteenth
century) on the Horatian commonplace: ‘As men’s faces smile on those
who smile, so they respond to those who weep. If you would have me
weep, you must first feel grief yourself’ (‘ut ridentibus arrident, ita flenti-
bus adsunt humani voltus: si vis me flere, dolendum est primum ipsi tibi’).3
Horace’s saying is the epigraph to Boswell’s second essay and contextual-
ises what follows: To ‘assume’ a character meant feeling that character’s
emotions, and if an actor felt those emotions so, it followed, would the
audience.
We understand that people in strange lands do strange things and wear
even stranger hats. We accept this is true, too, for people who look just like
us but lived centuries ago (especially the bit about the hats). What is harder
for us to accept, or even comprehend, is that how they felt or conceived of
themselves as people might be profoundly alien to us; that yesterday’s
humans might be as foreign to us today as many of today’s cultures are to
each other. This insight is hardly new for anthropologists, as exemplified
by Clifford Geertz who observed: ‘The Western conception of the person
as a bounded, unique, more or less integrated motivational and cognitive
universe […] is, however incorrigible it may seem to us, a rather peculiar
idea within the context of the world’s cultures’.4 This idea of selfhood is
just as ‘peculiar’ when considering people in the eighteenth century, and
it was not how Boswell understood the self when he wrote on acting. The
eighteenth-century self was not the ‘bounded, unique […] cognitive uni-
verse’ of the modern Western human but was intersubjective, mutable,
and permeable. This is why Boswell can take his idea from acting and
extrapolate out: ‘the double feeling which I have mentioned is experi-
enced by many men in the common intercourse of life’ (19); but I want to
stay in the theatre because the theatre—how it was produced and how it
was experienced—provides unique insights into emotional behaviour
 1 INTRODUCTION 3

especially in relation to other people. Here, the research data diverge from
what Monique Scheer terms the traditional ‘royal road to individual feel-
ing’ of emotions research, the ‘first-person accounts’ found in diaries and
letters which tend to privilege subjective rather than intersubjective per-
spectives.5 How actors act, how audiences respond, and how these interac-
tions are mediated are profoundly intersubjective: Actors, audiences, and
mediating technologies need each other for anyone to feel anything at all.
How actors performed emotions and how audiences were affected by
these performances in the eighteenth-century theatre form the central
enquiry of this book. The eighteenth century begins in the last years of the
early modern period and ends on the edge of Michel Foucault’s biological
episteme6 that began in the nineteenth century, and it is this combination
of closeness and distance that makes an examination of how eighteenth-­
century actors and audiences ‘did’ their emotions so revealing. Not too
close and not too near, these historical foreigners resemble us in many ways
even though they are not really the same. In reconsidering emotions in the
eighteenth-century theatre, this book focusses on two star actors, both of
whom function as anchor points—one on each end, in the middle decades
of the century—due to how they affected audiences at the time. Many
who witnessed the acting of David Garrick (1717–79) and Sarah Siddons
(1755–1831) left copious accounts of what they experienced. Both actors
were celebrated as shining exemplars of their art: Garrick from his anony-
mous first performance at Henry Giffard’s Goodman’s Fields theatre as
Richard III in 1741 and Siddons from her second London debut at Drury
Lane, playing the eponymous heroine in Garrick’s adaptation of Thomas
Southerne’s Isabella in 1782. To begin with Garrick is an obvious place to
start; he was a European celebrity in his own lifetime and remains today
the best-known English actor of the eighteenth century. He was also rec-
ognised as a game changer in terms of acting by his contemporaries. When
Garrick appeared alongside the established tragedian James Quin
(1693–1766) in Nicholas Rowe’s The Fair Penitent (1702) at Covent
Garden in 1746, the playwright Richard Cumberland (1732–1811)
observed: ‘It seemed as if a whole century had been stept over in the tran-
sition of a single scene’.7 Not wishing to add to the vast body of Garrick
literature that already exists I had hoped to write this book, not quite by
avoiding Garrick’s acting, but by touching on it lightly. However, each
path I followed seemed to lead to or from Garrick and the more “natural”
mode of acting he purportedly began. But there were also contradictions;
accounts written during his lifetime reveal the extent to which Garrick’s
4 G. MCGILLIVRAY

acting was firmly within the rhetorical tradition, and I will discuss these
shortly.
Sarah Siddons was the pre-eminent actress of the Romantic era, but
most of her major roles were developed in the 1770s and 1780s. She
debuted playing Portia at Drury Lane in 1775, the last season under
Garrick’s management, but failed to impress in that or in any other role.
Her contract was not renewed for the following season, and she returned
to the provinces to work on her craft for the next six years. When she
returned in 1782, it seemed she was a star fully formed but, as Chap. 3 will
reveal, her own labour and the opportunity to play London roles in
regional Theatres Royal allowed her to develop her craft. Some of the
roles she played in the 1782–3 season stayed in her repertoire for the next
thirty years: Isabella, Jane Shore, Belvidera, Calista, and Euphrasia.8
Performances such as these were characterised by a powerful emotionality
that her audiences saw as “true to life” even though her acting seemed to
reflect a return to the classicism that preceded Garrick. Siddons, like
Garrick, acted using well-established conventions; nonetheless, audiences
wept and shuddered during her performances, just as they did for him. If
these two great actors were not diving deeply into wells of feeling to con-
nect with their audiences empathically, then what was going on? How did
their acting, using a conventional and formulaic repertoire of vocal and
physical gestures, produce such powerful affective responses in its audi-
ences? And was it just their acting, or was something else happening with
audiences and how they were doing their emotions?
I first noticed what seemed to be a contradiction in a letter written by
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–99) to his friend and editor of the
Deutsches Museum Heinrich Christian Boie on 1 October 1775 describing
Garrick’s performance of Hamlet; it is an account which is frequently
cited.9 The Anglophile Lichtenberg, a professor of physics, mathematics,
and astronomy at the University of Göttingen, was making his second visit
to England between August 1774 and December 1775. Lichtenberg’s let-
ter describes the scene when Hamlet meets his father’s ghost: a key
moment (or ‘point’) in the play for eighteenth-century audiences and a
famous one for Garrick as an actor. Lichtenberg saw Garrick perform
Hamlet twice, on 2 December and 12 December 1774, and after each
performance made diary entries describing what he had seen.10 These
diary notes, together with the later letter, describe in unusually great detail
Garrick’s gestural and facial expressions. Lichtenberg brings to the task
the sensibility of an experimental scientist and decodes how Garrick
 1 INTRODUCTION 5

communicates different passions. He records in the first diary entry how

Garrick’s Hamlet expresses ‘fear’ and ‘horror’ which ‘produce an astonish-
ing effect’ (2 December), and in the second, he describes the passions
Garrick performs as ‘astonishment’ and ‘horror’ (12 December).11 It
should not surprise us Lichtenberg can readily identify these passions:
What Garrick performs is easily recognisable from the descriptions in
numerous English and European acting manuals which, with surprisingly
little variation, detailed the same sets of expressions and gestures for
Surprise or Astonishment, and Terror or Horror.12 Garrick used a conven-
tional repertoire of gestures and facial expressions, a repertoire which had
been systemised by all the theorists since Michel Le Faucheur and Charles
Le Brun.13 But Lichtenberg offers more than an uninvolved reading of
Hamlet’s passions; he records also how Garrick’s performance produced
distinct physiological sensations in his own body, how a ‘cold shiver’ ran
through him. From the silence in the auditorium, Lichtenberg surmises
that the rest of the audience were similarly affected, and he describes how
that silence lengthened and intensified (2 December); in the letter, he
elaborates that the audience were ‘terror-struck’ into silence (1 October
1775).14 There is no distance between Garrick’s gestural representation of
the passions and his audience’s profoundly embodied emotional response.
Eight years after Lichtenberg witnessed Garrick, Sarah Siddons made
her second and this time triumphant debut on the Drury Lane stage in
1782. A review of her as she appeared then was published five months later
in The English Review (March 1783):

So great too is the flexibility of her countenance, that it takes the instanta-
neous transitions of passion, with such variety and effect, as never to tire the
eye. […] Her eye is large and marking, and her brow capable of contracting
to disdain, or dilating with the emotions of sympathy or pity […] That
nature might not be partially bountiful, she has endowed her with a quick-
ness of conception and a strength of understanding, equal to the proper use
of such extraordinary gifts. So entirely is she mistress of herself, so collected,
and so determined in gestures, tone, and manner, that she seldom errs like
other actors, because she doubts her powers or comprehension: she studies
her Author attentively, conceives justly, and describes with a firm conscious-
ness of propriety; she is sparing in her action, because nature, (at least
English nature,) does not act much, but it is proper, picturesque, graceful,
and dignified; it arises immediately from the sentiments and feelings, and is
not seen to prepare itself before it begins. No studied trick or start can be
predicted, no forced tremulation, where the vacancy of the eye declares the
6 G. MCGILLIVRAY

absence of passion, can be seen; […] no artificial heaving of the breasts, so

disgusting when the affectation is perceptible […] she is an original; she
copies no one living or dead, but acts from nature and herself.15

The Review’s author focuses on Siddons’ mobile face and how it could
transition rapidly between passions, the pinnacle of the actor’s art in the
eighteenth century and a talent she shared with Garrick. This ‘art of transi-
tion’, to use James Harriman-Smith’s term, was not only ‘a dynamic pas-
sage between two things’ but was itself ‘the iconic object of […]
admiration, a moment of transformation or change’, and it is this aesthetic
appreciation we can read in the account above.16 Siddons, as the Review’s
author notes, has conceptual mastery of her parts founded in the play-
wright’s words, and she acts them ‘with a firm consciousness of propriety’.
He emphasises how Siddons’ acting was always ‘proper, picturesque,
graceful, and dignified’, but this graceful and picturesque acting emanates
from ‘sentiments and feeling’ and appears to arrive spontaneously; it is
not, in contrast, created through actor’s tricks, nor does the writer observe
the empty performance of passions usually signified by the ‘artificial heav-
ing of the breasts’ and ‘vacancy of the eye’. This writer, like Lichtenberg,
had clear ideas about what constituted good acting and what bad, and
much of what he observes correlates with good acting as we might under-
stand it today; but we cannot assume from this, ipso facto, that Siddons’
acting was “good” because it was “natural”. Some critics have interpreted
the above as commentary on the “naturalness” of Siddons’ acting,17 but
the Review explicitly defines ‘English nature’ as being ‘proper, pictur-
esque, graceful, and dignified’. By the late eighteenth century, the idea of
nature improved through art was a commonplace, and wealthy English
people and Europeans had been “improving” their gardens to a pictur-
esque ideal for several decades.18 Throughout the Review’s description, its
author highlights Siddons’ skilful use of her face and eyes, gestures, and
voice; it is less her “naturalness” that impresses him than her command of
acting conventions. He offers a close appraisal of her acting that suggests
its affective power arose not despite her formal mastery, but because of it.
Descriptions of Siddons’ acting, and Garrick’s even more so, are con-
text sensitive; that is, they are inflected by who was writing and, more
important, when. James Boaden (1762–1839), Siddons’ first biographer,
quotes the Review’s account but makes some changes which, he claims,
arise ‘more from a feeling as to composition than alteration as to senti-
ment’.19 For example, when recomposing the description of Siddons’ eyes,
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 To conveniently support a clothespin basket along the line on
which the clothes are being hung, a wire support can be provided,
bent to form a hook at both ends and the center shaped into a V-
bend. With the basket supported by the two ends, the wire can be
slid along the clothesline as required.—Contributed by N. R. Moore,
Cherokee, Iowa.

¶Varnishing should as a rule be done in a room having a

temperature of 80° F., and in some instances 15° higher is desirable.
 Leather Tire Patch
A leather patch fixed over a tire puncture with shellac will be found
to give satisfaction and may be attached easily. Cut the patch
somewhat larger than the puncture and thin out its edges with a
knife. Melt flakes of shellac in a flame, fusing them, and rub the hot
mixture on the patch and tire, smoothing it down quickly. Such a
patch may be placed over a plug and will aid in holding it in place.—
Contributed by Robert C. Knox, Petersburg, Fla.
 A Perpetual Whirligig
Camphor is the motive power which drives the device shown in the
illustration, and it will cause the whirligig to revolve for several days,
or until the camphor is consumed.

The whirligig is made of a piece of cork, ¹⁄₂ in. square, with a

needle stuck into each of its four sides. Smaller pieces of cork, to
which pieces of camphor have been fixed by means of sealing wax,
are attached to the ends of the needles. Care should be taken to
keep the needles and cork free from oil or grease, as this will retard
their movement. As soon as the device is placed in a dish of water it
will start whirling and continue to do so as long as motive power is
supplied. A small flag or other ornament may be attached to the
center cork.
 Testing and Caring for Files
To test a file hold it so that the light will be reflected sharply from
the teeth and observe whether their edges are flattened and appear
as white lines. If so, the file is dull and should be recut if of
considerable size and value.
Files should not be thrown into drawers and mixed with other
tools, but should be carefully set in racks or drawers for the purpose.
A mechanic would not throw a straightedge into a drawer containing
other tools, and a file should be given similar consideration, as every
nick in the teeth impairs the efficiency of the file.
Files may be sharpened by dipping them into sulphuric acid, but
care must be taken not to permit the acid to come into contact with
one’s clothes or person. Water is used to wash off the acid.
Files should be provided with individual handles. This prevents
injury to the hand of the worker and aids in the proper use of the file.
Handles should be carefully fitted and be made of a size
proportionate to the file. In removing a handle from a file, strike the
handle at the end nearest the file, by sliding a piece of hard wood
along the surface of the file, as the blow is struck with it. Do not use
another file or metal object in thus removing a handle, as it will injure
the latter.
 Catching Large Fish with a Teaspoon
Teaspoons may be made into alluring trolling spoon hooks, of a
size suitable for catching large fish, by the addition of hooks, as
shown in the sketch.
Drill ¹⁄₈-in. holes near the end of the spoon handle, the tip of the
bowl, and near the handle of the latter.
Procure three sets of triple hooks, a line swivel, and a strip of lead,
about 1 in. long. Rivet one end of the swivel and the loop of one of
the triple hooks into the hole of the handle. Wire the lower end of this
triple hook to the handle and with the same piece of copper wire
secure a second triple hook at the thin part of the handle. Drill a hole
through the lead strip and rivet it, together with a third triple hook,
into the upper hole of the bowl. Fix the lower end of this hook by
binding it with copper wire, through the hole near the tip of the bowl.

Once a Fish has Struck This Bait, It Is Seldom Able to Escape

 This hook has been tested in the waters of Puget Sound and is a
deadly lure for rock cod, and other fish weighing up to 12 lb. The
famous barracuda and rock bass of the Catalina Islands have also
been caught with it. By permitting the lure to sink to the bottom and
bringing it up a yard or two with a quick jerk, it acts as a “jig” bait. It
may also be used in trolling. Once a fish has struck, it is seldom able
to escape.—Contributed by O. P. Avery, Los Angeles, Cal.
 An Easily Made Counter

An Accurate Account can be Kept of Parts or Score for Any Game by Pulling
the Strips

From unruled paper cut a piece, as shown at A in the sketch, and

make slits parallel and evenly spaced with a sharp knife. Also cut six
strips, similar to the one shown at B, to fit the slits cut in A. The strips
are numbered as shown and inserted on the under side of A, and by
pulling the strips as shown, one can count up the number of parts or
keep tally on any game. By making more slits and using more strips
very large numbers can be recorded.
¶Be sure to keep the screw and nut in the jaws of a drill chuck clean
and well oiled, to prevent broken screws.
 To Uncork a Bottle with a String
A convenient method of uncorking a bottle, from which liquid is to
be poured frequently, is to thread a strong string or cord through the
cork, tying it in a loop, which remains at the opening of the bottle.
The cork may be removed easily by drawing on the string. This is
more satisfactory than the use of a corkscrew, as the latter frequently
tears the cork.—Lee A. Collins, Louisville, Ky.
 Wood Turning on an Emery Grinder

The Hand Emery Grinder of the Home Workshop Used as a Substitute for a
Lathe

The experimenter often requires small turned-wood pulleys,

circular bases for switches, etc. To produce these it is not necessary
to have recourse to a wood lathe, if a good emery grinder is at hand.
Simply clamp the grinder firmly to the workbench, remove the
grinding wheel, and fasten on a block to serve as a faceplate. This
may be held in place by the nut that holds the wheel and should be
trued up with a small chisel when in place. A tool rest may be
improvised by temporarily nailing one or more blocks of wood to the
bench. The article desired should be first roughed out with a saw and
then fastened to the faceplate with screws or brads, after which the
actual wood turning will require very little time.
 Three Bathroom Kinks
The devices for the bathroom illustrated may be made easily and
contribute to the comfort, convenience, and, in the case of the fixed
window pole, to the safety of the room. A wall curtain, A, placed on
the towel rod, or hung on the wall beside the washbasin, is
especially convenient in keeping the walls unsoiled by children who
make use of the room and are likely to splash suds while washing.
Double roller shades on the window, as at B and C, give light and
privacy as well.
The Fixed Window Pole Is an Inducement to Ventilation; the Curtain Protects
the Wall, and the Lower Shade Gives Light with Privacy

Poor ventilation in bathrooms occasionally causes asphyxiation

and is often a menace. The permanent fixing of the window pole D
makes it convenient to open the window, which operation is often
neglected through fear of drafts from the lower sash and the lack of a
pole. Fig. 2 shows the top of the pole P, provided with a screw eye,
S, which is fastened to a metal strip, H.—D. L. Hough, Toledo, Ohio.
 Prevents Soiling Goods after Oiling Sewing
Machine
To prevent a sewing machine that has been oiled from soiling the
material, the following is a good method: Tie a small piece of ribbon
or cotton string around the needle bar near the point at which it grips
the needle.
 A Pigeon House
By Robert Baker

P igeon houses need not be eyesores, as is often the case, but may
be made to harmonize with the surroundings, adding beauty to a
dull spot, and even making the grounds of a home more attractive.
The house described will accommodate 20 pigeons, and additional
stories of the same type may be added to provide for more. Nearly
all of the wood necessary may be obtained from boxes, and the
other materials are also readily available at small cost. The
construction is such that a boy handy with ordinary carpentry tools
may undertake it successfully.
The house is constructed in general on principles used in
buildings, having a framed gable roof, rough-boarded and shingled.
The interior arrangement is original, being based on the Indian
swastika or good-luck sign. While the construction is simple, it must
be carried out systematically. The process outlined also follows in
general the typical methods in building construction.
The foundation need not be considered, since the house rests
upon a post, and the construction thus begins with the lower story.
The floor and the ceiling are similar in construction, as shown in Fig.
1. In framing them into the lower story, as may be observed in Fig. 8,
the cleats are placed below on the floor and above in the ceiling. The
construction is identical, however. The cleats are fastened to the
boards with screws, although nails, clinched carefully, may be used.
The 4-in. hole at the center should be made accurately, so as to fit
the shoulder portion at the top of the post, shown in Fig. 2. The latter
may be cut of a length to suit; about 9 ft. will be found convenient.
The notches in the top of the post are to fit the ridge pole and center
rafters of the roof frame, as shown in Fig. 10. They should not be
made until the house is ready for the roof boards.
The pieces for the compartments, as arranged on the floor in Fig.
3, are made next. Figs. 4 and 5 show the detailed sizes of these
pieces, of which four each must be made. The sizes shown must be
followed exactly, as they are designed to give the proper space for
entrances and to fit around the 4-in. square hole, through which the
post is to fit. The pieces marked A, B, and C, in Figs. 4 and 5,
correspond to those similarly marked in Fig. 3.
The pieces are nailed together to form the swastika in the
following manner:
Mark the pieces A, B, and C, as shown. Measure 4 in. from one
end of each piece marked A, and square a pencil line across, 4 in.
from the end. Arrange the pieces in pairs. Place one end of one
piece against the side of the other piece in the pair, so that the pencil
line is even with the end, permitting the 4-in. portion to project. Nail
both pairs in this position. Then fit the two parts together to form a 4-
in. square in the center, as shown in Fig. 3.
Fit the pieces C to the pieces B at an angle, as shown in Fig. 3,
trimming off the projecting corners where the pieces are joined. Nail
them together, and they are ready to be fixed to the end of the
pieces A, already nailed. By nailing the joined pieces B and C to the
end of the pieces A, as shown in Fig. 3, the swastika is completed.
Fix it into place, with the center hole exactly over the square hole in
the floor, by means of nails or screws driven through the floor.
Two small strips must now be nailed to the floor at each side of the
swastika. They should be exactly 4¹⁄₂ in. long, and are to hold the
slides, Fig. 9, which shut off the various compartments. The slides
are shown hanging by chains in the headpiece of this article, and are
shown in place in Fig. 8.
Fix the ceiling into place in the same manner, being careful that
the square holes fit together, and that the cleats are on the upper
side. Turn the construction over and fix into place the small strips for
the slides, as was done on the floor.
The fixed screens, Fig. 6, and the doors, Fig. 7, are constructed
similarly. They are built up of ¹⁄₂-in. wood, and vary in size to fit their
respective places in the framework. Observe that the fixed screens
are ¹⁄₄ in. higher than the doors, and that they are fastened between
the ceiling and floor, bracing them. The wire grating is ¹⁄₂-in. square
mesh, and is fixed between the pieces of the doors and the screens
when they are built up.
The doors are shown secured by combination strap hinges, bent
over the baseboard. Plain butts may be used and the lower portion
of the hinge covered by the baseboard, a recess being cut to receive
the part covered. In the latter instance the doors should be fixed into
place immediately after the screens are set. Catches and chains
may then be placed on the doors. Next nail the baseboards into
place. They are 2¹⁄₂ in. wide and may be mitered at the corners, or
fitted together in a square, or butt, joint. The latter joint may be nailed
more readily.
The slides, shown in Fig. 9, may now be made and fitted into their
grooves. The handles are made of strips of band iron, drilled for
screws and bent into the proper shape. It is important that the slides
be constructed of three pieces, as shown, so that they will not warp
or curve from exposure. The main piece is cut 7³⁄₄ in. long, and the
strips, ¹⁄₂ in. square, are nailed on the ends.
The construction of the framing for the roof should next be taken
up. This probably requires more careful work than any other part of
the pigeon house, yet it is simple, as shown in Fig. 10. Note that the
rafters are set upon a frame, or plate as it is called, built up of pieces
3 in. wide. It should be made ¹⁄₄ in. wider and longer on the inside
than the ceiling board, so as to fit snugly over it. The joints at the
corners are “halved” and nailed both ways. This gives a stronger
structure than butting them squarely and nailing them. The end
rafters should be fitted in before fixing the others. It is best to make a
diagram of the end of the roof framing on a sheet of paper, or a
board, and to fit the rafter joints in this way before cutting them. The
rafters are then nailed into place.
The “rough boards” to cover the rafters may now be nailed down.
They are spaced ¹⁄₂ in. apart so as to permit thorough drying, as is
done in larger buildings. They project 2 in. beyond the ends of the
plate frame, supporting the rafters. A ¹⁄₂-in. strip is nailed over the
ends to give a neat finish. The roof may be shingled, or covered with
tar paper, or any roofing material.
Nail a 1-in. strip under each end of the roof and nail the gable
ends into place. One gable end is provided with a door, as shown,
and the other has an opening fitted with a wire screen of the same
size as the door.
The gable story rests on the lower story, and the notches in the top
of the post should fit snugly to the ridge and center rafters, as shown
in Fig. 10. This will aid in supporting the house firmly. If additional
stories are added it would be well to place a post at each corner of
the house. The upper story may be removed for cleaning, or for
transporting the house.